There sometimes comes a point with a well-established and well-loved brand/franchise/universe that anything new coming out of it is met with such enormous expectation that it becomes almost impossible to live up to, and, in some cases, the resulting work is then denounced and vilified by enraged fanatics (Star Wars, I’m looking at you). The Cthulhu Mythos generally attributed to HP Lovecraft (poor old August Derleth…) is certainly a significant universe, long since having outgrown its pulp “weird fiction” roots to stand as perhaps the most recognised horror literary tradition*. It is a mythos ripe for new stories, but is the bar already set too high? I am certainly a Cthulhu fan and I really wanted to like this game. So how did Cyanide Studio do?
Things do get off to a promising start, with unusual and unsettling visuals, certainly reflecting Lovecraft’s own revulsion of oceanic life.
Well…Oh dear.
I guess we should touch on that for starters. Cyanide was not the original developer assigned the game by Focus; originally Frogwares had the task. While Bethesda’s own attempt at a Cthulhu game, 2005’s Dark Corners of the Earth was in effect an FPS, this succeeded through an emphasis on exploration, using the first-person view as a tension builder, and a now-famed early escape sequence. Cthulhu has always been about uncovering secrets, so a studio rightly famed for the investigations-orientated gameplay of their Sherlock Holmes games seems an inherently good match.
However, after 2 years development was passed to Cyanide, with a scheduled 2017 release. Which was delayed again to October 2018. Perhaps Cyanide was selected as they have developed a number of games based on the IP of another major tabletop gaming company, Games Workshop, but honestly I cannot see what has been done with the time. This is a limited, short, and occasionally ugly game with a lot of missteps in narrative design.
Hey, the PlayStation 2 called. It wants its character model back.
It looks terrible. There are perhaps some parallels to be drawn overall with early PS4 title Murdered Soul Suspect in the supernatural overtones, clue hunting, and frankly the brevity, but that 2014 title looks considerably better than this 2018 release, which considering Murdered Soul Suspect was a crossover title also released on PS3 is even more damning. Several of the character models in Call are identical, they’ve simply been furnished with different beards. Polygon counts are low and animation is atrocious. In some of my early interactions with the townsfolk and sailors, their “realistic” movement during conversation resulted in such spasms they jerked right out of frame. Considering the poor resolution, the frequent “pop-in” of textures is unforgiveable.
Let’s just say we’re exactly the same person, just with different beards
Sound design is passable. The game starts with music lifted pretty much straight from Amnesia: Dark Descent (not the only time this title was an “inspiration” either; see below). There’s much use of theatrically deep voices to emphasise how oh-so-powerful one of the entities is. But I suppose it’s not so much the sound quality as what the characters are saying that grates. This is 1920s-set horror as written by a melodramatic 14 year old. There’s plenty of “beyond your mortal comprehension!” and accusations against “unbelievers,” which is clichés 101, but there’s also some stand-out oddities such as a sailor exclaiming “that’s no way to treat an omen!” through to the face-palming “the caretaker takes good care of the graves.” A caretaker takes care? No way! Finally, any last shred of my willing suspension of disbelief was removed because the central character, detective Edward Pierce, sounds like Joe Swanson from Family Guy during his investigative ponderings.
More pop-ins than a Dick van Dyke movie.
Gameplay mechanics are simply stunted. There is one scene where you must avoid a creature by hiding, repeatedly, in one of two cupboards in a single room while finding which of several items is the required McGuffin. Amnesia it is not. There’s some hidden item finding to do, which is simplistic and consists of things like finding a ratchet and a handle in a single room and maybe be distracted by a whale vertebra for two seconds. I found myself at one point holding a lighter to a flammable object, with Pierce wondering how to destroy it (flammable objects not burning without the correct McGuffin being one of Cthulhu’s lesser known powers, apparently). And there’s some clue finding and reconstruction to do, which is of a lesser quality and depth than the far older Murdered Soul Suspect. I can’t even call the game a semi-free world; required limitations to explorable areas are effected through cave-ins, wooden barriers which appear, and sometimes character models just standing in the way.
Ah, that most formidable of supernatural barriers, a wooden plank
Finally, the narrative is clunky and doesn’t seem to have been through adequate QA. Your character can find things out of order which causes them to start spouting non-sequiturs, and often on entering an area you are prompted to check your diary, which is more often than not full of detail and information you haven’t found yet.
Sometimes, parts of the phraseology in the game makes it seem as though more choices were intended which would have had more, and more complex, downstream impact. The fact that there are several mechanics in the game – clue finding, reconstructions, object finding, monster hiding – that are so brief also makes me wonder if more was intended but time simply ran out. Certainly towards the end of the game there are actual spelling and grammatical errors in game screens and in subtitles that further speaks to a rushed release.
A hidden door behind a bookcase… the game has gone pretty much full-on Scooby-Doo by this point
A motivated fan will forgive a lot when given enough to work with. I don’t think anyone was expecting 4K HDR with a season pass for DLC. But unfortunately Call of Cthulhu is ugly, clunky and too brief to either engage or to warrant the price tag. If you’re looking for some supernatural sleuthing, if you have a PC then Darkness Within does this far, far better. Otherwise, clear off your table and crack out Mansions of Madness.
*Other famous horror names like Dracula and Frankenstein resonate, but struggle to create a broader world than limited characters and times. But this is not the time for comparative dark literature studies…