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The Lovecraft books should have more Games

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The Case of Charles Dexter Ward;
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath;
The Whisperer in Darkness;
The Shadow Out of Time;

The Cthulhu Mythos in general.


Give me that shit in Unreal Engine 5 with Ray Tracing. The last GOOD lovecraftian adaptation was Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (from 2005!). Yes, I don't consider Bloodborne an adaptation.

Is a shame that he was an huge racist/anti-semitic in personal life. I wonder if there are other book authors that we think different from them? I know we ALL can separate the author's personal view from the lore they created, obviously. I also know that if I posted this on a certain purple place I would get perma-ban in 2 seconds.
 

Skifi28

Member
We finally need a high budget game, I'm tired of the smaller and mediocre projects we've gotten thus far. Call of Cthulhu 2018 was quite good, but the low budget was a bit too obvious and working against the game.
 

Mr Hyde

Member
A big budget Lovecraft game would be awesome. Call of Cthulhu and Sinking City were great, at least in the story department, but obviously suffered from jank and repetitive gameplay due to low budget. But I'd take a AA adaptation than have nothing. Lovecraft's stories and themes are notoriously difficult to adapt to video games, and don't really have mainstream appeal, which is why I think we'll never get a proper AAA Lovecraftian game (unless it's something that was inspired by Lovecraft rather than a direct adaptation, like Bloodborne)
 
I got pretty absorbed in CoC on PS4. Hated it at first but it started to click after a few hours.

I agree though, I'd love to see more games and movies from that universe. Stoked for the AITD reboot, that clip shows so much potential.
 

ViolentP

Member
It has a great presence in the tabletop space but yeah, in videogamess it's sorely lacking. Dark Corners and Call of Cthulhu are the big standouts. I personally enjoyed Sunken City as I think it does atmosphere well, but we need something made with some real passion behind it.
 

AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
Cuthulu coming up
coming to eat your soul
Eat the world you know

Cuthulu's coming up
out of the earth remote
here to elder god and grow.

(to the tune of I'm coming up)
 

Lunarorbit

Member
Read lovecraft country last month.

Haven't read much lovecraft but I enjoy Robert Howard's Conan and him and lovecraft were pen pals back in the 30s. You can feel the pulp coming off the page as Howard's turn of phrase is great
 

StueyDuck

Member
Lovecraft. Or lovecraftian eldritch horror works best when it's unknown. Which is why games like call of cthulu and the sinking city end up being kind of average...

As is necessary. Bloodborne is still the best lovecraftian game on the market.
 

A.Romero

Member
More than likely. Lovecraft's work mirrored some fairly common racial attitudes of his day. His sin was not being clairvoyant enough to see how his views might trigger people a century later.

Weren't other authors at the time that didn't share their viewpoints on that stuff (assuming they had them because it was the norm)?

I mean, Mark Twain was publishing earlier and I believe he did come around on some views.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
Weren't other authors at the time that didn't share their viewpoints on that stuff (assuming they had them because it was the norm)?

I mean, Mark Twain was publishing earlier and I believe he did come around on some views.

Well let's be clear, Lovecraft wasn't some KKK cross burning racist. From what I've read, he perpetuated some narrow-minded stereotypes of black people. I think we can point to that and apply that criticism in those cases while at the same time appreciate the part of his work that made him famous posthumously.
 

JusticeForAll

Gold Member
I agree, I'd love more wellmade lovecraft games. And that big budget film adaptation Guillermo Del Toro keeps talking about.

And as an added bonus, the purple haired people might be boycotting it because of his racism.
 

samoilaaa

Member
i agree but its so hard to do , it would take a really talented team to do it and a high budget ( at least 100 million ) , and nobody is gonna invest that kind of money on a game considering that not alot of people like lovecraftian media

i would really like an adventure pshycological mystery AAA game in cthulhu universe
 
i agree but its so hard to do , it would take a really talented team to do it and a high budget ( at least 100 million ) , and nobody is gonna invest that kind of money on a game considering that not alot of people like lovecraftian media

i would really like an adventure pshycological mystery AAA game in cthulhu universe
All they need to do is recreate one of these campaigns as a video game:

pic6530423.jpg
 

A.Romero

Member
Well let's be clear, Lovecraft wasn't some KKK cross burning racist. From what I've read, he perpetuated some narrow-minded stereotypes of black people. I think we can point to that and apply that criticism in those cases while at the same time appreciate the part of his work that made him famous posthumously.

I agree, not a reason to cancel the guy but at the same time I think there must be a reason why the same is not said for other authors of his time.

Just to clarify: I'm a Lovecraft fan and I'm not even American, don't have the cultural sensitivity to fully understand this stuff but at the same time it makes me curious why they always talk about how racist he was so I always thought he was particularly racist in comparison to others of his time.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
I agree, not a reason to cancel the guy but at the same time I think there must be a reason why the same is not said for other authors of his time.

Just to clarify: I'm a Lovecraft fan and I'm not even American, don't have the cultural sensitivity to fully understand this stuff but at the same time it makes me curious why they always talk about how racist he was so I always thought he was particularly racist in comparison to others of his time.

America seems to think it can white-wash (no pun) its history by erasing works and people from existence. Why Lovecraft gets special attention, I have no idea. <insert agenda here> I think it is far too easy to judge words from 100 years ago under the lens of 2023 and promote our moral superiority. I say leave the racist words for all to see and seek out context to be more informed of the time. But no, we rush to judge so we can signal our virtues.

Frankly, I think we should cast more doubt on those so willing to judge the mere existence of words than I am those who wrote them. But that's me.
 

Darkmakaimura

Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
61ZxKvQV9YL._AC_SL1001_.jpg


The Case of Charles Dexter Ward;
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath;
The Whisperer in Darkness;
The Shadow Out of Time;

The Cthulhu Mythos in general.


Give me that shit in Unreal Engine 5 with Ray Tracing. The last GOOD lovecraftian adaptation was Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (from 2005!). Yes, I don't consider Bloodborne an adaptation.

Is a shame that he was an huge racist/anti-semitic in personal life. I wonder if there are other book authors that we think different from them? I know we ALL can separate the author's personal view from the lore they created, obviously. I also know that if I posted this on a certain purple place I would get perma-ban in 2 seconds.
I'm almost surprised we haven't got a game based on the Dreamlands yet. It's the perfect blend of fantasy and horror and would fit so well as a video game RPG with all the different towns you can visit and everything else.
 

Alebrije

Member
The Colour out of space would make a great survivor game...

Fromsoftware took elements from this novel to develop Bloodborne and Elden Ring...
 
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Spank_Magnet

The Male Lewinsky
Weren't other authors at the time that didn't share their viewpoints on that stuff (assuming they had them because it was the norm)?

I mean, Mark Twain was publishing earlier and I believe he did come around on some views.
There are indications that HPL’s views softened over time and he did in fact marry a Jewish woman, Sonia Greene, (who described him as an “adequately excellent lover”!).
Anyone with even a passing interest in HPL’s work and weird fiction in general would do well to listen to the HPLHS podcast at https://www.hppodcraft.com/
(I would link it but for some reason linking ain’t working for me). Great production values, great commentary (they’re not afraid to laugh at some of his crappier stories) and some great insights into the man, his work and the world of weird fiction (it’s turned me on to Robert Chambers, Ambrose Bierce, Michael Shea among others). It’s subscription-based but worth every penny.
 
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A.Romero

Member
There are indications that HPL’s views softened over time and he did in fact marry a Jewish woman, Sonia Greene, (who described him as an “adequately excellent lover”!).
Anyone with even a passing interest in HPL’s work and weird fiction in general would do well to listen to the HPLHS podcast at https://www.hppodcraft.com/
(I would link it but for some reason linking ain’t working for me). Great production values, great commentary (they’re not afraid to laugh at some of his crappier stories) and some great insights into the man, his work and the world of weird fiction (it’s turned me on to Robert Chambers, Ambrose Bierce, Michael Shea among others). It’s subscription-based but worth every penny.

Thanks for the recommendation! I'll give it a listen.
 
A big budget Lovecraft game would be awesome. Call of Cthulhu and Sinking City were great, at least in the story department, but obviously suffered from jank and repetitive gameplay due to low budget. But I'd take a AA adaptation than have nothing. Lovecraft's stories and themes are notoriously difficult to adapt to video games, and don't really have mainstream appeal, which is why I think we'll never get a proper AAA Lovecraftian game (unless it's something that was inspired by Lovecraft rather than a direct adaptation, like Bloodborne)
yes! people really need to check these games out, particularly sinking city - it's the deadly premonition of last gen...
 
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