From Big Bad Wolf Studio (Vampire: The Masquerade Swansong and The Council), Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is a Lovecraftian-influenced narrative adventure game with a heavy emphasis on problem-solving and detective work. In the game, you control Noah, accompanied by his AI companion Key, as he investigates a case of missing miners underneath the Pacific Ocean while descending further into madness with each new, otherworldly location.
You will know if Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is the game for you in the first 15 minutes, and if you want to spend 10-15 more hours with it. The opening location, an eerie, dilapidated house by the water, quickly sets the visual tone and introduces many of the systems that the game will expand upon over seven chapters.
The opening chapter was very reminiscent of the Resident Evil 7 ‘Welcome to the Family’ demo that was very well received. Big Bad Wolf Studio took the right cues from RE7 and introduced a little bit of everything early to catch my interest and make me want to push forward to see what is next for the story, the puzzles, and the environments.
Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is gorgeous, full stop. The environments are varied and full of interesting architecture. The lighting is best-in-class and has a life of its own. Monster design had all of the hallmarks of a Lovecraft nightmare, but the way they are presented in The Cosmic Abyss gave them so much presence. I was truly taken aback at the sheer scope of what was in front of me at times.
Even the little moments – like the transition from out of water to back on land or the finger movements – had so much passion and care injected into them that you couldn’t help but appreciate every part of the presentation. My only complaint was that the world was sometimes over-curated, and it was more akin to walking through a museum instead of engaging with a living, breathing world. Aside from key items, nothing can be moved or influenced by the player. I’m not expecting Half-Life Alyx levels of environmental interaction, but it would have been nice to be able to push the environment around a bit.
The story is kind of just there. It has the very common survival-horror trope set up of ‘being one step behind the scientific team.’ As the game progressed, I found myself wanting to continue, not because of the story, even though it was never a true detriment, but instead to see more of the world or what the next environment would be.
The lore is well thought out and interwoven into every fabric of Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss. With the expected combination of journal entries and audio communications, you will experience every part of the world and the journeys of the crew. The voice work is solid. They didn’t have much to work with, but they made the best of their limited dialogue.
Now the big question — is it fun to play as a video game?
That is a mixed bag. I had issues with the actual mechanics of playing Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss, especially with how the puzzles were implemented. I was stuck early and often with a difficulty of building momentum while playing. Every time I would solve a portion of an extended puzzle, I would kind of reset and have this bewildered feeling of what do I do next.
Maybe hardcore puzzle solving isn’t my cup of tea. There was never this ‘Rube Goldberg ‘- esque feeling of everything falling into place that made the last hour of wandering satisfying. I’m not an iPad kid or anything, but it would have been nice to have more visual gratification after using so much mental energy on these puzzles.
I had issues discerning flavor text from important details. That seems like a core mechanic of this type of game, and the gamer’s ability to decipher what is valuable, but some moments felt like red herrings intended to create frustration. In chapter two, the final portion of a puzzle involves Noah having to fight against a current to get to the end of the chapter. There is a piece of lore right in front of the water current that describes a special underwater suit. Naturally, with the placement of that lore, I searched, fruitlessly, for either an upgrade to my current suit or a different suit to traverse. That was not the answer to the puzzle, not even close.
A few other moments like that happened during my playthrough. There are two ways — a ‘good’ way and a ‘bad’ way, to make it to the end of each chapter. Because the puzzles are so involved and don’t fully reveal themselves, I would do whatever puzzle is in front of me, so I would do a majority of both paths before settling on one to finish. It made for an annoying experience because it was almost a waste of time with how much energy goes into solving these puzzles.
A positive of each chapter having its own location was that each environment was small and focused. I was able to stomach the exploration more compared to other games because there was very little backtracking from the narrow focus of each chapter. The game does recognize its difficulty and offers an explanation mode with a series of hints that can be given to the player. The final revealed hint essentially describes the step-by-step process accomplishing the current major task.
Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss was a game I wanted to love, but it didn’t love me back. I had moments of awe and victorious fist pumps when a puzzle came together, but also extreme frustration as I walked down the same hallway for the 20th time in hopes I could stumble on something new. There is going to be a subset of gamers that are going to be all over this and the oftentimes obtuse clues, but I would have liked to see a little bit of leniency in interacting with the world. The Let’s Play community is going to have a field day with this one.
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