Here my thoughts on the video game.

Transcript: The Call of Cthulhu video game from 2018 is directly based on the TTRPG by Chaosium. The game centers around a private investigator named Edward Pierce, who goes to Darkwater Island to investigate the Hawkins family. The game does not have much to do with archaeology at first glance. There are very few direct references and most are ancillary. However, because of the connections to the original Lovecraftian lore, connections can still be made and discussed.

First of all, there are several strange and mysterious artifacts that Edward encounters throughout the game. This includes a theft from the attic of the Hawkins house, a mysterious painting that can come to life, a ritualistic dagger, an amulet, and the dreaded Necronomicon. Of these, the ritualistic dagger is the most interesting because it has more connotations for the game itself, although I will come back to the Necronomicon.

However, the dagger can be found just before going to an ancient gallery in the Sander’s residence. It’s full of other old artifacts. Sanders is an art dealer, and one that has a fair collection as well. Connections can be made between this and the earliest form of museums in real life, known as curio cabinets. Much like in the game, these were usually collections of rich members of society that had the means to acquire them. They then usually displayed the artifacts and invited their friends and others so that they could boast about it. Sanders, much like these other examples, follows a lot of the same ideas.

It’s an interesting nod to archaeology, and the ritual dagger being an ancient artifact itself lends to the Lovecraftian idea that some things are better left uncovered.

The Necronomicon, meanwhile, is a clear nod back to many of Lovecraft’s works that have to deal with archaeology directly. In the game, it is discovered in a safe of a bookstore. It doesn’t play a major role in this game, but the presence of it demands some attention. It is a book better left unread, one that is often from an exoticized culture, and one that often drives the reader mad.

Lastly, near the end of the game Edward ends up near a cave which, upon entering, is full of cyclopean architecture. This is a fairly big nod to both Rats in the Walls and At the Mountains of Madness. While there’s not much detail about it in the game, in both stories that kind of architecture is often viewed as more ancient than people thought possible and that intrigued those who had any interest at all in history or archaeology. In real life, it usually refers to Mycenaean architecture, which was believed to have been built by the Cyclopes by the ancient Greeks. The Mycenaean culture to the Greeks was much like our time to theirs, and they had just as many myths as we do about them.

Lovecraft, drawing on this idea and using it as a type of architecture that only ancient elder beings could have designed or commissioned or built themselves is a fascinating one, and it would have been supported fairly well by the archaeologist or classicists of his time.

It’s a shame that there wasn’t a little more directly related to archaeology in this game, seeing as the TTRPG emphasizes it a lot more. Perhaps a sequel to the game, if one ever comes to fruition, will incorporate it a little more.