H.P. Lovecraft is famous for a brand of cosmic horror which has been imitated numerous times. However, no one has ever told Lovecraftian stories quite like him. His entire Cthulhu mythos is about ancient beings who come to Earth and bide their time until the day they will devour humanity and the world as a whole. What made his monsters stand out is that they are beyond human comprehension: anyone who sees them or tries to understand them ends up going mad or dying.
Video games have tried to adapt his stories and show gamers that cosmic dread. However, many have failed in numerous aspects. But not the ones on this list. These video games have done a bang-on job deciphering the essence of Lovecraftian tales and transferring them to another medium of entertainment. Not all of them are survival horror, but they are all faithful to the source material.
20 Carrion
In Lovecraft stories, you usually find yourself in the shoes of an innocent human stumbling upon ungodly creatures. In Carrion, you are the ungodly creature. Control a fleshy being that aims to consume and destroy all those that want to put you in a cage and stop you.
This is a platformer experience where the creature you control has fleshy, slimy physics to match its outer appearance. Carrion is less about story and more about action and completing levels.
19 The Terrible Old Man
Terrible Old Man is a free-to-play point-and-click experience on Steam. It’s a short and sweet adaptation of one of Lovecraft’s short stories, the terrible old man.
If you’ve read the story, you can now step inside the shoes of the people in the story by playing this game. Walk around asking locals about the town and what may lie ahead.
This small and free game does an amazing job at suspense and thriller all in under 20 minutes.
18 Amnesia: Rebirth
Amnesia has been a cult classic and famously popular horror franchise since 2010. Though what made the original game so fascinating has since been lost, Frictional Games still has that knack for creating horror.
Amnesia: Rebirth puts you in the shoes of a woman coming to from a plane crash. Here there is a rich story, intricate puzzles, and scares for days. There’s a game mode called Adventure Mode that will remove the horror aspect of the game so that you can experience the thrilling narrative if that’s what you prefer.
17 Call of The Sea
Call of The Sea is what you would call a walking simulator. Though it has beautiful settings and a rich story, you’ll be spending most of your time walking and experiencing. You play as a curious wife who lost her husband to a dangerous expedition.
While trying to find out what happened to your husband, you’ll uncover abnormal and strange things that you should probably put back. The game is set in the 1930s and has various puzzles throughout the narrative.
16 Song of Horror
Song of Horror pays tribute to games like Resident Evil. It’s a third-person survival horror experience with a camera that stays still at every corner as you walk by. There are various puzzles and every choice matters or can lead to your permanent death.
The evil monster in this game is barely seen, only heard, and when it does come you have to hide behind a door or instantly die. That’s how much of a threat the monster in this game is. Song of Horror is about a missing writer and the horrors that lie within his mansion.
15 Darkwood
Lovecraft’s work has always been characterized as really unique, which is why many horror games that have similar dark, claustrophobic, and almost lonely styles tend to remind players of Lovecraft’s work. It’s why Darkwood is arguably a Lovecraftian horror game, even though it claims no official connection to the author.
Darkwood is a game played entirely from a top-down perspective and it puts the player into a dark world where they can explore a woodland area by day and hide from strange creatures at night. The art and story are practically dripping with Lovecraftian elements.
14 World Of Horror
The combination of Japanese manga and Lovecraft’s work might not immediately sound all too logical, but manga artist Junji Ito and Lovecraft both created universes too dark for some people to even fathom. This black and white 1-bit horror role-playing game combines these two worlds into one single disturbing game.
World of Horror starts with a typical Lovecraftian premise of the old ones awakening. Through a decision-based system and turn-based combat, the player must navigate a new, twisted reality.
13 Moons Of Madness
Most of Lovecraft’s work is based in the 1920s, but who says the old ones and their terrors can’t be experienced in a modern-day setting? Moons of Madness is one of the most promising and high-quality Lovecraftian horror games currently out there, with a neat sci-fi twist for players who love a futuristic setting.
When Shane Newehart begins to experience strange things while working at a Mars research facility and his crew seems to have gone missing, it becomes evident that something sinister is onboard the station. Not only does the game look gorgeous, but it’s also guaranteed to give anyone the chills.
12 Call Of Cthulhu
Every Lovecraft fan should absolutely know this highly underappreciated game, Call of Cthulhu, first released in 2018. After Dark Corners of the Earth, it’s the truest rendition of Lovecraft’s universe in game form, available for both PlayStation 4 and PC. And it certainly doesn’t disappoint.
Depressed and troubled private investigator Edward Pierce is tasked with heading out to investigate the case of a dead family on the mysterious and secluded Darkwater Island, where he finds a connection to something supernatural. This game has everything Lovecraftian: a tortured main character at the brink of insanity, RPG skill trees inspired by the original Call of Cthulhu pen-and-paper game, chilling monsters, and references to works like Shadow Over Innsmouth and Pickman’s Model.
11 The Land Of Pain
Players familiar with the pen-and-paper Call of Cthulhu RPG will appreciate games like The Land of Pain, which are definitely indie games but absolutely worth the hype. While exploring a gorgeous world, the main character must survive and find out what’s going on after strange events transpire in the woods.
The game is heavily puzzled and exploration-based, and there’s no combat involved. Players must simply survive in order to defeat whatever evil is chasing after them. There are many references to Lovecraft’s universe, namely a reference to the old gods, which would mean the old ones in Lovecraft’s works. Although some game mechanics might be a bit wonky, it’s a beautiful game with a massive world and compelling story.
10 Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners Of The Earth
Dark Corners of the Earth is a relatively faithful retelling of H.P. Lovecraft’s Shadow Over Innsmouth and came out in 2006. You play as a detective called Jack Walters who encounters a cult that calls itself the Fellowship of Yith. Walters’ brush with them leads to him spending half a decade in an insane asylum. When he finally comes out, he decides to visit Innsmouth to solve a missing person case.
The game has a number of nightmarish creatures, and the longer you gaze at them or encounter them, the more your sanity drops. Your vision blurs, you grow increasingly insane, and you can even commit suicide, according to GamesRadar.
9 Bloodborne
Bloodborne is a tough Souls-like game, with punishing combat and dark themes. The game is not directly based on any Lovecraftian story, but its mythos and themes are clearly influenced by the horror writer. You can see this through creatures like the Kin, which resembles Lovecraft’s vision of the Great Old Ones, plus the dark, oppressive atmosphere and the bleak ending.
In the game, you play a character who travels to a city called Yharnam to find a cure for an unspecified illness. As luck would have it, you arrive on the night of ‘the hunt’: a purge of fantastical beasts that torment the city.
8 Cthulhu Saves The World
Unlike the other games on this list, Cthulhu Saves the World makes fun of the source material whilst honoring it at the same time. You play as the titular creature, which has risen from the sunken city of R’lyeh to drive all humans mad and take over the world. However, he loses his powers when he reaches Earth, and the only way he can regain them is by actually saving the world. So, he has to save the world so he can destroy it.
The 8-bit game is packed with jokes, Lovecraftian towns like Dunwich, and evil deities that stand in your way.
7 Eternal Darkness
Like Bloodborne, this game is inspired by the Cthulhu mythos more than being directly based on it. You play as Alexandra Roivas, a woman who tries to solve her grandfather’s mysterious murder as she stays in his Rhode Island mansion.
The bulk of the game revolves around the Tome of Eternal Darkness and the creatures which made it. This is a book that grants magic, similar to the Necronomicon. Like Dark Corners of the Earth, your character can go insane. But in an interesting addition, the game can also delete your save files; its attempt at driving you, the player, mad.
6 Quake
Quake is popular for its slick multiplayer modes. However, its single-player campaign is basically an homage to the Cthulhu mythos. In the campaign, the government has developed teleportation technology in the form of ‘slipgates’, but a force identified only as “Quake” hijacks these slipgates. It starts using them to transport demons to our world. Your mission is to blow all these demons to kingdom come.
The game features a ton of Satanic imagery, but it also has numerous nods to Lovecraft. These include a level called The Nameless City, an enemy called the Formless Spawn of Tsathoggua, and a boss called Shub-Niggurath.
5 Eldritch
Eldritch is basically Minecraft meets the Cthulhu mythos. In the game, you control a 1920s-era investigator and explore the deepest, darkest parts of tombs as you seek ancient artifacts: basically, the souls of the Great Old Ones. The enemies are all Lovecraftian, from giant penguins to cultists and fishmen.
In the Nyarlathotep stages, you will encounter ghoulish wanderers that you can’t kill; your best chance is to postpone them. According to PC Gamer, these stages also feature an enemy who can blend into his surroundings and suddenly pop up in front of you, delivering tons of jump scares. The game world is procedurally generated, and if you die, you lose all your items.
4 Sunless Sea
It’s December 1887. London has become Fallen London after sinking into an underworld place called the Neath. The surrounding ocean is underground and completely uncharted. You play as the captain of a steamer, and your goal is to keep your crew alive and try to make a name for yourself as you explore this vast ocean.
Needless to say, the ocean has numerous hidden terrors, including Lovecraftian monsters and otherworldly structures. You can lose your entire crew, and the captain grows less sane the deeper you venture. And if everyone dies, you can try again. However, the islands will be rearranged, changing your experience.
3 Conarium
Conarium is about the closest we are going to get to an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness. You play as an Arctic expedition member called Frank Gilman. You wake up to find your base is deserted and you have an inconvenient case of amnesia. As you explore the base and try to figure out what happened, you’ll find diary entries, letters, audio recordings, and more. These will help you to piece together the story.
The gameplay itself is almost non-existent, and it has more in common with walking simulators than with regular puzzle games. That said, the puzzles are fun and challenging.
2 Darkest Dungeon
Darkest Dungeon is a tough role-playing game about the psychological pressures that come with adventuring. The game starts with your character learning that they have just inherited a manor from a relative who went insane and committed suicide. He discovers terrors in the areas close to the manor, which caused his suicide. Your mission is to clear these dungeons.
The good news is you can recruit up to four characters to help you out. But the bad news is that they can become stressed. The more stressed they are, the less effective they become in combat, and their chances of dying go up.
1 Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened
In Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, the world’s greatest detective is bored with his regular cases with small-time criminals. He looks for a case with higher stakes, and he finds one with probably the highest stakes ever. When investigating a string of kidnappings, he discovers that they are tied to a cult that is trying to summon Cthulhu. Suddenly, it’s not just 19th-century London that he’s trying to save, but the whole world.
The game’s creators decided against focusing on the Lovecraftian creature. Instead, they focused on the growing tensions between Holmes and the evil cult. It makes for a tense and atmospheric experience with a strong sense of dread.
NEXT: The Best Co-Op Survival Horror Games
