Call of Cthulhu Review: Strong Premise, Weak Mechanics

Call of Cthulhu scored 6.5 out of 10 across 8 critic outlets. That is the verdict on Cyanide Studio’s 2018 horror RPG, and it is the right one. The game asks you to solve a murder on an island that does not want you there. It gives you a war veteran with a drinking problem, a dead painter, and a town full of people who stop talking when you walk in. Strong setup. What Cyanide does with it over the next several hours is where the trouble starts.

Trailer, via IGDBcom.

Edward Pierce and the Hawkins Family

You play Edward Pierce, a private investigator and war veteran in 1924 Boston. Pierce has nightmares he cannot explain and self-medicates with sleeping pills and alcohol. He takes a case looking into the Hawkins family, who died in a fire at their mansion. The only real clue is a painting by the wife, Sarah, made shortly before she died.

The setup is clean. A troubled detective, a rich family burned alive, and one strange painting. It gives the game a hook that does not need a monster yet. Pierce is not a hero. He is a man holding himself together with pills and booze, and the game lets that sit without overexplaining it.

Cyanide built the game as an RPG-investigation title with psychological horror and stealth. It runs in first person and plays single player. It is not a direct adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story “The Call of Cthulhu.” It draws on the wider Cthulhu Mythos and the 1981 role-playing game of the same name.

Darkwater Island and the Scylla

The trail takes Pierce to Darkwater, a remote island community suspicious of outsiders. Darkwater had a whaling industry until a sudden scarcity in 1847. That year the island’s last ship, the Scylla, came back with what locals call the “Miraculous Catch,” which saved the island. The town has been strange ever since.

Pierce meets Captain Fitzroy, who gives him details about the Hawkins family. He meets Officer Bradley, who handled the case. He meets Cat Baker, a successful bootlegger and feared gang leader. Each one feeds him a piece of the island and none of them tell him the whole thing.

He also sees a beached killer whale, cut by ghastly wounds, being dragged back into the sea by police while locals object. It is one of the game’s better images. It tells you the island has a relationship with the sea that Pierce does not understand yet.

The Mansion, the Attic, and the Caves

Exploring the Hawkins mansion with Bradley, Pierce learns more about the family. Sarah was a famous painter known for a macabre style. She was also rumoured to have been mentally unstable. Pierce decides the fire may not have been an accident. Someone may have survived it.

Then a robed man shows up stealing something from the attic. Pierce and Bradley chase him and find a hidden door leading to caves and tunnels under the island. There they find the thief and other cultists performing a ritual. Bradley recognizes the leader as Charles Hawkins, who everyone thought died in the fire.

That is the turn the game needs, and it lands. The mystery stops being about a fire and becomes about a family, a town, and something under it. The problem is what the game does with that turn afterward.

Stealth, Sanity, and the Mechanics

Call of Cthulhu runs on investigation and stealth. You search rooms, read documents, and talk to people. You also sneak past enemies and sometimes run. The game puts psychological horror at the center, which fits a story about a man who cannot trust his own head.

The mechanics rarely rise to the material. Stealth sections are thin. Investigation mostly means walking to a glowing object and pressing a button. The game wants you to feel Pierce coming apart, but the systems do not carry that weight. You are told he is troubled more often than you are made to feel it.

The semi-open world is a nice idea for Darkwater. In practice the island is small and the paths are narrow. You are rarely exploring. You are usually being pointed somewhere.

Charles Hawkins and the Cult

The cult is the spine of the back half. Charles Hawkins leading robed figures in caves under the island is a good reveal because it pays off the family at the center of the case. Sarah’s painting, the fire, the survival, the ritual — they connect.

But the game gets less careful as it gets bigger. The Great Dreamer, Cthulhu, is preparing its awakening, and the story moves toward that. Cosmic horror works when the thing stays partly out of view. Call of Cthulhu keeps pulling the camera back until the thing is just a thing.

The best material stays small. Fitzroy, Bradley, and Cat Baker are more interesting than the tentacles. A bootlegger running a scared island tells you more about Darkwater than any ritual does. The game knows this early and forgets it late.

What the 6.5 Score Means

Call of Cthulhu holds a 6.5 out of 10 critic aggregate across 8 outlets. That number is fair. It is not a broken game. It is a game with a strong premise, a good setting, and a plot that mostly holds together, undone by mechanics that never match its ambition.

Key facts
– Title: Call of Cthulhu
– Developer: Cyanide Studio
– Publisher: Focus Entertainment
– Release year: 2018
– Platforms: PlayStation 4, PC (Microsoft Windows), Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
– Genre: RPG, Adventure
– Themes: Action, Horror, Thriller
– Modes: Single player
– Perspective: First person
– Critic aggregate: 6.5/10 across 8 outlets

The setting does the heavy lifting. Darkwater in 1924, a whaling town that never recovered from 1847, a last ship called the Scylla and a catch nobody explains — that is a place worth a game. Pierce is a decent guide through it. The Hawkins case gives the plot a human center that most Lovecraft games skip.

What holds it back is execution. The stealth is forgettable. The investigation is shallow. The horror leans on what it shows instead of what it withholds. A game about a man losing his grip should make you feel the loss, and this one mostly tells you about it.

Call of Cthulhu is worth playing for the first half and the island itself. It is not the definitive Lovecraft game, and it never quite becomes the one its opening promises. Cyanide had the right pieces and a clear idea of the mood. The mechanics are what keep it at 6.5.

Call of Cthulhu · Cyanide Studio · Darkwater Island · game review · horror RPG · Lovecraft games