At E3 today, I had the chance to watch a new playthrough demonstration for Call of Cthulhu, Cyanide’s upcoming Lovecraftian survival-horror game. While I couldn’t get my hands on the game, what I saw kept me interested in the title, even if it wasn’t as exciting as last year’s presentation.
Based on a pen and paper RPG of the same name, Call of Cthulhu puts you in the role of Edward Pierce, a detective whose interest lies in the mysterious Hawkins Manor fire. Suspicious of the fire’s original police report, Edward decides to travel to the ruined manor himself in order to learn the truth about the Hawkins family. The truth may or may not have to do with supernatural cults and a tentacle demon, which I feel is worth pointing out.
Discovering the truth isn’t as easy as walking around a crime scene though, as Edward has to talk with hostile locals and police officers in order to better understand just what happened at Hawkins Manor. How you connect clues, solve puzzles, and talk to these characters can affect how things end up for Edward, as Call of Cthulhu’s confirmed multiple endings seem to hinge on quite a few factors.
In the demo I watched, a number of puzzles could be solved in numerous different ways. For example, Edward has to open a secret door that is hidden behind a bookshelf. Investigative players will find out that the adjacent globe is the switch to open the door, though they’ll have to figure out for themselves which part of the globe opens the passage. More hasty players will look for the gears that control the door, which can be grappled with brute strength. Resourceful players will find a crowbar to jam the gears with, opening the door automatically. If this single puzzle is any indication of how puzzles work in the rest of Call of Cthulhu, I’m excited to see the many different approaches that each puzzle’s solution will have.
Not shown in this demo (though shown in last year’s) was “insanity,” and how fear and desperation can affect Edward Pierce. Last year, Edward’s sanity was shown to be a somewhat fragile thing that can fracture and lead to terrifying hallucinations, or even death. Edward showed no signs of stress in this year’s presentation though, which was somewhat disappointing. I definitely want to know more about how Edward’s sanity will affect the different endings of the game, and how it will affect the gameplay as he goes more insane.
While I didn’t see as much as I had hoped, Call of Cthulhu has definitely kept me interested. Solving mysteries and exploring the supernatural is a match made in heaven (or hell, for that matter), so there’s definitely quite a lot that keeps me looking forward to the title. While it isn’t slated to release until Q4 of 2018, I’ll definitely be following Call of Cthulhu in the months to come.
