When you’re watching a horror movie, or playing a horror game, you know it’s going to be an experience when it starts with you looking for someone who hasn’t responded to your calls for a long time. More often than not it’s because they are dead, captured or turned into a monster. And when you’re playing a game with Cthulhu in the name, you know it’s going to be a spooky experience.
Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss, is a first-person horror puzzle game which has you try to figure out what happened to your college and why they didn’t evacuate before the flood like everyone else. This game really emphasizes how the greatest fear is the fear of the unknown. This game adapts the lovecraftian story of Cthulhu, making it an even more horrifying experience. You really get drawn into the story as you explore and solve puzzles all while something is watching and waiting.
From the very beginning, when you enter the abandoned house, the atmosphere is eerie and unsettling. It gives off the same feeling when you would enter a building in the classic Resident Evil franchise. As I would solve puzzles and explore, I feel like I could be attacked at any moment or simply go insane with everything that is going on. This game messes with your perception on what’s real and what’s not, adding some psychological horror to the mix as well. Each area is beautifully designed, from the abandoned houses, to the deep depths. They fit perfectly into this lovecraftian world. The game overall is designed well with the graphics and runs smoothly.
While you are playing, you have to watch out for your sanity. The longer you play, the more sanity your character will lose making it harder to solve puzzles and find your way. If you are unable to keep your sanity in check you will get corrupted and its game over for you. This game plays with your mind and really makes you think when you try to solve all these puzzles and solve the big mystery.
They are a few issues with the game that can hinder the overall enjoyment of the game. The puzzles themselves aren’t clear in what you have to do the first time you try to solve them. The very first puzzle i had to solve just required me to pick up and move a plant, but it wasn’t clear the plant was movable and the controls were finicky. It took awhile to move the reticle over the plant in the right spot to get the prompt to pick up the plant. And the controls themselves aren’t smooth either. You have two separate buttons when you look at an interactable object. You can examine an object or pick it up which slows down the gameplay and confuses you at times. The game should have just had a description of the object when you hover the reticle over it and have you able to pick up the item with just one button. At times the solution to the puzzles can even be over complicated and could have been simplified just a bit.
I also ran into some glitches, such as items not being able to be picked up or placed down when they should be, the controls wouldn’t work at some moments and the graphics would occasionally glitch out, but in that instance it could be on purpose due to the corruption mechanic. Restarting at the previous checkpoint would always fix this issue but this would still slow down the pace.
After playing for hours I had found another problem with this game: There aren’t any monsters in the whole game. You go around solving puzzles, thinking that something is about to jump you and not once does anything ever actually attack you. I understand the whole point of the game is to emphasize the fear of the unknown but there still needs to be a payoff with all the fear being built up. With a game that mentions Cthulhu, you would think it would have more of a presence. While it does have a presence, it has very little and it doesn’t make its grand appearance until the very end. Now whether or not it’s a bad thing is up to the player and is completely subjective.
In conclusion, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is a horror game that messes with your mind with little to no actual danger like most horror games. You would think a game based on the lore of Cthulhu would have more dangers but overall it’s a good horror game to keep you busy.
Score: 6 out of 10
Reviewed on PlayStation 5