Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss

A whole host of games have now been created based on H. P. Lovecraft's cosmic horror universe and now there's a new one on the way: Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss from French developers Big Bad Wolf. The game partly follows in the footsteps of other Lovecraft games by placing the player in the role of a sort of detective. This time we're Agent Noah, who specialises in occult matters. However, it also attempts to do certain things a little differently, but unfortunately this merely complicates the game unnecessarily.

Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is set in the relatively near future, where you, as Noah, must investigate the mysterious disappearance of a number of scientists from a mining station at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The investigation takes our detective further and further into mysterious alternate worlds, down into deep, endless labyrinths beneath the ocean's surface and into ancient sunken cities and temples, all whilst being watched from the shadows by a violent evil.

As Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is primarily a 'detective game', it involves plenty of thorough exploration of the surroundings as well as piecing together clues and leads to figure out what has actually happened. To make the exploration part more interesting, the developers have equipped Noah with a "sonar", which is one of the game's central mechanics. This sonar can be set to different frequencies, which help reveal important things in the surroundings. It works like this: every time you find a new type of object (it could be a document right at the start of the game, for example), you scan it with your sonar and the sonar learns the frequency of that document. This means that, going forward, you can more easily find other documents by emitting a sonar wave at exactly that frequency.

As you go along, you can make use of more and more frequencies, and up to three frequencies can be combined to scan your surroundings more precisely; however, this also excludes other objects that do not consist of precisely these three frequencies at the same time. You spend quite a bit of time activating and combining these frequencies in order to explore the surroundings as effectively as possible, and that might sound a bit fiddly, because indeed it is.

It seems that, in an attempt to create something new, the developers have simply ended up making the exploration of the surroundings unnecessarily complicated. The sonar is certainly functional, but you simply spend too much time combining, activating, deactivating and switching between these frequencies, just to scan a room or an area. Many objects are quite well hidden, so you can't just naturally find your way to them (it's certainly very difficult), and I think that simply makes a large part of the gameplay too fiddly.

Along the way, you collect loads of clues, leads and evidence, which are gathered in a "Vault" - a sort of interactive noticeboard. Here, you must organise, combine and link the clues that are related to one another to figure out how the clues relate to each other and, in doing so, identify new concrete leads to pursue in your investigation. The Vault works quite well most of the time, but I did encounter bugs that caused clues to be placed on top of one another and which could not be separated again. It didn't affect my current investigation, but I can foresee that this bug, if you're unlucky, could potentially be a progression blocker, as you often need to move the individual clues around and group them and you can't do that if you can't separate them individually.

Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss doesn't hold the player's hand very much, and in the vault you really need to put on your detective's hat. It can be difficult to make sense of the connections between the various clues, but if you have an analytical mind, you'll probably enjoy sitting there analysing and piecing together the connections between different leads and clues. If you get stuck here (which I did quite often), you can select the artificial intelligence (called Key) from the menu, which is with you at all times. You can therefore ask Key for help, and it will provide increasingly precise assistance until it practically delivers the solution in the end. It's a pretty handy feature that you can choose to use if you get stuck at any point in the game, but it's entirely optional if you'd prefer to solve all the game's puzzles yourself.

Even on standard difficulty, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is no easy game. You can also choose to play in the easier Exploration Mode, which provides a few more aids, including the Key described above. You can also get unlimited scans of objects (normally you're limited to only being able to scan if you have the energy to do so), you can slow down the rate at which the world around you - and indeed your own mind - is consumed by corruption and evil, and several other similar things - so if you find it all a bit too difficult, you can get plenty of help along the way.

Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is a very slow-paced game and you need to be prepared for that. You really have to investigate a lot of things; you spend a great deal of time fiddling about with your sonar, organising clues and leads, and testing your theories in your Vault. It might well be a bit too slow-paced for some, but if you're the sort who loves to work methodically and enjoys finding connections and the like, then Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is good mental exercise.

During the review period, we encountered a number of technical issues with the game. In fact, so many that Nacon asked us to stop reviewing it until a patch had been released. After some time, this patch arrived, which fixed a number of things, but unfortunately, from a technical standpoint, the game is still not where it should be. I found (after the aforementioned patch) that the game crashed 2-3 times; it's as if sound effects are missing in certain places, some of the cutscenes don't seem to have been edited together properly, the voice-over dialogue cuts into each other and interrupts itself, and then there is, as mentioned earlier, the issue with the tracks in your Vault, which can be placed awkwardly on top of one another. We hope that Big Bad Wolf will continue to patch the game, as, shortly before release, there are several bugs that could potentially be serious.

Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is built in Unreal Engine 5 and offers a Quality Mode and a Performance Mode. There isn't immediately a huge visual difference between the two modes, so Performance Mode, which aims for 60fps, is clearly preferable. It's important to note here that I'm writing that it "aims" for 60fps, as the frame rate is quite uneven and, even though it's a slow-paced game, you still notice it.

Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is a new addition to the now extensive range of Lovecraft-inspired horror games. It's beautifully designed and takes you through some impressive and mind-boggling worlds, but I'd say you need to be a real fan of these detective games for Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss to be worth your while. As mentioned earlier, there are elements that make the whole thing a bit too convoluted and slow the game down even further than it already is. There are also a number of technical issues that are hard to overlook.

We hope that Big Bad Wolf will sort these things out before release, but as Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss stands right now, it is aimed exclusively at hardcore fans of detective games who will be able to turn a blind eye to the technical glitches. I must admit, I found that difficult to do.