Lust for Darkness

Lust for Darkness is a 2018 erotic horror game, the debut title from Polish developer Movie Games Lunarium, published by Movie Games. Its story and visuals draw from the works of Zdzisław Beksiński, H. R. Giger, and H. P. Lovecraft. The game first launched on Windows and macOS, with SimFabric handling later ports for Switch in 2019 and PlayStation 4 in 2020. A sequel, Lust from Beyond, followed in 2021. Players take the role of Jonathan Moon, who has been searching for his wife Amanda for a year after her sudden disappearance. A letter from Amanda suggests she is held by a cult, leading him to a mansion where he discovers a sex cult performing an orgy meant to open a portal to a dimension called Lusst'ghaa, whose demonic inhabitants engage in sexual violence and torture. The game is played from a first-person perspective with stealth elements. Players solve puzzles, enter Lusst'ghaa, and must evade demons that chase them, eventually confronting the cult’s leader there. The developers attributed the transgressive nature of Polish games to a reaction against conservative religious movements. The Switch version was briefly removed from the North American eShop after release, returning on March 20, 2020, in an edited form rated "M" by the ESRB. An unedited version also remains available. A virtual reality version, released by Iron VR on October 26, 2021, is also offered in both unedited and ESRB M-rated versions. Reception was mixed on Windows and negative on Switch, according to Metacritic. Adventure Gamers praised its horrifying imagery but called it indiscriminately gratuitous and failing its premise. PC Gamer described it as a flimsy attempt at "Horny Amnesia," criticizing its juvenile, shallow treatment of sex and avoidance of sexual trauma and taboos. PC Magazine Australia called it a decent horror-adventure game, praising its visuals and refreshing focus on sexuality, but faulted a weak story and overemphasis on stealth and evasion over exploration. Digitally Downloaded felt it fell short of the standard set by Eyes Wide Shut but was still ahead of most game developers' simplistic horror. Nintendo Life found some unsettling scenes but deemed most of the content hollow grotesquery meant to provoke cringing.