While several video games have previously tapped into Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, an official license has never before been granted to a developer. The story follows Charles Dexter Ward, who is investigating the mysterious exploits of his ancestor, Joseph Curwen, who became notorious for lurking in graveyards, conducting strange experiments, and never showing signs of ageing. Ward begins to reproduce some of Curwen's experiments, and from thereon, things becomes very weird.
The game will be set in Lovecraft's hometown of Providence, and the character of Charles Dexter Ward bears more than a passing resemblance to Lovecraft himself.IGN spoke with the game's developer Agustín Cordes, who explained the arduous process of acquiring the Lovecraft license. "It took me about 18 months just to negotiate the license for the project," he says. "It wasn’t easy, and indeed, this isn’t typical in video games.
"Usually, developers choose to deal with Chaosium Inc. who owns the more common “Call of Cthulhu” license. It’s probably the easier path, and we have seen plenty of such spin-off games in the past — and some really amazing ones such as Shadow of the Comet — but this is the first true, official one directly based on the only novel written by Lovecraft."
The project is starting life on Kickstarter, as was the case with the studio's other game currently in development, the Lovecraftian-influenced Asylum. The developer is also hinting that should it prove successful, future adaptations of Lovecraft's works are possible. The project will also receive assistance from renowned Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi.Senscape has a track record of developing horror-influenced adventure games, previously releasing cult title Scratches and the short mystery game Serena. Daniel is IGN's Games Editor over in London. He sometimes writes about movies, too. You can be part of the world's most embarrassing cult by following him on IGN and Twitter.