Two recently released cosmic horror video games receiving positive reviews both explore the intrusion of the strange and weird into the ‘real’ world.

Still Wakes the Deep was released this past week from British developers The Chinese Room. Caz McLeary is an electrician on a North Sea oil rig in 1975 whose past is catching up with him just as disaster strikes the platform. From flooded corridors, oil fires and collapsed bulkheads, Caz must traverse ordinary dangers otherworldly horrors. The Beira D oil rig is a wonderfully detailed environment, and the developers more than nod their heads to working class horror films like the Thing, Alien and Underwater. Experienced gamers might not appreciate the lack of combat and overly signposted pathways, but it does occupy the space between survival horror and ‘walking sim’ in a way that is tense and compelling.

Pacific Drive, released earlier this year, is a driving survival game, in which the player finds themselves stranded in the Pacific Exclusionary Zone. In this remote corner of Washington state, time and space have become undone and the government has sealed off the area. You must find your way out of the zone by fixing up an abandoned car, a vintage station wagon, with scrap and found parts.

Check out the eZine’s full list of Lovecraftian and cosmic horror video games here