Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is an upcoming narrative adventure game by Big Bad Wolf, the team behind titles such as Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong, and we here at Netto's Game Room were given the opportunity to speak to Director Tommaso Sergi ahead of the game's release to learn more.
The game will be available beginning April 16th, 2026, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, and players can learn more about the title by checking out our previous announcement article.
Before moving on to the interview, it is important to note that shortly after this discussion, we were provided with an early copy of the game for review. However, all questions were asked prior to us playing the game for ourselves. All images were also provided by Big Bad Wolf.
With that being said, let's move on with the interview!
Hello, my name is Ben and I'm one of the co-founders of our gaming website Netto's Game Room. Before we begin, can you introduce yourselves to our readers?
Hello, I’m Tommaso Sergi, Game Director at Big Bad Wolf.
Historically, we started as a studio specializing in the development of AA games that blend narrative and RPG mechanics, with expertise in branching narratives.
With The Council, our first title, we gave players the chance to build their own story by combining crucial choices, verbal confrontations, and puzzles.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong then built on this formula by adding more in-depth and demanding investigation phases.
Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss continues in this direction, pushing our investigation gameplay further than ever before.
Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is your new Lovecraftian thriller. Outside of the obvious, are there any other games or series that have served as a major influence while developing the game?
The following are just a few examples of references that have inspired us more than directly influenced us.
First and foremost, of course, are Lovecraft’s short stories. Even though they founded a genre that has since been adapted, both directly and indirectly, they remain a constant source of inspiration for us. I’m sure players will notice some direct references as they play the game.
We also draw from our previous games. While we wanted to reinvent ourselves and mark a break from our earlier titles, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss continues along that path.
More broadly, we stay very curious about the video game landscape and regularly play, test, and analyze what has been done in relation to the genre we are exploring. For example, Outer Wilds informed our thinking around investigation design, as did The Forgotten City. Dishonored 2 was also interesting to study for the way it offers alternative paths to reach the main objective.
For the first-person approach, which was a first for the studio, we looked at titles such as Cyberpunk 2077, Resident Evil 7, and Resident Evil Village as case studies.
Cthulhu itself is something that has been seen in multiple video games over the years, but each one tends to have its own take on the mythos—what would you say makes The Cosmic Abyss so unique and stand out from the others?
It would be presumptuous to claim that our game will dominate the competition, but we are convinced that it has its own identity.
Our approach stands out first through its futuristic setting and the choice of the city of R’lyeh, which allows us to reinterpret cosmic horror through the lens of a sci-fi horror thriller. This modernity directly informs the gameplay. We have adapted the classic detective’s tools into technological versions such as sonar, an energy system, and vaults. These are diegetic mechanics that preserve immersion while offering new and engaging investigation tools.
On the narrative side, we present an unusual duo for the genre: a human and an AI. The AI, by nature immune to madness, creates a strong contrast with the vulnerability of its human partner. This duality, combined with the real freedom given to players in how they conduct their investigations, forms the foundation of a distinct experience.
Finally, we did not simply adapt the short stories. We immersed ourselves in this universe to offer our own interpretation, with the ambition of surprising both long-time fans and newcomers, while remaining faithful to the source material and bringing something new to it.
I'll admit I'm extremely hard to scare, but the thought of being underwater has always been unsettling to me. How does the setting of a city at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean play into the game's horror elements? Can we expect to see terrifying sea creatures along the way, or is it simply the isolation in the unknown that will eat away at player's sanity as they progress?
We wanted to approach cosmic horror in its purest definition, where dread arises from contemplating a world that surpasses humanity in every way.
Horror exists in all aspects of the game, sometimes grim, sometimes fascinating, but always infused with mystery and the unknown.
Tension also emerges from the player’s own way of investigating. Imagine exploring an environment for twenty minutes, becoming familiar with a place. Then you find a new clue that unlocks a new frequency on your sonar, revealing traces left by a creature all around you.
In an instant, the place you thought you understood changes its nature and becomes hostile again.
This is just one possible scenario. Players might discover these elements in a different order, or miss some entirely while following other leads. This is where one of the game’s strengths lies: letting tension and twists emerge from a progression that is unique to each player.
This is not a game built around jump scares, but one that immerses players in an atmosphere and in environments where many elements can be deadly, whether the ruins themselves or the creatures that inhabit them. And in this world, no conventional weapon will be of any help.
Speaking of sanity, it actually plays a major role within the story. As our hero Noah progresses through the game, his mind succumbs to Cthulhu's relentless influence. Could you tell us a little more about how this system works?
The game integrates a corruption system that progresses in three distinct ways:
Scripted moments: powerful, unavoidable narrative events that impact every player.
Investigation resolutions: the way players resolve investigations directly influences their corruption level. Some paths preserve the character’s integrity, while others push them irreversibly toward the abyss.
The cost of knowledge: when players exhaust their consumables or choose to save them, they can accept a dose of corruption in exchange for energy points, which are necessary to deepen the analysis of certain clues.
Corruption mainly influences the game's endings and the resolution of your character's narrative arc, but not only that; its impact also affects upgrades and your build.
Some abilities can transform, improve, or break depending on whether your level goes up or down.
When it comes to the gameplay, this is a narrative heavy adventure, but how much of it are you in control of? And what about the exploration itself? This sounds like an extremely unique world, but how much of it will we be able to freely see for ourselves?
The player has a great deal of freedom.
From the start, the goal is to reward curiosity. Unlike in our previous games, we do not present explicit choices. Players need to understand their environment and uncover their own possibilities.
This premise fully guides the narrative, as we want players to carry out an investigation, rather than have it told to them.
Exploration, observation, deduction, and object manipulation sit at the heart of progression. In each chapter, players investigate freely within open areas.
The more curious they are, the more threads they can pull, allowing them to make informed decisions. The story unfolds at this pace, with different climaxes and endings depending on their progress and intuitions.
What about combat? Will we be able to fight off the monsters that await us, or is this a situation where running and hiding is the better option?
We want to put players in the shoes of an occult investigator exploring a universe that completely overwhelms them, which is why we ruled out combat from the start.
That said, the absence of combat does not mean the absence of danger. As mentioned earlier, no conventional weapon will be of any use here.
To survive, players need to understand the rules that govern this world, either by accepting them or by bending them to their advantage.
As with other horror survival style games, resources will be limited. Is this a game players can ultimately fail by being too wasteful? And will there be difficulty options for those who struggle with this type of style?
Although the game includes a resource management dimension, we primarily designed it to encourage and reward curiosity.
By exploring thoroughly and customizing their build with perks, players gain the tools they need to optimize their playthrough and complete the adventure.
That said, if players move too quickly or waste their resources, they still have one option: give in to corruption in exchange for energy points, allowing them to continue investigating at their full potential. It is a dangerous trade-off, as the higher the corruption, the deeper they sink.
Players do not need to be experts in the genre to progress, and they will always be able to move forward. However, their ending will depend on how they played.
Is there anything you can tell us about Noah's AI companion KEY? Will it provide at least some comfort, or will this still very much feel like an "alone" experience?
KEY is a fundamental component of the experience.
From a diegetic point of view, KEY explains Noah’s tools, as players interact with the world through its interface.
Narratively, KEY is his companion. If Noah is Sherlock, KEY is Doctor Watson, except they are in constant evolution.
More “human” than mechanical, KEY accompanies Noah throughout the adventure but cannot intervene directly in dangerous situations. This leaves him alone to face what he encounters, preserving the feeling of solitude.
In short, KEY is a powerful tool for both gameplay and narration, while raising a central question: who is really the tool of whom?
What would you say has been the biggest challenge when it comes to bringing this story and world to life?
In terms of adaptation, translating a universe that is, by nature, meant to be unimaginable was a considerable challenge. We also aimed to offer more permissive controls and to design gameplay tools that feel both innovative and enjoyable to use, while fully supporting the investigation experience.
On the technical side, the main challenge was the transition to Unreal Engine 5 and the adoption of its latest technologies, such as Lumen, Virtual Shadow Maps, Nanite, and TSR, while ensuring they aligned with our needs and artistic direction.
I know this is a bit too early to tell, but is Cthulhu something you'd like to revisit again in future titles? Or if not, could other stories by H. P. Lovecraft be featured in possible follow-ups?
Our ambition follows the same path we have set for ourselves so far: to continue learning, refining, and improving our formula in order to create games that are increasingly accomplished, ambitious, and distinctive.
Finding ways to make the experience emerge from the player’s actions remains a core pillar of the studio… and perhaps still within the Lovecraft universe.
Is there anything else you'd like our readers to know about Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss ahead of its April 16th release?
Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss is undoubtedly our most ambitious project to date, and it is a game we have carried with a great deal of passion.
We also invite players to discover the game’s original soundtrack, composed by Nicolas Garcia and performed in part by Tina Guo. It truly reflects the universe and stands on its own as a listening experience outside of the game.
It is a beautiful piece of work that we are all very proud of.
Thank you so much for your time! Before we go, we like to ask one last "for fun" question. In this case, if you could choose to work on any horror franchise (be that a movie, TV show, novel, game, etc), what would it be, and why?
If I had to choose from existing franchises, without mentioning the most iconic ones—Alien in a found footage format would be madness—I would say a game based on the universe of Dylan Dog.
It’s a comic book series that entertains me as much as it intrigues me. It follows the pulp tradition, with a recurring character, serialized stories, a focus on the horror genre, and wide publication in Italy, but it goes further than that.
There is a thematic depth and a literary dimension that set it apart from classic pulp. The character is an occult investigator, but he is never truly a match for what he faces. Often, he does not fully solve the cases, even if there is always a form of resolution.
That is what makes him human. A real sense of melancholy runs through the stories, along with a way of approaching death, fear, and solitude that goes far beyond the usual framework of the genre.
All of this comes with a touch of absurd humor that keeps it from becoming too heavy. In my opinion, it is a comic series that deserved the same level of international recognition as Corto Maltese.
Before we go, I'd like to say thank you once again to Tommaso Sergi for taking the time to answer our questions! Additionally for those who are interested in checking out the game early, you can head over to the Steam Page to try out the free demo today. And for more interviews from Netto's Game Room, don't forget to check out our Interview Page for more.
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