Horrors Beyond Imagination: A Desolatium Review

By Manuel

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, XBox, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC

Works based on the Cthulhu Mythos aren't exactly rare, but what is rare is when a game attempts to tackle all of Lovecraft's works within a single title. Enter Desolatium, a point-and-click adventure game that attempts to do just that and include references, and plot elements, to just about every notable Lovecraft story. Desolatium is out now on consoles and PC, and we're going to let you know if taking the fight directly to Cthulhu himself is something you're going to want to experience. We're just past the spooky month, but it's always the right time of year to play horror-themed games!

Desolatium opens with our protagonist, one Carter Scott, waking up in a hospital bed with no idea of who he is or how he got there. It quickly becomes obvious that something big is going on, and he is somehow important to it. Not wanting to find out what exactly he's needed for, and he escapes. We then shift to some of Carter's friends who are wondering what has happened to him. It turns out that prior to being imprisoned, Carter was in the middle of an attempt to stop a world-ending ritual from the "Cult of The Sleeping God". Carter's partners in action are the investigative journalist Christopher Black, and the researcher Sophie Whalen. When the pair eventually discover that Carter is alive and on the run, their focus shifts to finishing the work that was interrupted by Carter's capture. They both split up to gather the required items to stop the ritual before it's too late. This takes them to the Cult's headquarters, to the town of Innsmouth, and even to the headquarters of the society that seeks to stop the Cult's actions throughout history. Along the way they encounter the expected Lovecraftian horrors like Herbert West's experiments, the Cult of Dagon, and even a masked man who seems to have been involved with the murders of many of the society's members. This is only the prelude to who you're actually facing though, as your main nemesis is a mysterious woman who has carved a path of destruction across history: the dreaded Idh Yaa. It's up to our trio of heroes to gather the clues and items needed to stop Idh Yaa from resurrecting the "Sleeping God" and to keep Cthulhu from enveloping the world in madness.

Where it all begins.

I thought his name was "Scott Carter" actually.

It goes without saying that this is a deep cut on all of Lovecraft's works, and I must say that the story is really where Desolatium shines. Being a huge fan of Lovecraft's works, I was amazed at how much was incorporated here; in a completely original story nonetheless. The game is separated into chapters, and you follow a specific character in each of them. These chapters both progress the story, and show you some flashbacks as to what lead up the events in the game. Things feel a little confusing and mess storytelling-wise at first, but by the second half everything starts to fall into place. While the story is the game's crowning achievement, you'll soon find that not all of the game is nearly as well-done. That said, the strong writing is definitely what kept me engaged whenever other parts of the game seemed to be falling apart. I'm willing to bet that this will probably be the case for players in general.

Let's back up a little bit before we talk about the gameplay. When I saw this game up for review I went to research it a bit as I do with all titles I cover, and I found some interesting things. First off this was a Kickstarter game that was funded in 2020 and was originally supposed to be released back in 2021. It started as a very different-looking game that hit several stretch goals not seen in the finished product. One of these was the promised inclusion of "sanity meter" that I'm sure would've made this feel more like Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. It also was supposed to be a VR game, and that probably explains some of the issues I'm going to outline later. Somewhere along the road from Kickstarter to release it changed completely to the game we see today, and you can definitely find a lot of angry Kickstarter backers if you know where to look. I don't want really want to go more into the Kickstarter drama, but knowing all this really helped me make sense as to why some odd gameplay and presentation choices were made. I can't help but wonder what the game would be like if it had stuck to the original goal, but then again I'm not fan of VR games so I probably would've never played it. Anyhow, keep all this in mind as I go on about the game, and maybe you'll see what I mean here and there.

These look uncannily real.

Zootiques is the Cult's HQ.

Desolatium is a point-and-click adventure game, so you probably know what to expect when it comes to gameplay. You can look around the room/area you're in (though oddly not move around within it), and interact with various objects, as well as walk off into the next room/area. Object interactions can be in the form of opening drawers or doors, or it could be picking up items and documents to add to your inventory. This game has a lot of documents and will be the most picked up item in-game by far. These are mostly story pieces, but some offer solutions to puzzles or even unlock the next part of progression. Items that are picked up are usually used to solve in-game puzzles and these can be as simple as using a key on a door, or combining multiple items to get past an inconveniently placed guard by giving him drugged coffee. There are also some segments where you interact directly with things like computers and in-universe puzzles, but these are less common than simple actions like flipping a switch or pressing a button. Some documents are missable, but most everything has to be picked up/interacted with to move on with the game. This means that you often will be in a room scanning everything with your tiny icon looking for just the right pixel that has the item you need to move on. If you ever feel stuck in the game I can almost guarantee that it's due to this exact problem. I'm not sure if this was meant to be easier to control in VR, but something like highlighting items you're able to interact with would've been much appreciated. I actually read an online review on Steam that said that adding things like highlighting items would make the game "too easy", but can you really call "not knowing that tiny two-pixel-big object was clickable" a fair level of difficulty? While I was able to play the game rather smoothly with only a few stuck sections, I can easily see where others might just give up in frustration. Perhaps this game could've worked better as a visual novel instead of an adventure game.

Christopher Black is my favorite here actually.

Sophie Whalen with a cool reference.

I don't want to go into spoilers, but there is a big issue I have with this game's story that I want to discuss. I'm not sure if it's due to the game's original Kickstarter nature, and the changes it had to go through to see release, but what starts out as a great game falls apart by the end. First off the game is rather short, but that's not my biggest issue. Games in this genre are rarely long, and they can often serve as movie-type experiences as opposed to long, sprawling narratives. What I found fault with is that the last chapter feels extremely rushed, no matter which ending you're on the path of. I've seen all the endings that I didn't play through myself online, so I can say with certainty that none of them feel fulfilling given what took place before. Sadly, it's one of the weakest conclusions to an otherwise great game that I've seen in a long while. It honestly feels like a modern version of those bad NES endings that were just a single screen of text. I'm not sure if this game was put out in an unfinished state, or if the developers weren't sure how to bring together the separate storylines and villains they were setting up, but they really dropped the ball here. Also, since this is an adventure game, there is never really a feeling of fear at the end that a mistake could lead to a bad end. That's something I would've liked to have seen implemented, if only to ramp up the tension a bit. I don't want to make it sound like Desolatium's story is terrible since it fumbled on the ending, but it did mess up what could've been one of the best Cthulhu Mythos adaptations ever.

This could've been a Kraken ad.

An example of a close-up scene.

Second to the story, the graphics are the best part of Desolatium. Most of the game's visuals are real locations/sets that are photographed and have certain elements added after the fact. This gives everything a sort of uncanny valley or alternate reality feel to it; at least to me. The "real world" feel to everything also helps out when it comes to the scope of the game, as you get the vibe that there is a lot more going on behind the scenes of the main characters' actions. There's another really cool thing about the graphics too, and that's how each of the chapters start. Each chapter opens with a poster that titles each chapter, complete with a movie reference, and they're so impressive to look at that I found myself trying to guess what the next one might be. I'm not sure what to call the art style found on these posters, but it has a sort of neon comic style to it that makes it really stand out. Not all is great in the graphics department though. There are a few negatives that really stand out. The biggest of these negatives regards how the game handles other characters. Whenever an actual human has to appear in game it looks really off. In particular, the 3D character models that are used in the Innsmouth section looked pretty ridiculous and like they belonged to an early 3D PC game. Also, there is very little actual movement in the game. Whenever you open a door, flip a switch, etc., it usually happens with a fade and out and in instead of giving you any animation at all. This took me out of the experience more than once, and I often was confused what had changed from one screen to the next. If those two issues could've been resolved we'd have one of the best-looking, and very unique-looking, games I've come across this year.

The Masked Man is pretty creepy.

The Innsmouth sections are pretty cool.

I have a lot of things to say about sound, but I'm going to discuss the positives first. There isn't a lot of music here, but the way it picks up whenever something creepy is encountered often put me on edge. I'm not always a fan of horror games that have long stretches of silence, but the IRL imagery makes the atmospheric music just work here. What doesn't work at all is the voice acting. Desolatium features quite probably the worst voice acting I've ever heard in a video game. I'm not exaggerating either, there are even a lot of dialogue sections where the voice actors are clearly stumbling over the script, but they just leave it in like that makes sense. Also, the on-screen subtitles never match up with what is being said, and this really made me come to the conclusion that the developers just didn't care. How hard is it to just simply put the script you used for the actors in game? Why not just scrap the voice acting if it's going to be so painful? I know that this game is done by a Spanish developer, but I'm sure that there had to have been fluent English-speakers on the development team. Hell, the Kickstarter was totally in English, so it makes it all the weirder that they managed to mangle the in-game English so badly. The voice acting never goes beyond just being okay, and even though I don't like picking on bad voice acting in indie games, I have to say that it's by far the weakest aspect of the game. I'm sure some will argue that the voice acting is somehow bad on purpose, but if that were actually the case here I'd suggest that the developers never work with this voice director ever again. It's just that bad.

I never thought I'd have to discuss controls when covering an adventure game, but here we are. The obvious elephant in the room is the tiny cursor, and how you control it in-game. Cursor movement is all over the place, and it can fluctuate between moving so fast you miss the tiny clickable objects, or so slow that it feels almost painful when you have to use an inventory item on something.  It's not just the movement speed though, as the actual area you can click on is very small. Imagine a standard aiming reticle, take out everything but the small circle in the middle, place a dot within that circle, and you have the cursor that this game uses. It's crazy how tiny it is, and even when it switch to feet icon for movement, it never really gets any bigger. Add in the fact that many of the easily missable clickable areas are equally tiny, and you have a recipe for frustration. Navigation can be very confusing too as it rarely feels like entering and exiting an area lines of properly with the direction you clicked on the previous screen. A lot of the areas sort of loop onto each other too, so it makes exploring some of the bigger areas feels like navigating a maze at times. Even the simple act of using items is weird as you have to select it and then close the menu using the menu button. If you hit any other button the item is deselected and you have to go back into your inventory and try again. Somewhat confusingly you're also not always given a notification when an item you tried to use didn't do anything. Everything just feels off here too and these all seem like choices that could've been hashed out in the development and testing phase.

This thing is never explained.

This was a tricky puzzle actually.

I like to discuss replayability whenever I review a game and I'm not sure where Desolatium falls in regards to this. On one hand there are multiple endings, some missable documents and such, and a story that probably reveals more once you know how all the separate threads tie together. However, the overall wonky gameplay, clunky controls and puzzle sections, and the simple fact that the game only has one autosaved game file, make this a hard game to go back to. You can fully beat it in 3-4 hours, depending on how much trouble you have with the game's trickier sections, so it's not a particularly long game. Taking that into consideration, I was floored when I saw that this game currently retails for $29.99. I know that game costs aren't a thing that some gamers take into consideration, but that price feels a bit out of hand for a game of this size and scope. The fact that it was Kickstarted too, and was released far from what the Kickstarter originally promised, make the high price hurt all the more.

I always thought Dagon was above Cthulhu...

Our main villain folks!

It should go without saying that I have mixed feelings when it comes to recommending Desolatium. I really enjoyed my time with the game, and I loved the stories, the references, and the overall cleverness in the writing. That said the price, the short length, the bad presentation, and the weak resolution soured me a bit on the experience. It is one of the best takes on the Cthulhu Mythos I've seen in a long while, and if you're a fan of them too you're going to want to play this game. Anyone else should probably pick up the demo to see if they can put up with most of the negatives I've pointed out before picking it up. There's a great game here, but it's just not one I can say that the average gamer will enjoy as it currently stands.

For More Information on Desolatium:
https://www.soedesco.com/games/desolatium

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Story: B+
Gameplay: C-
Graphics: A-
Music/Sound: C-
Value: C

Overall: C

Pros:
+ One of the best takes on the Cthulhu Mythos I've seen in a long while.
+ The several Lovecraft, Weird Tales, and horror movie references (just to name a few) were a nice touch.
+ Multiple endings, as well as a story best revisited for the sake of clarity, make this one highly replayable.
+ The use of IRL settings and graphics look pretty impressive most of the time and give the game an Alternate Reality sort of feel.

Cons:
- Most puzzle solutions involve hunting for individual pixels for the solution.
- Some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard in a game, and the written dialogue never seems to match it.
- At only 3-4 hours, the asking price of $29.99 feels a little much.
- The awesome story seems to simply fizzle out by the end and none of the endings are particularly satisfying.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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She really asked to speak to Innmouth's manager!