Enter a dark world that blends sex and cosmic horror as you are swept into the mysteries surrounding the land of Lusst’ghaa in this sexually charged psychological horror game.
Lust From Beyond
Developer: Movie Games Lunarium
Price: $20
Platforms: PC
MonsterVine was provided with a PC code for review.
If you ever finished reading an H.P. Lovecraft story and said, “That’s great, but what if it was all about sex?” then Lust From Beyond is calling your name. You play as Victor Holloway, a man whose disturbing visions of another world lead him to seek help from a new doctor in the isolated town of Bleakmoor once they begin interfering with his relationships. However, his trip to Bleakmoor soon turns to terror. Victor is a Seeing One, someone able to visit the strange land of Lusst’ghaa, and thanks to this ability, he’s now caught up in a struggle between the knowledge-seeking Cult of Ecstasy and their ruthless, brutal rivals, the Scarlet Lodge.
Lust From Beyond is an 18+ game filled with explicit content. The basic premise surrounds organizations seeking answers about the land of Lusst’ghaa, which requires sexual stimulation to visit. From the nightmarish torture rooms of the Scarlet Lodge to the Giger-esque environments in Lusst’ghaa, everything is filled with sexual imagery–sometimes titillating but often grotesque, due to the nature of the game–and there’s even a quick-time event sex mini-game at a few points. Optional censorship is available if you prefer your erotic horror to be less explicit, although all it does is pixelate breasts and genitals. It would be impossible to experience Lust From Beyond without the sexual themes, because they’re so closely intertwined with every aspect of the game’s story and premise.
With that said, it’s also very much a horror game. In the real world, members of the Scarlet Lodge hunt you with malicious intent, while Lusst’ghaa is patrolled by its own twisted inhabitants. You have a limited amount of combat options available, but for most of the game, combat should be considered a last resort compared to stealth or fleeing. You’ll also want to keep an eye on your sanity meter, which causes the controls to reverse if it gets low enough. Enemy encounters are always tense, if not particularly scary. Much of the horror comes from the story’s dark tone and the twisted actions of the Scarlet Lodge. While Lusst’ghaa has a fascinating, warped sort of beauty, the base of the Scarlet Lodge is filled with bloody, gruesome and often sexually violent scenes not for the faint of heart.
No matter which world you’re in, you’ll need to explore your environment and solve puzzles to proceed, although most tend to be of the “find the key hidden a couple rooms away” variant. However, a handful of sections involve more in-depth puzzle-solving and backtracking. Eventually you gain the ability to use powers while in Lusst’ghaa, which adds a bit more variation. The game has a fair amount of content overall and should take you about 7-10 hours or so depending on how much you explore and how well you fare against its more challenging sections. Thorough exploration is also rewarded with notes and secrets that flesh out the world and lore a bit more, well worth seeking out if you’re interested in the story.
The story is pretty compelling once you suspend your disbelief enough to take concepts like Lusst’ghaa seriously. Even though some parts of the story are predictable, I still found myself interested in seeing how it would all play out. Lust From Beyond is the sequel to the developers’ earlier game, Lust For Darkness, and while you don’t need knowledge of that or the two standalone demos that followed, the story left me intrigued enough to want to check out those other stories to see how they all fit together. While its sexual content might make you question its genre at first glance, Lust From Beyond is cosmic horror through and through, with ancient gods, another world existing alongside our own, and people intent on seeking truths that might be better left untouched.
The Final Word
Blending survival horror gameplay with overt sexual themes and a cosmic horror story, Lust From Beyond isn’t a game for everyone and it knows that. It’s targeting a fairly specific audience, but if you fall into that audience, you’ll find a satisfying, compelling, and often macabre experience.
-MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
