CthulhuΒ The Cosmic Abys – 2053. And the world’s going down the toilet. Worldwide flooding is continuing. Billionaires are plundering the ocean. Strange things are happening everywhere, and cults are springing up like weeds. And itβs your job as an occult investigator of Ancile, a division of Interpol, to investigate these disturbances. But when you lose contact with one of your own ex-agents and the clues lead to a billionaire’s deep ocean mining station, youβre drawn into an inter-dimensional world of madness with the fate of all reality tied to your choices.
Reimagining The Cthulhu Mythos
Cthulhu The Cosmic Abyss is a future focused re-imagining of H. P. Lovecraftβs juggernaut of cosmic horror, The Cthulhu Mythos. As the title implies, this game focuses on Lovecraftβs most famous creation itself, that hoary old priest of the Old Ones, Cthulhu. Developers, Big Bad Wolf have taken Mythosian lore and re-imagined it for an atmospheric descent into insanity that retains all youβve come to know about the Mythos while also changing enough to keep the story fresh.
Story And Narrative Setup
Once again, the stars are right for Cthulhu to rise, and itβs your job as investigator Noah to stop that from happening at all costs. Demented cultists are the least of your worries as Eldritch forces seek to stop you while Cthulhu keeps an eye on you, jeopardising your sanity. New to this re-imagining of the Mythos, youβll find out how Cthulhu was imprisoned – not to be confused with August Derlethβs explanation – and just how humanity figures in on this aeons-old circle of chaos and despair.
Gameplay And Investigation Systems
CthulhuΒ The Cosmic Abyss is a lore and narrative-focused first-person point-and-click adventure for the modern age. Thereβs a heavy dose of detecting to be done with some light puzzle solving to keep you on your toes. The game’s main focus is, of course, exploration with a heavy focus on making you feel like one of the protagonists in Lovecraftβs stories. Things may seem simple and explainable enough initially, but as youβre pulled further down the black hole of reality, it becomes about the eye bleeding cosmic revelations revealed to you.
As such the game is based around scouring the environment for critical lore and the items needed to progress further. Thereβs a very small element of puzzle solving at play here that isnβt particularly difficult with some detective work thrown in for you to make connections between clues. The best tool at your disposal to do this is your friendly neighbourhood A.I., KEY, that will highlight all of the interactibles in the world and provide you with a mind board to place all the information you gather on.
Here you can read through all of the clues and journals depicting the mining teams decent into lunacy while combining clues to come to outcomes. Youβre A.I. can also, helpfully, analyse different environmental objects and provide you with a sonar scan to track more of them in the environment. This is really useful when tracking down different metals in the environment or to follow trails of blood. As such, itβs due diligence that will get you through one of the games two paths through an area.
Corruption System And Choices
One of the aspects of cosmic horror is inimitable madness that usually descends upon the players, usually by seeing something the human mind isnβt designed to comprehend or by a glut of knowledge illuminating mankindβs lack of importance in all things. Cthulhu The Cosmic Abyssβs version of this is Corruption, which affects your upgrades rather than your actual mental state and combine to create two paths through the games Chapters: a Corruption and a Non-corruption path.
Which path you follow comes down to what actions you take during a chapter and which items you scan and analyse. One scan only affects the energy you have to do scans, while another will add corruption to your upgrades, eventually breaking them. Actions such as which puzzles you solve and how you solve them also determine you corruption path.
For instance one path will have you trying to outmanoeuvre a Deep One while another will have you appeasing it. Do you sacrifice someone on their last legs or do you try to find another way through the use of alien technology. As such, you may not always get to uncover all of the evidence or lore in an area.
Criticism Of The Corruption Mechanic
Corruption is probably the most disappointing aspect of Cthulhu The Cosmic Abyss as it doesnβt do enough to invest you in Noahβs mental state. Or to make you question reality around you. While it can be a bit disheartening losing an upgrade, it feels like an arbitrary system that needed to be included, mostly for one the games three endings (about that later), rather than a needed mechanic.
Noahβs upgrades can be useful, such as recovering some energy on a successful scan or making your sonar range larger, but you can just as easily get through the game without equipping a single one of them.
Exploration And World Design
Cthulhu The Cosmic Abyss succeeds on other, more important levels though. The first is the exploration. Itβs addictive running through the ancient ruins around you, searching for all of the lore which is just as enticing as what Lovecraft and his oeuvre have written. It does wonders to flesh out the world and situation that youβre in.
While I donβt think the character writing is as successful as the lore and diary writing, thereβs a really strong story here that does itβs best to give you a taste of the Lovecraftian heroes – or is that unfortunate souls – mind-blasting journey of revelation upon revelation.
Atmosphere, Visuals And Audio Design
The other area is atmosphere. The game does a really fantastic job of creating an oppressive and otherworldly atmosphere. A lot of that comes down to some great audio design and the games gorgeous, set piece visuals. Cthulhu The Cosmic Abyss is a beautiful looking game that does a pretty fantastic job of bringing Rβlyehβs cyclopean ruins to digital life.The lighting and texture work is absolutely stunning and the sense of scale is impeccable.
Trying to recreate the mind-bending, non-euclidean architecture of the Cthulhu Mythos would be pretty tough to do, without probably using fractal geometry and abstract design that would make it difficult for us to play through. As such the developers have created some fun architecture and space warping tricks to make you feel as though youβre dealing with something far beyond your comprehension. And to that theyβve added a sense of scale that is usually missing from most Lovecraftian games.
Trudging through Rβlyehβs oppressive, dilapidated corridors, searching through the remnants of a civilization that isnβt as dead as it should be, is wonderfully fun.
Performance Issues And Gameplay Problems
Those visuals do come at a cost though as, in Quality mode, the game feels a little sluggish, especially when youβre searching through human buildings and the focus on realistic looking materials brings the performance down a tad. Itβs less noticeable in the games otherworldly settings where the alien architecture and materials donβt need to correspond to physically based materials that we know.
If, however, youβre looking for some serious cosmic scares, Cosmic Abyss is fresh out of them. Outside of one or two jump scares, the experience is focused on exploration over everything else.
Cruising through the Cthulhu The Cosmic Abyss isnβt a smooth sailing experience. Thereβs one nasty save bug, at least during the beginning of my review, that, combined with trigger issues, could see you having to replay large chunks of a Chapter as the auto-save wouldnβt trigger properly and youβd reload with progress been reset or, in at least one case, reloading right to the start of the Chapter.
Another issue for me is the games reticule and area of detection size. Itβs simply far too small and, even with elements highlighted in the environment with a sonar check, all to easy to struggle to line things up. This is especially true in the games early segments where the sluggish controls hamper your movements, forcing you to slow down to line things up just right.
Endings And Replay Value
And finally thereβs the games endings. There are three in total, one of which is linked to the Corruption mechanic. The problem is that which ending you get isnβt tied to how you progressed through the game. Instead youβre given a choice to determine the outcome instead of the developers letting your choices affect which ending you get. Overall, it feels like a missed opportunity to add some replay value to the game.
Final Verdict
If developer Big Bad Wolf can iron out the games bugs and issues, then they have a very strong contender for one of the best Lovecraftian games on the market. Overall, Cthulhu The Cosmic Abyss is a wonderful delve into cosmic insanity and the Cthulhu Mythos and a great foundation to build future adventures of madness upon.
Cthulhu The Cosmic Abyss Video Review
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The game was provided to us for the express purpose of reviewing.
