Frogwares, the video game publisher behind the Sherlock Holmes game, has revealed another literary-based title in the works. This time, the company is taking a stab at the Cthuhlu Mythos made famous by the father of the horror genre itself, H.P. Lovecraft.
For those of you who aren't familiar with Lovecraft's work, the Cthulhu Mythos is a fictional universe in which the titular Cthulhu resides, a deity (or to classify it more correctly, an entity or embodied cosmic force) that has the power to drive humans insane. His presence in a number of Lovecraft's tales links them all together.
Here's a description of Cthulhu, straight from the words of the writer:
"A monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind."
According to a blog post on the Frogwares site, the publisher wanted to go even bigger for its next game, titled The Sinking City, and turned to Lovecraft's work for inspiration.
"It's bigger than what we ever did and we feel it's the right next step for us, bringing the investigations to be free and opened in the city," reads the post. "We also believe that Lovecraft universe [and the] Cthulhu Mythos is the right setting for the game."
Here's the official synopsis of the game, and it it looks like it's taking its Lovecraftian cues right and left, even setting it in New England:
"We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."
- H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories"
The Sinking City is a game of investigation genre taking place in a fictional open world inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
The player incarnates a private investigator in 1920s, who finds himself in a city of New England, Oakmont Massachusetts. It's currently suffering from extensive waterflood, and its cause is clearly supernatural. The city trembles on the brink of madness.
While it's currently in development now, The Sinking City is set to be released for PC in 2017, and will be showing demos at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next week.
Source: Frogwares
