Gamescom 2018: Call of Cthulhu’s Gameplay Trailer Features Gothic Sleuthing and Fishman Negotiations

Publisher Focus Home Interactive’s video game based on the popular Call of Cthulhu tabletop RPG has been a game nearly a half-decade in the making, but finally, the wait is almost over.

Focus Home and Cyanide, the game’s developers, debuted the first-ever gameplay trailer at Gamescom. Featuring a mix of Telltale-style timed dialogue prompts, stealth action, and some light sleuthing mixed with crime scene recreation puzzles, it seems to embody everything that fans of the pen-and-paper game would expect from an adaptation.

Call of Cthulhu‘s plot, which is of course inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s short story of the same name, puts players in the role of Edward Pierce, an investigator whose inquiry into the tragic deaths of the wealthy Hawkins family takes him to the mysterious Darkwater Island, a locale which could not be more Gothic if it tried. Only by chatting with the island’s fishy locals, meddling with a dark cult, and maybe even outrunning a monster or two can Pierce discover the horrifying truth of Darkwater–if the influence of the Great Old Ones doesn’t drive him mad first, of course.

It should be noted that the trailer was explicitly created using a beta version of the game, which hopefully explains why the graphics and textures look so muddy a mere two months away from launch.

It’s been over a decade since the last proper game based on the Call of Cthulhu property, so we can only hope that this game scratches that cosmic horror itch when it launches worldwide on PC, PS4, and Xbox One on October 30th (only a day before Halloween!).