Cyanide Studio and Focus Home Interactive have released a madness-inducing trailer for Call of Cthulhu ahead of E3 next week.
The trailer sets the scene for us quite nicely: Darkwater Island will be our eerie playground, our hero – Edward Pierce, a former PI in 1920’s Boston – will be investigating a series of deaths in the Hawkins family, and soon the slumbering presence of the old ones will start to intervene.
“Developed by seasoned studio Cyanide, Call of Cthulhu is an RPG-Investigation game with psychological horror and stealth mechanics, set in a deeply immersive world. On a mission to find the truth behind the death of an acclaimed artist and her family on a backwater island, the player will soon uncover a more disturbing truth as the Great Dreamer, Cthulhu, prepares its awakening…”
Lovecraft’s mythos is timeless and unique and lends itself very nicely to video games; however, there haven’t been many good games to capitalise on it. Eternal Darkness was fantastic all those years ago and still stands as the best Lovecraftian horror game. It perfectly captured the fear of the unknown. Last year, Bloodborne also utilised elements of it wonderfully, evoking themes of madness and perception.
Not only this, but there is also an absence of truly scary horror at the moment. In fact, the Resident Evil series seems to be turning into a zombified version of Uncharted in recent installments. Silent Hills has been cancelled and recent hopeful Allison Road going the same way. Hopefully this new game will take up the mantle and deliver us not only a scary horror investigation game, but also a great Lovecraftian game as well.
Cyanide is the studio behind 2012’s Game of Thrones, a game that wasn’t received very well. Some critics have noted its well-realized plot and tone, but lamented its poor execution and gameplay.
We will have to wait until its release in 2017 to see if they can deliver the gameplay to match the mythos!