Lovecraftian Video Games

Are you in the mood for a Lovecraftian-themed video game?  Look no further! Here’s a huge list.

I hope you find it useful.  If you feel a game should be listed here, or if you see incorrect or incomplete information, or a broken link, please email me at lovecraftezine@gmail.com .  It will help future users of this page.

(This page will take a bit longer to load because I have included trailers.  Give it a minute.)

Thanks to Andrew from Cthulhu Slippers, Tyler Larson, and David Smith, for their help with this list. Thanks to David Bagel for the cover image.

Alan Wake

  • Platform: Windows, X-Box 360
  • Get it here: Steam, Amazon
  • Description: The atmosphere of the game is great. It’s been described as Twin Peaks meets a Stephen King novel told in television episodic format.  The plot revolves around a ancient being that uses the stories of poets and authors to claw its way into reality.

Alone in the Dark

  • Platform: PC, DOS
  • Get it here: Free From MyAbandonWare
  • Description: The first 3D survival horror game! Follow Edward Carnby as he explores a mansion haunted by mind bending horrors.

Alone in the Dark (2008 version)

  • Platform: PC, DOS, X-Box 360, Playstation 2, Playstation 3
  • Get it here: Steam, Amazon
  • Description: First person action horror game loosely based on the original.

Alone in the Dark 2

  • Platform: PC, DOS
  • Get it here: Free From MyAbandonWare
  • Description: Not as Lovecraftian as the first game, but this 3D puzzler still carries some of Lovecraft’s themes.

Alone in the Dark 3

  • Platform: PC, DOS
  • Get it here: Free From MyAbandonWare
  • Description: Again not a Lovecraft game as such, but it borrows a lot of themes from the original to weave its own survival horror tale of mutated zombie cowboys.

Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam, Good Old Games
  • Description: An update of the original’s ideas as a third person horror game. Edward Carnby and Alice Cedrac poke around in places they’re not meant to be for things they’re not meant to know.

Anchorhead

  • Platform: Browser Game
  • Get it here: Play online, or download the game here (if you do, you’ll need a player)
  • Description: Interactive text adventure set in the town of Anchorhead, where the locals have some very odd traditions.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

  • Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux
  • Get it here: Steam, Amazon
  • Description: A first person horror game where you have no defenses and no weapons as you try to solve the mystery without getting murdered or going insane.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

  • Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: Also first person horror. Not as Lovecraftian as the first but still deals with madness and forbidden knowledge.

At the Mountains of Madness

  • Platform: Android, Windows, iOS
  • Get it here: Windows, iOS, Google Play
  • Description: Explore a terrifying tale… find out why an entire expedition team is dead at the foot of a mountain range in this incredible Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure game.

Blackbay Asylum

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: An ancient evil has taken hold of the hospital, bending reality and dreams into one. Unspeakable horrors lurks around the corners and mind-bending puzzles litters the hallways, making escape impossible for all except for the most hardened psychopath!

Bloodborne

  • Platform: PS4
  • Get it here: Amazon
  • Description: “The game’s exploration of ‘cosmic horror’ is straight out of the Lovecraft playbook, particularly the idea that madness strikes when human beings are given insight into the horrors of the universe.” (From here.)

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam, Amazon
  • Description: First person action/horror game where you guide Detective Jack Walters in an investigation of Innsmouth as the stars come right.

Call of Cthulhu: Prisoner of Ice

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Free from MyAbandonWare
  • Description: based on H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, particularly At the Mountains of Madness, and is a follow-up to Infogrames’ earlier Shadow of the Comet.

Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land

  • Platform: Windows, Android, iOS
  • Get it here: Steam, Google Play, Apple Store
  • Description: Indie RPG/Strategy/Horror game set in World War One where the Germans have taken some Lovecraftian shortcuts to making super soldiers.

The Chzo Mythos

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Free from Moby Games
  • Description: Indie puzzle/horror games set amongst Ben “Yahtzee” Crowshaw’s Chzo Mythos.

Clive Barker’s Undying

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: gog.com
  • Description: Someone should have warned the Covenant children: “Never read aloud strange rituals.” Little did they know that their childish game would unleash unspeakable horrors upon the unsuspecting world. Now, many years later, Jeremiah Covenant, the last sane sibling, lies on his deathbed knowing his fragile existence is the only thing restraining the curse.

Clockwork Empires

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: A Lovecraftian survival sim in which you manage and protect Imperial colonists attempting to build a life on a new frontier. A new frontier which just so happens to contain Other Creatures. (Description.)

Crawl

  • Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: Freewheeling Lovecraftian dungeon crawl where other players control the monsters.

Cthulhu Saves The World

  • Platform: Windows, Android, iOS
  • Get it here: Steam, Google Play, Apple Store
  • Description: Indie RPG/Comedy Save the world so you can destroy it later!

The Consuming Shadow

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: A procedural survival horror adventure in which you must explore the land, fight your way through randomly-generated dungeons and try to stay sane in your quest to save the world from the invading Ancients.

Conarium

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: Conarium is a chilling Lovecraftian game that follows the gripping story of four scientists and their endeavour to challenge what we normally consider to be the “absolute” limits of nature. Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s novella At the Mountains of Madness, but largely set after the original story.

The Dark Stone from Mebara

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: Based on the mythology created by H.P. Lovecraft, The Dark Stone From Mebara is set in 1924 Massachusetts. Take on the roles of Arthur Pendleton owner of the Pendleton Detective Agency and his two employees – Detective Aloysius Monroe and Professor Webley. The team has come in to possession of an eerie black rock with strange properties. As they try to discover the stones cosmic origins, they find themselves battling against madness, vicious cultists, and unspeakable horrors!

Darkest Dungeon

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: A story about a man, obsessed with finding the hidden secrets of his old, venerable family estate. Upon spending the family’s entire fortune and unearthing a demonic portal of doom, the estate is crushed and consumed by evil.  (Description from here.)

Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Amazon
  • Description: First person horror/puzzle game looking into the dealings of an occult detective.

Darkness Within 2: The Dark Lineage (Iceberg)

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Amazon
  • Description: First person horror/puzzle game that directly follows on from the first Darkness Within game.

Dead Space

  • Platform: Windows, PS3, X-Box 360
  • Get it here: Amazon, Steam
  • Description: The USG Ishimura comes in contact with a mysterious alien artifact and suddenly loses its communications with Earth. Engineer Isaac Clarke is sent to repair the Ishimura’s communications, but arrives to find a floating vessel that has become a complete bloodbath. The crew is mutilated and infected with an ancient alien scourge. Clarke’s repair mission is transformed to one of survival as he fights to save himself and return the artifact to the planet at any cost.

Dead Space 2

  • Platform: Windows, PS3, X-Box 360
  • Get it here: Amazon, Steam
  • Description: After waking from a coma on a massive space city known as “The Sprawl”, the lone survivor of a horrific alien infestation finds himself confronting a catastrophic new nightmare. Battling dementia, hunted by the government, and haunted by visions of his dead girlfriend, Isaac will do whatever it takes to save himself and dominate the gruesome onslaught.

Dead Space 3

  • Platform: Windows, PS3, X-Box 360
  • Get it here: Amazon
  • Description: Like the most memorable stories of H.P. Lovecraft, Dead Space 3 is guided by a philosophical horror that wants to remind you that mankind is insignificant compared to other forces in the universe.

Deathstate

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: “Deathstate: a Cthulhian Bullet Hell Nightmare” — Hardcore Gamer

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Dragonborn DLC

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: First person fantasy adventure RPG that takes a very Lovecraftian twist in this DLC with the arrival of a god of forbidden knowledge.
  • NOTE: This is DLC for the main Skyrim game, you need Skyrim to play it.

Elder Sign: Omens  

  • Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS
  • Get it here: Steam, Google Play, Apple Store
  • Description: Casual puzzle/horror game. Build a team of investigators and keep an ancient evil out of our reality.

Eldritch

  • Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: First person rougelike action RPG set in Lovecraft’s Mythos. New add-ons based on Lovecraft’s stories come out on a semi-regular basis.

Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem

  • Platform: Gamecube
  • Get it here: Amazon
  • Description: First person action/horror/adventure game where you follow multiple different characters through multiple timelines, clinging on to your sanity as you go.

Euclidean

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: Behind our comfortable, familiar dimensions, beyond the timeless depths of space, there is a Place that mankind was not meant to know. A Place hostile to all life. We do not belong there. We cannot survive there. At least, not for long… Euclidean; a game of geometric horror; a slow descent into the dark, into madness, futility, and despair, where Things greater than you watch and wait and dream. Struggle for every second of life you have left… Even knowing you’re better off dead.

Eversion

  • Platform: PC
  • Get it here: Steam (paid), original free version here
  • Description: A platformer in the vein of Super Mario Bros. Don’t let the cutesy first level fool you, You’ll soon be traveling to dimensions far more sinister.

Fallout 3

  • Platform: Windows, X-Box 360, Playstation 3
  • Get it here: Steam, Amazon
  • Description: First person RPG with both strong Lovecraftian themes and some direct nods to Lovecraft’s work.

Fhtagn! – Tales of the Creeping Madness

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: A choose-your-own-adventure game, with couch co-op and just a hint of betrayal. Play as one of four cultists intent on releasing the Ancient One!

Grim Dawn

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: Enter an apocalyptic fantasy world where humanity is on the brink of extinction, iron is valued above gold and trust is hard earned. This ARPG features complex character development, hundreds of unique items, crafting and quests with choice & consequence.
  • h/t to A.Tiddy for the suggestion.

Haunted Hotel 4

  • Platform: Windows, iOS
  • Get it here: iPad, iPhone, Windows
  • Description: Adaptation of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

The Hound of Shadow

  • Platform: PC, DOS
  • Get it here: Free from MyAbandonWare
  • Description: Old school interactive fiction featuring puzzle solving, terrible nightmares and séances gone wrong.

Jericho (aka Clive Barker’s Jericho)

  • Platform: PC, Playstation 3, X-Box 360
  • Get it here: Amazon
  • Description: Certain depictions and ancient scriptures dictate a being created by God in His own image before the creation of Adam and Eve; according to legend, this being was abandoned by its own Creator. Called the Firstborn. God was so disturbed by what He created that He banished it into the Abyss.  (From Wikipedia)

The Last Door

  • Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac
  • Get it here: Free from TheLastDoor.com, Steam
  • Description: Point and click adventure style horror story with simple graphics but brilliant story and sound design.

The Lurking Horror

  • Platform: Windows, DOS
  • Get it here: Free from MyAbandonWare
  • Description: Text adventure style horror story. Immersive, spooky storytelling.

Magrunner: Dark Pulse

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam, Amazon, Good Old Games
  • Description: First person puzzler set in a near future where the Great Old Ones have returned.  Think Portal meets Call of Cthulhu.

Mass Effect

  • Platform: Windows, X-Box 360, Playstation 3
  • Get it here: Steam, Amazon
  • Description: Action RPG set in the distant future. Set in a Lovecraftian universe that is built on in the subsequent games.

Mass Effect 2

  • Platform: Windows, X-Box 360, Playstation 3
  • Get it here: Steam, Amazon
  • Description: Action RPG that builds on the first game’s uncaring universe.

Mass Effect 3

  • Platform: Windows, X-Box 360, Playstation 3, Wii U
  • Get it here: Origin, Amazon
  • Description: Action RPG that rounds out the series as you try to stop a group of god like machine beings from destroying all organic life.

The Moaning Words

  • Platform: iOS
  • Get it here: Apple Store
  • Description: Collect powerful cards, fight raging battles & choose your own adventure.  Bestselling science-fiction author Alan Dean Foster and BYOOK are introducing THE MOANING WORDS: An intense investigation set in H.P Lovecraft’s CTHULHU Mythos.

Monria

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Monria’s website
  • Description: A 3D massively multiplayer online role-playing game offering “a genuine Cthulhu experience… unearth the Church of Cthulhu secrets!”

Mythos: The Beginning

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: Set in London in 1934, Mythos tasks you with creating your own paranormal investigator from scratch and guiding them through a frightening exploration of the infamous Harborough Asylum. Three young university students have vanished while attempting to conduct a scientific survey of this dreaded place, and it’s up to you to find them! Throughout the night you’ll discover that Harborough Asylum’s reputation is more than an urban legend, and you’ll have to fight for your life against otherworldly Lovecraftian foes.

Necronomicon

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Kongregate
  • Description: Lovecraftian card game.

Necronomicon: Book of Dead Names

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Kongregate
  • Description: Sequel to the first Necronomicon card game.

Necronomicon: Dawning of Darkness

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: Lovecraftian point and click adventure/horror game.

Nightmare on Azathoth

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: A dark game, in which you might not want to find the truth. Manage your base, scavenge, collect memory fragments, and collect resources to power up your spaceship to escape this planet. Death only brings an endless time loop, that restarts everything on the 4th day.

Penumbra: Black Plague

  • Platform: Windows/Linux/Mac
  • Get it here: Steam, Amazon
  • Description: First person horror/puzzle game where you try and learn family secrets while trapped in an underground research facility.

Penumbra: Overture

  • Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac
  • Get it here: Steam, Amazon
  • Description: First person horror/puzzle game.  Meshes well with the first game.

Persona 2

  • Platform: Playstation 2, PSP
  • Get it here: Amazon
  • Description: Japanese RPG/Horror game.

Quake

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: First person shooter with many Lovecraftian elements.

The Rapture Is Here And You Will Be Forcibly Removed From Your Home

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here:
  • Description: A 20 minute short game based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

 

Resident Evil 4

  • Platform: PS4
  • Get it here: Amazon
  • Description: Assume the role of Leon, a former Racoon City police officer, sent to a mysterious town in Spain to rescue the president’s daughter.
  • h/t Leon Kennedy

Reveal the Deep

  • Platform: Windows, iOS, Android
  • Get it here: Steam, iOS, Android
  • Description: A short exploration-based indie game, where the user traverses through the wreck of a 19th century steamship.

Robert D. Anderson and the Legacy of Cthulhu

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Amazon
  • Description: A playable Horror Novel containing shooter and adventure elements.  Robert D. Anderson discovers a huge underground system of cages and caverns beneath his ancestors’ castle. There the legendary Order of the Black Sun exists with dark blasphemous rituals…

The Secret World

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: Horror/RPG MMO game with heavy Lovecraftian elements.

Shadow of the Comet

Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: Point and click adventure game where Holmes and Watson investigate a sinister cult with a familiar patron deity.

Shoggoth Rising

  • Platform: iOS, Android
  • Get it here: iOS, Android
  • Description: Only the ones with extremely fast reactions, strong nerves and exceptional skills will be able to defeat all enemies. “Insanity takes over very quickly, in the best kind of way. Shoggoth Rising is as hard as it is stunning. 8/10” (IndieGameMag) “Shoggoth Rising will have you hooked right from the start. The game’s atmosphere is dark and heavy.” (WindowsGamers)

Shrouded in Sanity

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: Set in the alternative historical setting of 1897 Angelic Empire of Britannia, your contract will order you to eliminate the source of the unnatural fog enveloping the Berelai Manor. Discover the secrets of the estate, as you look for answers among the violent inhabitants.

Sons of Uruzime

  • Platform: iOS, Android
  • Get it here: iOS, Android
  • Description: After receiving a desperate letter from one of your students, you become embroiled in a sinister mystery on the grounds of Miskatonic University. Their ancient stones are home to a dark, evil force. As you teeter on the edge of madness, you will discover an ancient, sinister cult. What are their intentions? And why has Philip Lewis gone missing?

Splatterhouse

  • Platform: X-Box 360, PS3
  • Get it here: Amazon
  • Description: The only game with a combination of massive enemies, over-the-top gore and the ability to regenerate body parts real-time.  Inspired from icons of the horror genre, including H.P. Lovecraft & Simon Bisley.

The Statement of Randolph Carter

  • Platform: Windows, Linux
  • Get it here: Ludum Dare
  • Description: A 2D point and click adventure game based on the short story of the same title.  Great Atmosphere.

Sunless Sea

  • Platform: Windows, Mac
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: Top down seafaring exploration game set in the Fallen London universe. Strong Lovecraftian themes (you didn’t really go crazy and eat your crew…did you?).

System Shock 2

  • Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux
  • Get it here: Steam, Good Old Games
  • Description: First person shooter/RPG with Lovecraftian elements set on a doomed spaceship.

Tales from the Void

  • Platform: Windows, Mac
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: Tales from the Void is an atmospheric real time tactics game inspired by early 20th century sci fi adventure stories. Prepare yourself for a novel gameplay experience, with squad-based tactical combat, resource management and an epic story.

The Terrible Old Man

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Gamejolt
  • Description: Three men of loose virtue are enjoying a drink in a local tavern, when they overhear the story of a rich and feeble old man who lives in town. They soon plot to take his treasures… This is a very short interactive adaptation of ‘The Terrible Old Man’ by H.P. Lovecraft.

They Bleed Pixels

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: Extremely bloody side scrolling action game inspired by Lovecraft.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: As occult-minded private detective Paul Prospero communicate with the dead to discover the fate of a missing boy and the mystery behind a dark ancient force lurking in Red Creek Valley.

Wait – Extended

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Steam
  • Description: “Wait” is a mystery horror game, inspired by the works of H.P Lovecraft and the Silent Hill series. The gameplay is put together by elements of exploration and riddle solving. We want to offer a different kind of horror. A horror without jump scares or fighting monsters, but with the fear of the unknown and unimaginable.

The Worry of Newport

  • Platform: Windows
  • Get it here: Free from ModDB
  • Description: Atmospheric Crysis 1 mod that focuses on storytelling over combat or puzzle solving.
  • NOTE: This is a mod of Crysis. You will need a copy of Crysis to play it.

XCOM: Terror from the Deep

If you feel a game should be listed here, or if you see incorrect or incomplete information, or a broken link, please email me at lovecraftezine@gmail.com .  It will help future users of this page.