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Most Lovecraftian games follow a familiar pattern: vintage 1920s setting, creeping dread, and usually some form of combat system to anchor the horror. Big Bad Wolf's Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss throws that entire playbook out the window. Set in 2053 and featuring absolutely no combat whatsoever, it's one of the more audacious takes on cosmic horror in recent memory.
When I ask Game Director Tommaso Nuti how the team keeps players genuinely on edge without conventional threats, he's quick to push back on the premise.
"The absence of combat does not mean that there is a lack of threat, fear or danger," he explains. "Many things can kill you in Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss, from the ruins in themselves to the cosmic monsters that inhabit them. No conventional weapons will be of any help here, only your investigation tools and your wits will allow you to complete your adventure."
Survival in Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss requires understanding the game's unfathomable world and its rules - either by accepting them or bypassing them through ingenuity. It's an approach that Nuti describes as tackling cosmic horror "in its purest definition: where dread is born from the contemplation of a world that surpasses humanity in every way."
The Future of Fear
The decision to set the game in 2053 rather than the typical 1920s period wasn't just about being different. Nuti explains it stemmed from wanting to explore very current issues: resource depletion, climate change, the influence of large private fortunes, and the rise of AI.
"Placing antediluvian creatures and vestiges in this futuristic world allowed us to create a striking contrast between our civilisation and theirs," he tells me.
"The near-future setting also offers players more familiar reference points, which actually amplifies the horror when they arrive in the game's sunken city. You leave a known world to discover another, radically different one," Nuti notes.
The futuristic backdrop also enabled one of the game's more interesting narrative choices: pairing protagonist Noah with an AI companion. This character serves as both guide and psychological support, crucially offering a perspective immune to sanity loss.
"Including a character immune to sanity loss and with a different perspective on the discoveries was a way to revisit the myth in an original way," Nuti explains.
That AI integration extends directly into gameplay, modernising classic investigator tools like the magnifying glass and notebook, which have been reimagined as the Vault (a mind palace system), sonar with frequencies, and character augmentations for customising builds.
"Even though we knew this choice could be risky, it became an obvious one," Nuti says.
Curiosity Without Punishment
One of the trickier design challenges is balancing the sanity and corruption mechanics without punishing players for doing what the game fundamentally encourages: exploring and investigating. Nuti frames it as a reward structure rather than a punishment system.
"Curiosity and the desire to explore are the fundamental drivers of our game."
"Our job has been to reward anyone who shows curiosity about this universe as often as possible," he explains, "whether through consumables, unlockable upgrades, or clues that enable better investigative choices."
The more curious players are, the more threads they can pull to make informed decisions, gather energy to analyse clues, and unlock new skills. Crucially, the game avoids explicit binary choices.
"It is up to them to understand their environment and discover their own opportunities," Nuti says.
The Detective's Board
The Vault system, which is Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss's equivalent of a detective's evidence board, proved challenging to nail down. Nuti admits it "required iteration and a lot of thought throughout production."
The goal was to create a freeform system that captures the fantasy of a mythical detective's investigation board, where players can organise, link, and update their theories as discoveries evolve.
When I mention that the demo felt a bit overwhelming, Nuti acknowledges the concern. To combat information overload, the team developed tabs offering different views of clues, with items already categorised by location and arranged.
"Our goal was to allow everyone to customise their way of 'pulling the threads,' whilst also offering pre-implemented arrangement presets for those who wish to get a clearer picture."
It's an ambitious system that could either elevate the detective fantasy or collapse under its own complexity. Nuti hopes that "once mastered, the Vault will be experienced as a fun tool and a true support for reflection."
Launch Readiness
The Steam demo that I played had noticeable performance issues and bugs, something Nuti doesn't shy away from addressing.
"Indeed, the game was and still is, as I write these lines, in the process of being debugged," he confirms.
It's the team's absolute priority, with all efforts concentrated on stability before the April 16th launch. "The game will be much more stable and polished at launch," he assures.
On the technical side, the demo's lack of upscaling options raised eyebrows, but Nuti confirms the team will integrate the latest upscaling technology from Nvidia with dynamic multi-image generation, as well as AMD FSR 4.
Whether Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss's bold reimagining of Lovecraftian horror pays off remains to be seen, but there's something refreshing about a team willing to strip away combat entirely and trust that pure cosmic dread will be enough to terrify players.
Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss launches on April 16 for PC, Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5.
