Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land

Lore & Background

The game's narrative follows Professor Brightmeer, called in 1915 by Britain's secret service MI-47 to join Captain Hill in France during the Great War. They track a cult led by Docktor Kaul, who uses stolen re-animation technology from Herbert West combined with arcane mythos magic to build an undead army from war casualties. The player fights German soldiers, undead, and Cthulhu Mythos monsters including Dark Young and hybrid Star Spawn of Cthulhu, eventually confronting Kaul in his underground lab where a machine generates monsters and powers a ritual to summon a full Star Spawn. The larger plot involves the cult seeking to eliminate humanity to clear Earth for a hybrid species of part human, part Star Spawn.

Reader's Guide

Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land is significant as an early mobile adaptation of the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, blending turn-based strategy with RPG stats from the paper version. Its development, influenced by Lovecraft's writings and the RPG, took about a year, announced in May 2011. The game was generally well received, with The Guardian recommending it and T3 Magazine calling it 'stunningly complex.' Some reviews noted control sensitivity issues, which developers claimed to address in an update. Wired's GeekDad released a review to coincide with the 75th anniversary of Lovecraft's death, underscoring his ongoing cultural influence. The game's legacy lies in demonstrating how Lovecraftian themes could be integrated into tactical gameplay on mobile and PC platforms, though ComboCaster gave it 6.8 out of 10, praising the setting and Lovecraft inspiration.

Did You Know?

• The game was released in 2012 for iOS in January, for PC in May, and for Android in June.
• It bases some of its narrative on Lovecraft's novella Herbert West–Reanimator.
• The developer described the gameplay as evolving from something like Fire Emblem or Advance Wars to more like X-Com.
• The game's designer, Tomas Rawlings, said he had talked to Chaosium about a video game adaptation on a number of occasions before the stars aligned.