10 Video Games Inspired By H.P. Lovecraft

Players jumping blindly into Cultists Simulator are in for a rough time, but that’s a deliberate design choice. The game features no tutorial whatsoever, and the title seems to be more interested in keeping secrets than explaining how to play. In a way, learning the fundamentals of the game is its main challenge.

Enhanced by writing that could easily have been penned by Lovecraft himself, Cultist Simulator asks players to sort through a menagerie of strange artifacts and mystifying elements and somehow derive meaning from it all. A surreal pursuit for even the smallest scrap of forbidden knowledge, players come to realize that they know even less than they did to begin with as they pore over old tomes and make deals with shifty characters who provide answers to questions they cannot yet ask.

It can be a profoundly frustrating experience, particularly for those who aren’t patient enough to make it past the game’s extreme learning curve. Still, playing through Cultist Simulator feels akin to being the protagonist of a Lovecraftian story; we are hounded by a lust for horrible truths, and our pursuits shall end in our ruin.