Eresys is what an unfinished love letter to H.P. Lovecraft would look like. Developer Ares Dragonis, and publisher Dragonis Games, are clearly inspired by his works and do not hide it. With such admiration on display, I believe Mr. Lovecraft would almost have enough evidence to file a restraining order.

Those that do not know who H.P. Lovecraft is, you could be forgiven. More than likely, you would have been exposed to his work and not even realised it. His literary work of fiction in weird, horror, science, gothic, and fantasy, eventually created its own genre called Lovecraftian horror. Lovecraftian horror would be best depicted as the philosophy of Cosmicism.

Cosmicism is all about humanity’s insignificance in the cosmos and how we can all be swept away without a second thought to anything or anyone, and one of his most famous pieces is “The Call of Cthulhu”. So if you have read a book or played a game that has strong themes in incomprehensible, maddening horrors, that’s what you’re going to find here in Eresys.

The story of Eresys begins on Sentinel Island. On this island, a rouge faction of cultists performed forbidden rituals and spells leading to the release of the entity known as the Ancient One. The Ancient One continues to devour everything with its unceasing hunger and is never sated; it grows ever larger and stronger. You play as a cultist sent by The Council to stop the Ancient One from consuming all that is known to humanity.

Playing solo or up to four-player co-op, you first create the appearance of your cultist in the hub area called Council Temple, and once complete, you can embark to Sentential Island. You will arrive in first-person view at one of the few landing zones on the island. In this first-person view, you control your cultist in the general way of keyboard and mouse. Keyboard commands of move, jump, crouch, run, and use are assigned to the usual places and are completely re-mappable. The mouse allows you to look around and use held equipment. All movement is responsive, only having a slightly sluggish feel at times.

From there, you will make your way to a resource area to collect The Book Of The Council, a lamp, some oil, and vials. With these items, you will enter the island proper and the hunt will begin. You’re tasked with creating blood orbs to summon the Ancient One and collecting all 30 missing pages of The Book Of The Council to banish the entity. These tasks are not easy, as the otherworldly inhabitants now lurk about the island, just as hungry as the entity that created them.

You’re not completely defenceless against these monsters. The lamp and its oil hurt these monsters, causing them to flee, however, the AI behaviour of the lurking monsters is questionable. The idea is the monsters use the noise and your actions in the game to hunt you. This includes the in-game chat system, which in its current state is very hit-and-miss. I played this game with three others. MrVibe, RedGrave, and BrashRackham, and only half of us could be heard when speaking. We all agree that the AI needs further balancing. The monsters linger over your corpse when killed and do not flee very far away when harmed. This makes it near impossible to rescue your felled companion, often resulting in just wanting to give up when you’re the lone survivor.

With the tasks of summoning and defeating the Ancient One, you will begin with either creating the blood orbs, collecting pages, or a combination of both – the choice is yours. With the vials, you collect blood from victims scattered around the island. With enough blood collected, you can offer it at an altar which will create a blood orb. Doing this will further weaken the space between the human realm and the void beyond. In turn, more lurking monsters will arrive and become more aggressive, and once four are created, the ritual will be complete and the Ancient One will open the void.

This is where The Book Of The Council comes in. With the book, you can banish the Ancient One, stopping his influence on humanities realm, but you will need to find all 30 missing pages. However, rebuilding the book attracts the monsters, as they sense its ever-increasing power. While completing this task, you will also have the opportunity to collect lost relics. The lost relics will deepen the lore and can be looked upon back at the Council Temple, but they too carry some risk as you can attract monsters or even curse yourself.

The environmental graphics are perfectly on point with the Lovecraftian theme, being realistic and familiar, but with an otherworldly green, foggy atmosphere adding to its creepiness and maddening nature. The sound and music outside of the chat system also marry nicely with the theme. Flawlessly meshing with the immersion of being familiar but disturbingly haunting. There will be times you will question what you’re hearing. Is it the madness from beyond the void or just nature suffering from its influence?

Eresys has a long way to go before being a fully realised game. For an early look at what is here, the scope of ambition is exciting. If that ambition is successful, Eresys can easily become a great Lovecraftian horror co-op game.

Written by: Ashley Barnett-Cosgrove