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Although I've watched countless pieces of media or played dozens of video games and board games based on the Cthulhu mythos and the works of HP Lovecraft, I was suddenly struck by a question that I don't think I had ever properly considered while writing this review of Big Bad Wolf's solid investigative puzzler: Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss. What does Cthulhu want?
Review information
Revised platform: PS5
Available in: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Release date: April 16, 2026
As I review audio logs, video diaries, and messages left by a research team and their billionaire financier in an abandoned underwater facility and an otherworldly city, I witness everyone succumbing to the call of the Ancient One and becoming obsessed with bringing about his return.
And while he had eventually solved some mysteries and smugly figured out how to keep Cthulhu asleep, he still didn't know what the great tentacle-faced beast had gotten out of all this, other than a few crazy, raving fanatics.
Can I be your number one fan?
I guess you could argue that's the point. Cthulhu is supposed to be a being beyond our understanding, from a place with impossible geography, so I should just take victory and be happy that I was able to prevent him from awakening before being included in the fandom.
But although some things may never be understood, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss It's about solving what you can. As an occult investigator, Noah, you use technology and your wits to explore grotesque and fascinating environments from a flooded swamp to the sunken city of R'lyeh. It's a game of searching for clues, absorbing relevant information, making connections, and discovering how it will help you stop Cthulhu.
What that ultimately means is that this is a game that requires a lot of reading, a lot of listening, and a lot of work outside of the game, shuffling the facts inside your brain as you piece them all together. Fortunately, it's never interrupted by the threat of a monster attack or an enemy stalking you throughout the area like a soma either Amnesia. A few wrong moves or wayward explorations will result in death, but it's easy to avoid if you pay attention.
To help visualize all your clues, you're given a sort of mind map that allows you to move clues around and make connections where you think they're relevant, but more often than not, the game will tell you the important questions you need to answer to progress.
Added to this is an energy system that allows you to analyze clues and elements, to better understand what they are and how they can be useful for your investigation. And while this is supposedly a limited resource, each area is full of mushrooms that you can use to recharge it (yes, Noah basically lights up like Mario), so I ended up scanning everything when I had the chance. That's why the whole system seems superfluous.
The same goes for upgrades and augmentations that you can find or earn on special tablets or shrines scattered throughout each area. You can only equip a limited number based on your maximum ability, but when all they offer are small bonuses, such as an increase in the range of your scanner or the ability to restore energy by analyzing clues, the decision of what to equip doesn't matter much.
Fortunately, you can still fully investigate and solve puzzles while both the power and augmentation systems exist in the background without needing you to interact with them. I can only assume that they must have been added to make Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss They feel more fun, but I don't think they add anything of value.
Jarvis, activate view all mode.
One aspect you'll be heavily involved with is the sonar built into your AI companion, Key. Using the frequencies you get by analyzing tracks, you can set and search for nearby items that match the frequency. This becomes a loop during some of the game's puzzle solving.
For example, a component made of a specific alloy may be missing from a piece of equipment, so you can scan the surrounding area for alloys that match that frequency to find it. Relatively simple, then, but the game expands on this idea several times by making certain key frequencies harder to find or requiring you to combine frequencies to find more specific items and secrets.
The best
There's nothing more satisfying than connecting the dots between several seemingly unrelated pieces of information and determining exactly what you need to do to progress. Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss It has several moments like this, and when you delve into a puzzle that comes together in an intricate and elegant solution, you feel like a genius.
I liked it quite a bit as an idea, but as with all of these special vision types in games (looking at you, Arkham Detective Mode), I ended up just looping around what I thought was a relevant frequency and spamming it at each new location to make sure I wasn't missing any clues.
That's not to say the game's puzzles are bad. I really enjoyed researching, and many solutions require you to assimilate all the information given to you. There are moments when you feel like you're uncovering the secrets of an ancient civilization, learning how to use its strange technology, or piecing together the lives and relationships of the original research team as they descended into madness.
What's also interesting is that the chapters give you two possible solutions to the main puzzle: one that pushes you further into Cthulhu's corrupting influence, and another (often a bit more elaborate) that lessens the Old One's control over you and the world. It's a good idea that rewards you for following a path other than the obvious one and encourages you to fully consider all the clues presented to you.
A sacrifice I am willing to make.
The decisions you make can affect the state of the world, the characters, and your ultimate ending, so I really appreciate a generally very linear puzzle game that offers some freer elements that give you more influence over the story, and the opportunity to try alternate paths if you feel stuck on one route or are interested in a second playthrough.
I doubt I'll dive back in as I'm happy with everything I got. Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss on the first try. It has some rough edges, namely an inconsistent autosave, which meant I had to repeat some steps when loading my game on a few occasions. There are also complicated object manipulation mechanics and some ideas that don't quite materialize.
However, its core investigation gameplay is solid and the atmosphere is suitably sinister, so I'm sure anyone who enjoys a puzzle game with a hint of cosmic horror will come away quite satisfied, especially for a budget release.
Should you play Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss?
Play if…
Don't play it if…
Accessibility
Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss It has two difficulty modes: Investigation and Exploration. The first is the standard experience, while the second allows you to ask your AI companion for clues and displays the clues available at each location. You can also set a custom option to modify how much corruption affects you and how energy is used.
Elsewhere, there are three color blind modes for green, red and blue color blindness, the option to make subtitles clearer, disable head movement to alleviate motion sickness and fully rebind all controls.
How I Reviewed Cronos: The New Dawn
I played Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss for about 8 hours on a PlayStation 5 Pro on a Samsung S90C OLED TV and a Samsung HW-Q930C soundbar while using a DualSense wireless controller.
I played the entire game in Performance mode and still experienced some glitches and slowdown moments, so I wouldn't risk Quality mode without a major patch.
While playing, I completed the game once and saw one of the possible endings, although I had to replay an opening chapter three times due to an autosave issue, which should now be fixed in the full version. However, I still found the autosave to be unreliable and that probably increased my total play time by at least an hour.
