It seems there’s been an uptick of Lovecraftian video games in recent years, some of the most memorable being Call of Cthulhu, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Bloodborne, Remnant: From the Ashes, Call of the Sea, and Dredge, to name but a few. Hell, there have even been Lovecraft-inspired spins-offs like the Sherlock Holmes’ DLC, The Awakened. Some of them have been fantastic and inventive, while others rely on troublesome mechanics and gimmicks, with unremarkable narratives. The Wickie: Journey of a Lighthouse Keeper is one of the most recent entries to arrive on the eldritch horror scene, with boasts of a rich story and Lovecraftian dread. Does it live up to its own hype, or will it fall into the dark depths of obscurity?

The real trauma I faced was trying to play this game.

Taking place in the 1930s, our protagonist, Bill Fisher, is stationed as an apprentice lighthouse keeper on the Outer Hebrides. Bill has no memories of his past, other than the vague knowledge that he was once a soldier. Accepting his role as a lighthouse keeper on the isles is his way to find peace after enduring terrors he cannot remember.

If you’re looking for more narrative and backstory, there’s not much more than this to be found, at least in the beginning. The Wickie: Journey of a Lighthouse Keeper is a game that provides little context to who you are and what’s happening on the isles. It simply drops you in and expects you to figure things out, much like The Sinking City or Myst.

The character’s personalities are as flat as their appearance.

Unfortunately, unlike those games, The Wickie: Journey of a Lighthouse Keeper is not as easy to navigate or even play. This game is loaded with so many bugs that it crashes constantly, making it nearly impossible to play for more than a few minutes at a time.

For example, in the very first room, you’re tasked with placing a skull into a wastebasket in order to unlock the door leading outside. The problem was I couldn’t grab and hold onto the skull. Instead, all I could do was knock it around, which eventually launched the skull into the wall behind it. This made completing the puzzle impossible, as there was no way to retrieve the skull once it had clipped behind the wall. Not the best start to say the least, but since I had only been playing for a few minutes, reloading my save wasn’t too egregious.

However, once I finally solved that “puzzle” (knocking the skull off the dresser and then dribbling it down the hall like a soccer or football player), I finally made my way outside…

It wasn’t the smoothest solution, but I got there eventually.

… and right into an area that instantly froze on me the moment I entered that new environment. I waited a while, clicking different buttons, and trying to pull up and menu screens I could before finally reloading my game again for the second time in less than fifteen minutes. Still not off to a blazing start.

When I reloaded the game, I thought it was crashing on me again because I was stuck in place and nothing was moving. However, after a minute or so (me still trying to get a response from anything in anyway I could), I saw something in the distance pop up. Then something else a little closer… a hill maybe? This is when my hopes finally soared when I realized I wasn’t fully frozen this time, it was just that the rest of the environment was taking a ridiculously long time to load. I later discovered that the reason I couldn’t move was that I was essentially “stuck” in the stone masonry texture that was loading last. In all, it took almost three whole minutes for everything to finish rendering so I could see the world around me and actually begin exploring.

I also got pushed off the gondola to the next island several times while attempting to cross, resulting in my slow death through drowning.

I won’t continue to take you along for all of the frustrations I experienced along the way. Just suffice to say that I fell off a few planks, drowned several times, got frozen mid-dialogue with one of the inhabitants of the island, missed a lever that was crucial to solving a puzzle to leave the first island, and then after finding said lever (and after reloading my game for the umpteenth time) getting launched out into the distance like an angry shot putter trying to settle a score.

Honestly, I’m really disappointed that The Wickie: Journey of a Lighthouse Keeper wasn’t released more fully developed. I love the concept of being dropped into a strange world with no exposition dumps, and only your exploration and puzzle solving skills being able to guide you through and make sense of things. I’d love to revisit this game someday when it’s in a more playable state, but as of now it’s more of a frustration than a challenge.

The Wickie: Journey of a Lighthouse Keeper is available now on PC.

Reviewed on PC with an i7-11700, RTX 3060, and 32gb of RAM.

A copy of The Wickie: Journey of a Lighthouse Keeper was provided by the publisher.