Thalassophobia (the fear of deep bodies of water) is a perfect fit for first person games, as the restricted vision and immersion, not to mention the added inertia from being underwater, always adds extra tension and panic to the experience. Add in the constant dread of Lovecraftian horrors from beyond human understanding and you have the raw ingredients for terrifying gameplay. Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss promises to make the most of this setting and add in complex puzzle solving and investigative detective gameplay, but an unfortunate lack of polish and some annoying bugs hold it back from taking full advantage.
Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss takes place in 2053 as Noah, an investigator charged with following the trail of a missing colleague, finds an occult cosmic threat is spreading across the world. His investigations lead him to a mining facility located deep within the Pacific Ocean wherein he discovers that the missing miners have stumbled upon a passage to R’lyeh. Add in a megalomaniac billionaire and you have the makings of a satire of contemporary megacorps, though this is never really developed.
Despite the first-person perspective this is no action shooter. In fact, there is no combat whatsoever, though there are a couple of sections that feature eldritch monstrosities that can kill you if you make the wrong move. This is generally welcome for establishing the tone, but the big bad towards the end of the game was more frustrating than scary as the stealth and scanning mechanics didn’t seem to work correctly all the time. Instead of tension there was a palpable sense of annoyance as I had to redo platforming sections multiple times after falling through the hidden surfaces.
With no combat to speak of, the gameplay mechanics instead centre upon investigation and puzzle solving, with a focus on a mind palace method of connecting clues that is reminiscent of Frogwares’ Sherlock Holmes games. In order to interact with the environment you can call on your AI companion, Key, who can scan, assess, and record the information that you acquire. This digital compendium can be called up in order to make connections between clues and objects that you scan, reveal deeper insights and even give you the direct solution to riddles if you’re stuck. Accessibility options can offer a fairly granular experience from no assistance whatsoever to fairly detailed clues and hints. Towards the end of the game I switched on some of these hints as I was ready to be done with it and had become overly frustrated by clunky mechanics.
Exploring the underwater environments is an interesting process and there is a decent sense of atmosphere, but once you realise that danger is only present in limited setpiece moments, a lot of the dread dissipates and it becomes quite pedestrian. The inconsistency in the scanning mechanics that make up a huge part of the investigative gameplay also turns what should be a scary time into repetitive drudgery too often.
The choices you make in how to solve puzzles have direct effects on your sanity. This tried and tested Lovecraftian mechanic sounds promising, but once again it isn’t really developed. In practice it just means that the main puzzles have a good and a bad solution, the latter increasing your madness and resulting in a different ending. The main issue here is that the most obvious and logical solution always seems to be the bad one so you have to almost play against the game to find the alternative options. While the different routes are welcome, the Lovecraftian setting fits a descent into madness far better anyway.
I started off my playthrough on PS5, but the frequent bugs and crashes made it a fairly miserable experience, so I soon switched to play on PC and found this a much better suited platform. Mouse and keyboard feels far more intuitive than a controller for this title, although a weird bug that switched the keyboard to the French ‘AZERTY’ returned a couple of times. There have been some patches since launch, so the console version is hopefully in a more stable state now.
