Lovecraft was a deeply unhappy man whose inherent fear of everything led to extreme views on racism and xenophobia. There are a lot of supporters of Lovecraft out there (for his non racist writings) who come up with justifications to excuse away how the man thought and spoke. Here’s the thing: you can come up with any number of reasons why it’s less bad than we think it is, but that doesn’t change the overall harm that thinking and speaking creates. I may love my grandfather, but I certainly looked and thought of him differently after he mumbled a slur at the man trying to repair his car. The point is, we can appreciate the godfather of cosmic horror for what he penned, but we must condemn his viewpoints. Which is why I adore that Call of the Elder Gods has such a strong, likeable woman of color as the protagonist.

The raised eyebrow, the poised hair, she is ready to confront horrors beyond comprehension!

If you’ve played Call of the Sea, then you’ll be picking up the plot after the canonical ending of the game with many things established. Norah, the previous protagonist, has passed away, but is still the narrator for this tale. Harry, her husband, is dean at Miskatonic University and dealing with dark visions that plague his waking life. We now also introduce Evangeline, a young woman who is having a recurring dream/nightmare about a bizarre, ritualistic land she has never seen before, and a precious idol that is connected to Harry’s own hallucinations. After a rather rough encounter with a fake psychologist, Harry and Evangeline decide to work together to discover the truth of these premonitions, diving deep into the world that Out of the Blue created. Heavily inspired by The Shadow Out of Time, you’ll delve deep into mysterious lands and untold horrors to discover the truth.

Just as Call of the Sea wasn’t a horror game, Call of the Elder Gods has a good level of uneasiness and potentially upsetting elements, but you needn’t be worried about jump scares and insta-deaths waiting around every corner. Shifting perspectives from either Eva or Harry’s POV, you’re instead engaged in a longform puzzle first person exploration, more similar to The Witness, but with incredible dialogue and plenty of insightful, expositional moments that capture the player’s attention and hold it for the duration. While you may be wary of beholding certain creepy situations, the narration and the overall storyline keep players more situationally focused on what’s happening and the deeper throughline about what tale is being told. While I apologize for being obtuse, I want to make sure I obfuscate some of the details regarding plot twists and the connection between the first and second game for spoilers’ sake.

“Evie…have you ever heard of Gak?”

There is so much that I sincerely want to love about Call of the Elder Gods, particularly in the visual and audio presentation department. The entire game is crafted from the ground up with truly spectacular landscapes and backdrops, moving from college dormitories to stately mansions, undersea caves and ancient ruins to otherworldly pockets of reality that are shaped by the eldritch gods that inhabit Evie and Harry’s nightmares. It’s a feast of colors and shadows, of details and minute ideas that can evoke multiple angles and concepts of human wonder and terrifying possibility. Because of the time period where the games are set (1930s-40s) you have this beautiful detail in the clothing and the mannerisms of the time that also elevate the overall sensation. It really grabs the eye and ensures that you have a full feast with every passing screen, opened drawer and investigated notebook.

Not to mention the phenomenal job of the voice crew that gives aural life to the cast of the game. Harry is once again voiced by Spider-Man himself, Yuri Lowenthal, and adds a new dimension to his character being older, more fanatical and despondent by time, and also wary but hopeful about the shared madness he and Evie are witnessing. Evangeline herself is voiced by Mara Junot, delivering powerful lines of eagerness in discovery, staunch bravery before adversaries and desperate hope when certain hallucinations begin appearing. Norah is once again reprised by hailed veteran Cissy Jones, who brings wit, omniscience and a touch of wistful melancholy as she watches her dear, widowed husband work so hard to discover secrets that they both sought together in happier times. As a radio play, this crew, along with several other important performances (Regi Davis kills his role!), would make a compelling audio drama.

Crimes are only crimes if you get caught. Solid life lesson.

The story is a brilliant one, unfolding in a methodic, measured pace that helps to build rapport with the characters as well as tension throughout the discoveries that Harry and Evie encounter. Harry has certainly developed a level of caution and cynicism since Call of the Sea, and with good reason, and going through his perpetual grief while still marveling at what the cosmos contain is a wonderful journey. Evie, likewise, is truly a delight, and has her own personality of brash and bold moves coupled with real moments of vulnerability and almost childlike fear. While I won’t spoil the ending, the quest for answers takes the duo to some truly fantastical locations and, yes, gives you the choice over how the tale ultimately concludes.

For better or worse, though, Call of the Elder Gods is a game, which means adding in gameplay elements. To their credit, Out of the Blue Games really did their best to help players who are less inclined for puzzle solving and just want to focus on moving the story ahead. There are plenty of nods throughout the story to let you know what should happen at any given point, not to mention a very detailed and patient hint system that is built into the main menu for players who straight up want the answers. It doesn’t penalize you whatsoever, and it should, theoretically, make things go quicker so you can continue with the plot and discover everything about shadowy societies and bizarre, cultish activities.

I think I went to high school with him!

But it doesn’t. I really, and I mean really, am bad at puzzles, and there’s a certain degree to which I like my mind itching when I’m attempting to put things together, and the satisfaction that arrives when the puzzle is completed. But Call of the Elder Gods has very uneven pacing with how the puzzles arrive and how the player needs to piece them together. It has the sensation that the story was written, from start to finish, as an epic that helped to fully honor the works of Lovecraft while simultaneously putting together something new, different and remarkable. Then, when it was all finished and polished, there was a moment where the team realized that there wasn’t anything else present except walking and talking, with occasional investigation. “Let’s drop in puzzles to slow the player down,” is what the mentality seems to have been.

While it’s not as shoddy as suddenly just having a puzzle present, I felt there was a lack of cohesion to make the puzzles worthwhile or feel natural within the world. Some, like filling an oxygen tank or developing film, made perfect sense. Others, like needing to carefully deduce the placement and hieroglyphic signs that made up five birthdays, just dragged everything to a screeching halt. Even with the hint guide, puzzles just became this drawn out chore of clicking on everything, looking at everything, waiting for your notebook to fill up, and then divining how to rotate rings to activate a machine or how much water was needed to get the right degree of eldritch black blood. You get exceptionally excited for where the narrative is headed, but then need to slam on the brakes so you can do someone’s math homework.

From this, Evie became a dive instructor and gave up on archeology. The end!

To best enjoy Call of the Elder Gods, you either need to love puzzles more than storytelling or at least be completely enamored with the first game. As someone who only watched, not played, Call of the Sea, I was not the target audience, and so my time with the puzzles inside Elder Gods was a stagnating, exhausting exercise in patience and repetition. I would watch this television show, read this book and gleefully experience the movie. I personally would not play this game again, no matter how well constructed the world and characters are. This will be a call that some of you excitedly answer; for me, I’m letting it go to voicemail. 

Call of the Elder Gods is available now on Steam, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2.

A copy of Call of the Elder Gods was provided by the publisher.