Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss Preview
There is no shortage of video games based on HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos. That sounds right, doesn’t it? But the reality is, there’s Bloodborne, and then a precipitous decline to other games like Amnesia The Dark Descent or even Call of Cthulhu. Lots of games go for a Lovecraftian vibe, which is easy enough. The upcoming puzzle adventure game Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss has the ambition of bringing Lovecraft’s unique vision to players in the most authentic way possible.
Follow the Trail Down
I’ll avoid spoilers as much as possible, because there’s a lot to discover in Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss. Besides, I’ve only played the opening hours of a fairly substantial game. It takes place in 2053, and a couple of forces are reshaping the world. First, natural resources have been depleted and so corporations are mining the oceans, and accidents happen. At the same time, occult and paranormal activity seems to be increasing on a global scale.
You play as Noah, a paranormal investigator for Ancile, which specializes in occult goings on. You’re sent to find out what happened to a mining operation at the bottom of the deep Pacific. It doesn’t take long before you stumble onto a reality you never knew existed. I’ll be cagey and just say that if you’re a fan of Lovecraft you know what’s in store under the waves.
Puzzles and Clues
At its Eldritch heart, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is an adventure puzzle game. Generally, puzzle games have pretty low replayability because it isn’t much of a challenge to solve the same puzzle twice. Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss avoids this trap by being non-linear, with the player given a lot of agency in mapping a path through the environment and story. Even more interesting, there are two different solutions to many puzzles, each of which has a long-term impact on the player’s sanity meter, called corruption. All these mechanics result in a core narrative with multiple endings.
Additionally, while the puzzles can be challenging, players have a couple of tools at their disposal. First, Noah has an AI companion called KEY, which can assist the player with hints and also keeping track of clues, objects, and the story. Second, there are several difficulty levels which can be changed freely during gameplay. As with most puzzle games, the tasks ramp up in difficulty, but Noah’s tools and options also increase in sophistication.
A World of Tension and Terror
Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is not an action combat game. Its excitement comes from exploring a richly imagined, Lovecraftian world and the more than occasional jump scare. Lovecraft’s horror was psychological and cosmic, and Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss brings these elements to the fore. Movement and mechanics — at least in the demo — feel a little sluggish and a bit finicky, but the game isn’t built on quick reactions and precision timing.
For all his reputation as a master of horror, Lovecraft’s descriptions of monsters were often pretty vague and sometimes even a little laughable. This gives designers and developers a lot of elbow room in creating their own visions. Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss goes for richly detailed environments, evocative lighting and genuinely creepy creature designs. The game looks very good and the audio direction and music are equal partners.
If there’s one area where Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss loses its grip on building tension, it’s in the dialogue, which tends towards being expository, unrealistic to the way people talk to each other and long winded. The voice work is competent but tends to sound like line readings isolated from other actors.
Kudos to developer Big Bad Wolf for taking on the Cthulhu challenge and meeting Lovecraft’s vision head-on. Despite the long list of Lovecraft-inspired media, relatively few games capture the author’s mix of horror and cosmic questioning. Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss releases on April 16, 2026
***PC code provided by the publishers for preview***
