Focus Home Interactive has always stood out for its ability to produce very interesting titles on paper but which, in practice, almost never reach levels of excellence. 2018 seems to be the year of the turning point: after having amazed more or less everyone with the excellent Vampyr, Focus presented itself at E3 with a respectable line-up (Greedfall, Insurgency: Sandstorm, The Surge 2, A Plague Tale: Innocence, Farming Simulator 19), culminating in our last round of E3 with a half-hour demo of Call of Cthulhu, produced by Cyanide Studio.
We won't waste time explaining who HP Lovecraft is and what Cthulhu is: if you are reading this page you probably already know it (and if not, run first on Wikipedia and then in the library). What is important to know is that the game has the official license of the tabletop of the same name published by Chaosium and that the narration of the title is not limited to taking inspiration from the classic stories of the Providence writer, but also from classic horror video games such as Alone in the Dark and, above all, is written in collaboration with the authors of some of the most successful tabletop RPG campaigns.
All excellent premises for a title that, while watching the demonstration in real time, we continued to like more and more.
In the most classic supernatural horror tradition, the game opens up to the inside of a huge mansion in which an entire family has been exterminated. First person as Detective Edward Pierce, the player must investigate the crime by exploring, examining the evidence, and gathering evidence from a hostile neighborhood and uncooperative local police. The investigation starts from the room where the victims were found who, according to the police, died as a result of an accidental fire.
Once inside the room, the vision partially darkens to make the player understand that it is possible to enter the investigative phase - a sort of flashback in which examining objects and traces will allow us to reconstruct the facts. The developers let us discover that it is probably not an accident at all, as there are signs of violence and footprints of someone who has escaped from the room. However, this reconstruction could also be different or partial: RPG elements of the board game are also present in this game, and based on Edward's abilities and stats, some evidence may provide more or less detail, or even not be seen at all.
The demo continues with the communication of what is seen to the support policeman who follows Edward into the villa. The dialogues have various possibilities of choice, influenced both by the skills possessed and by the evidence collected, and will influence the player's with the directly concerned and, possibly, with the other characters connected to them. The dialogues are particularly important for how the story will develop: while having or not having certain skills generally simply leads to having to find a different way to solve a puzzle or unlock a room, what we communicate will lead to narrative deviations that also affect the end. of the game (with four different endings).
In this sense, the developers have made a small but necessary spoiler: Edward, at some point, will go crazy. Unlike other Lovecraftian themed games, here sanity is not a game mechanic but part of the narrative: the developers explained the choice by saying that they want the player to feel the sense of helplessness and despair that anyone would have when confronted with supernatural entities beyond human understanding (because, of course, unmentionable creatures from other eras and universes will be encountered).
Returning to the demo, the exploration continues with the discovery of a room where strange rituals have clearly occurred: the entrance takes place through a burglary whose success is influenced by statistics (and which, if not, would have required to find another way to enter). While examining the room, however, a masked, hooded figure attacks Edward. Going in pursuit, you end up in a new puzzle room where you realize the classic secret passage behind the bookcase, apparently operated by a globe.
There are several ways to open it: examine the room further to understand the correct position of the globe to operate the mechanism, or break the mechanism. The developers opt for this second option thanks to a crowbar found previously (and which, even in this case, it was only possible to find thanks to the skill points in investigation). At this point, the library opens revealing an underground passage towards who knows what mysteries… and the demo ends.
Call Of Cthulhu has all the elements one would expect from a game of this name: investigation, mysteries, cultists, impossible creatures, conspiracies, madness. There is nothing about this game - from the graphics to the gameplay to the storyline - that has left us perplexed, and if the developers keep the rest of the game on the level of the demo we can say that it will undoubtedly be a title to buy and enjoy until the end - as long as you don't go crazy yourself first. Call Of Cthulhu will be released by the end of 2018 on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
► Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game is a Horror-RPG-Survival game developed by Cyanide and published by Focus Home Interactive for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 30/10/2018
Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game is a beautiful game that cannot be missing from your collection: we have decided to evaluate it with a 78%, if you are interested in learning more you can read the Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game Review
