Howard Phillips Lovecraft is, to many, the greatest master of horror to have ever lived. It’s important to note he also had terribly regressive views for most of his life. Still, I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt based on the correspondence from his later years that seems to indicate he eventually did away with most, if not all, of his ideas that were horrific in a not cool way.
Lovecraft’s lengthy body of work continues to terrify people of our time as much as it did his contemporaries, and has successfully crossed over to the world of cinema and even video games. There are many excellent video games which have been inspired by the works of H.P Lovecraft, some whose inspiration you might not even be aware of, so let’s look at the best of them.
10. Call of Cthulhu
Though you should know that it only has that name because it’s based on the Cthulhu mythos, and not because it’s a direct adaptation of The Call Of Cthulhu, this is a pretty decent adaptation of that world.
The team at Cyanide put a lot of effort into creating an original story and a vast and detailed semi-open world that beautifully brings Lovecraft’s nightmarish vision to life. If that’s what you care about the most when you to pick a game, you should totally get this one. Sadly, it also features RPG and stealth elements that detract more from the experience than they help immerse you in the game.
9. Conarium
Don’t let its peculiar name illude you, Conarium is a direct adaptation of At The Mountains Of Madness, one of H.P. Lovecraft’s most famous works.
This time, players are invited to a creepy location in the Antarctic where they will have to do the detective work that you should always expect from a direct adaptation of a Lovecraft tale, but also a bunch of puzzles. Conarium features great environments and streamlined gameplay that lets players enjoy the unraveling of its plot.
On top of doing a great job of emulating Lovecraft, it gets bonus points for also resembling John Carpenter’s The Thing, which also took a lot of inspiration from At The Mountains Of Madness.
8. The Sinking City
In the shadow of the legal battle between its studio and publisher lies a game that deserved quite a bit more love than it ended up getting.
The Sinking City wears its Lovecraftian inspiration on its sleeves, and also plays just like you’d expect a Lovecraft-inspired game to play. It’s a mystery game where you play as a detective on a strange city who’ll have to dig as deep as he can to unveil secrets that he may or may not be prepared to deal with. This is a great option if you’re looking for something that’s Lovecraftian through and through.
7. Sunless Sea
If Lovecraftian stories set on land can terrorize you, then I ask you try to imagine what they can do when they take place on a dark sea. That’s Sunless Sea for you, a game where players get to explore and traverse a sea full of Lovecraftian misfortunes waiting to happen. I’m usually not a fan of roguelikes. They can dilute authorial intent, which can be a problem when you’re trying to tell a story based on a very unique author, but those elements work well here.
The random elements ensure that no two adventures are the same, and that only helps to make Sunless Sea even more effective in its delivery of mystery and horror.
6. Dredge
Like Sunless Sea, Dredge invites players to set sail on a Lovecraft-infested sea. Unlike Sunless Sea, however, it hides its true form under the guise of a fishing game to tell a very focused tale of Lovecraftian horror.
Dredge is fun when it wants to be, makes fishing and getting upgrades to your boat surprisingly addictive, and also tells a unique story that’s sure to intrigue players. If you do things well, or not well, depending on your perspective, Dredge will culminate with one of the scariest encounters with a Lovecraftian entity I’ve ever seen in a game.
5. Call of the Sea
While a few Lovecraftian games camouflage their inspiration, they never hide the fact that they’re horror games. Call Of The Sea, however, invites players to one of the most beautiful tropical islands I’ve ever seen in a game. It’s the kind of place where you’d like to spend some time just for the sake of it, but it’s all but a clever ruse.
While beautiful in its surface, Call Of The Sea is clearly inspired by Lovecraft, and thus an adventure game whose horrors you should not underestimate.
4. Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners Of The Earth
Once again, despite having “Call Of Cthulhu” in its name, this is not an adaptation of that specific work. Dark Corners Of The Earth is an adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, a story where a man walks into a town where everyone has an inexplicable fish-like appearance. It came out back in ’05, a simpler time when we cared less about detective work, and more about just shooting stuff up, and it worked. Dark Corners Of The Earth was not a full-on action shooter. It managed to strike a good balance between that and a more grounded mystery tale. It still looks great, even though it originally came out for the OG Xbox.
Like Lovecraft himself, Dark Corners Of The Earth ended up finding little success during its (shelf) life. That’s a shame because despite its age, I believe it remains the best direct video game adaptation of any work by Lovecraft.
3. Returnal
Despite its very original and very un-Lovecraftian setting of a futuristic outer space, Returnal is very Lovecraftian where it counts. I don’t want to spoil its marvelously horrific story beats, but anyone who’s played it knows exactly what I’m talking about.
Fantastic story and presentation aside, Returnal is one of the best PS5 games of all time. It’s fluidity and top-notch gameplay makes it arguably the deepest and overall best bullet hell game ever made. If you own a PS5 and are looking for a game that’s both unique and a AAA masterpiece, this is the one to get.
2. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
Ever wanted a game that enriched Resident Evil’s formula with the most ingenious jumpscares ever seen in gaming, and did away with the cheesy story? Eternal Darkness is that and so much more.
Eternal Darkness invites players to embody not one hero, but a whole lineage of them throughout various different points in time. Think the overall plot of all Assassin’s Creed games in one game, but instead of the templars, you’re trying to kill a god.
Get ready to try to stop a deity heavily inspired by the works of Lovecraft as it tries to foil both the character and the player’s attempts by exploiting their sanity. Expect great aesthetics, a great story, and some of the nastiest trickery you’ve ever seen in a game.
1. Bloodborne
Bloodborne isn’t directly based on any story by Lovecraft, nor does it feature any of his classic monsters, but Lovecraft’s themes of cosmic horror will become impossible to ignore once you venture past a pivotal part in the campaign.
Bloodborne seemingly does away with the detective mechanics you’d expect in a Lovecraftian game to replace them with hacking and slashing, but that’s not true. We’re as much of a detective in Bloodborne as we are in any other game by FromSoftware, a company known for enticing players to put together the pieces to understand the world they’ve been thrown in. That is a perfect fit here. Also, it helps that Bloodborne has the best plot out of all Lovecraftian games – you’ll likely agree with me once you’ve put all of those pieces together.
It’s even almost unfair to describe Bloodborne as Lovecraftian because FromSoft pumped so much new stuff into it that it pretty much transcends mere “Lovecraftianism”. Still, the inspiration is there, and Miyazaki and co. are not ashamed to admit it.
Published: Sep 21, 2024 09:42 am