Coming from the same team that brought us The Shore, Necrophosis continues to explore the unknowable horrors of the Lovecraftian mythos, leaving the seaside behind for a more overtly nightmarish realm. I went into the game with a little trepidation, hoping that Dragonis had learned from the mistakes of The Shore and the pacing of its finale. What I found was some degree more polished than their previous game, and one that had a much clearer idea of what it was trying to be, though not without its own faults.
The philosophical ambitions of Necrophosis is immediately obvious (for good and ill) the minute you start the game and are greeted by an emaciated figure quoting the entirety of Shelley’s poem, Ozymandias. While its themes of decay and hubris are well suited to the atmosphere and vague narrative of Necrophosis I wasn’t sure whether this was an effective choice or a self-indulgent one. After finishing the game and its extra content I’m still conflicted, but later references to philosophy and literature are not as egregious.
Visually Necrophosis has a very distinct style, beginning in the arid desert lands of some kind of afterlife and progressing through hellish landscapes before finishing in the eldritch areas of Lovecraft’s worst nightmares. Cthulhu and other Lovecraftian entities return from their appearances in The Shore, but are handled far more suitably here and aren’t given villainous monologues to take away from their unknowable terror.
The first-person perspective is highly effective as it immerses you in this surreal nightmare, and I was often reminded of the divisive Scorn, a game that I enjoyed but many did not, whilst fortunately not containing any of the disappointing combat of that title. Exploration is mostly linear although there are some branching areas you have to fully venture through to collect items and solve environmental puzzles.
The puzzles here are almost entirely of the ‘find object and insert somewhere else’ variety, but the body horror aspects raise it above the simple keys of many other games. Rather than keys or access cards, the items you will be collecting are often gruesome body parts and viscera. I was often left wondering what exploring the world of Necrophosis in VR would add to the experience and, similar to The Shore’s own translation, I am hoping for a PC VR port in the future.
While making your way through the nightmare-scapes of Necrophosis is fairly straightforward there are hidden collectables and interactions for trophies and achievements that reward more thoroughly examining the environment. These are welcome as the backgrounds are absolutely packed with disgusting details and gruesome sights. Whether you’re tearing off your own head to place it on an eldritch device or digging your hands into the heart of a suffering prisoner there is a real physicality to the game that helps to ground its otherworldly aspects.
One of the most memorable moments of such interaction is a puzzle partway through the game where you have to control small drone like bugs to bypass a giant enemy and make the way safe to progress. The shift in scale here highlights how nothing in the game feels as if it plays by normal human rules.
Necrophosis is not without faults, and the main one is that the puzzles sometimes feel repetitive and lacking variety to sustain the full length of the game. The tangible sense of discomfort that the early game engenders is diluted through repeating the same body horror tropes again and again. This is an unfortunate aspect, but the same criticism could be pointed out about Scorn as well and Necrophosis does share that’s game focused length and doesn’t overly outstay its welcome.
