Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss' Intuitive Detective Gameplay Is Overshadowed By A Tepid Plot

As is typically the case for any media set within H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, it doesn’t take long for us to move past the initial spookiness and descend into occult madness in Big Bad Wolf’s Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss.

It’s a game that feels like the breath of fresh air the Cthulhu canon needs, swapping out decaying 1920s New England coastal towns for sci-fi mining rigs located underwater, along with some other cosmic surprises along the way.

Filled with high-tech gadgets and AI technology, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is set in the futuristic year of 2053, a period that is getting rapidly closer to us (how’s that for existential horror?), but was still a distant future in Lovecraft’s time.

During this time period, the world has become increasingly threatened by the occult, with strange, incomprehensible events happening across the globe.

You play as Noah, an occult investigator who is searching for answers regarding the disappearance of miners in the Pacific Ocean, and is led into a greater mystery involving an ancient race, an underground city, and the creeping madness of Cthulhu’s influence.

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The Investigation Mechanic Is Excellent, A Pure Roleplaying Device

Similar to the tabletop game Call of Cthulhu, as well as other Lovecraft-themed games of its kind, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss places a focus on investigation and corruption as core gameplay mechanics.

As you explore each level, you will find items, objects, and notes which are then added to Noah’s journal and can be accessed at any time. You can make connections between each piece of evidence, with the ultimate goal of using this information to solve deductions and continue your investigation.

Each chapter of the game requires you to use deductions to solve a puzzle (or a series of puzzles), where analysing clues and connecting the dots will bring you answers.

It works in its favour for a Lovecraftian game to place a greater emphasis on investigation over combat, and some levels will present you with a fairly cryptic mystery that can take you a while to solve. If you get easily irritated by difficult puzzle games, you may find yourself banging your head against a wall trying to finish some of these deductions, while those who desire an experience that rewards patience and smart thinking may enjoy the core gameplay loop here.

In essence, I don’t mind Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss’ investigation gameplay. It’s cool that each puzzle generally has two solutions to them, with one increasing Cthulhu’s corruption over you, and another reducing it.

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However, there are some moments in the game that I found utterly baffling, for either because the level design was frustrating, or because some puzzles just didn’t make enough sense, or even because there were a huge number of glitches on display.

There were various parts of the game where I’d fall through the level geometry, not be able to interact with a key item, or have an important level trigger simply not activate, forcing me to restart. Other annoyances included a memory leak that would introduce stuttering audio and laggy framerates to the game once it had been open for long enough.

In particular, the game has an issue that happens when you gather a huge amount of clues, resulting in the journal completely slowing down to a halt and sometimes even crashing when you try to interact with it.

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I Just Wish The Game Would Do More With The Setting

All of that is secondary to some of the game design issues I have with Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss though.

The futuristic setting feels wasted. It’s a novel approach to have a Lovecraftian story set in the near future, as most stories are either set contemporary to the original Cthulhu mythos or to the time they’re made. Having it set in the future allows you to introduce fictional technology and new ideas that haven’t been seen in a Cthulhu story before.

However, once you’re past the first couple of chapters, any semblance of this is completely removed from the game. The underwater mining rig is only present for the first chapter, and you’re soon exploring underwater caves and huge ancient cities that feel like they could be set in any time period or setting.

Okay, so you still get your AI companion, Key, to accompany you throughout the game, but it feels like a missed opportunity to move on from the mining rig so early on in the story.

Additionally, Big Bad Wolf frontloads the best chapters at the start of the game, with a severe drop in quality during the second half of the story. Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss does a fine job of introducing familiar Lovecraftian tropes and hooking you in with an interesting premise, and some of these early levels have some fun ideas on how to keep cosmic, otherworldly puzzles engaging.

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However, there’s a clear part of the game where the quality takes a massive dip. Around the halfway point of the story, there’s a chapter where players have to navigate an underground chamber filled with invisible surfaces where you have to guess where to step to cross safely. If you fall, you die and respawn in the nearest safe area. What’s worse, if you spend too long on one of these invisible walkways, your corruption builds up and can kill you.

I already hate this kind of design, where you’re given very little indication of where it is safe to step, and also don’t have time to do it slowly. It also needlessly makes the game a lot more frustrating, because you’ll spend a huge chunk of time stepping in the wrong direction and falling, endless respawning to find the right place to move forward.

There’s a method you can unlock to be able to see these routes, but you don’t unlock it immediately which means you’re spending a good chunk of time just aimlessly running around and dying unexpectedly.

A Strong First Half Does Not Make Up For A Weaker Finale

Following this chapter, the game takes a nosedive in quality, where the story continues to introduce new ideas and concepts that aren’t given enough time to breathe. The main characters don’t really get fleshed out, and all come across as rather bland. Noah in particular is the worst offender for this, where it’s clear that Big Bad Wolf wanted to have its cake and eat it too by establishing a very specific character within this world, but also making them as an insert for the player to project themselves onto him.

This leads to the final chapter, which feels pretty rushed. Without spoiling anything, the final part of the game doesn’t even have a puzzle for you to solve, which was disappointing after I’d enjoyed engaging with the game’s investigation mechanics for the first eight hours of the story. Instead, this chapter acts as a vehicle for you to make a final choice and get the ending you’re on the path to receiving.

All of this is to say that Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is an interesting AA detective game, with fun investigation mechanics and a gripping premise, but quickly falls apart in the second half of the story. It’s disappointing, because there are occasional sparks of ingenuity in some of the game’s later chapters, and it’s a shame to see the final quality so inconsistent.

Pros: Intuitive detective gameplay, novel setting

Cons: Lots of glitches, poor level design, story trails off towards the end

For fans of: Call of Cthulhu, Observer, Return of the Obra Dinn

6/10: Good

Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss launches on 16 April on PC (version tested), Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5. A review code was provided by the publisher. Read a guide to our review scores here.