Game: Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
Platform: GameCube
Genre: survival horror
Style: heavy Lovecraft influences
Verdict: Highly Recommended
Buy: Amazon
When I think of great Lovecraft-style video games, I think of Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. To date, this is the game I’ve played that best captures that type of horror.
Eternal Darkness is famous for its sanity effects. This is certainly an interesting part of the game (especially if you don’t know what to expect going into it), but that’s not actually why I rank it so highly.
While it doesn’t follow a traditional survival horror structure, with many playable characters and levels, a stronger focus on action, and an emphasis on using magic, its story is about as Lovecraftian as you can get without directly involving the mythos.
Eternal Darkness follows a young woman named Alex Roivas whose investigation into her grandfather’s mysterious murder leads her to discover the Tome of Eternal Darkness and all the people’s whose fates have been tied to it, as well as a dark plot to summon one of the Ancients into the world.
The twist is that you get to play a chapter as each of those people involved in the story.
These chapters take place in different times and locations, and each feels like a short horror story in its own right, all tied together into an overall plot. In a way, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem feels like a Lovecraft-inspired anthology with its own overarching mythos, and the result is incredible.
In short, as long as you can play GameCube games, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Reqiuem is one you shouldn’t miss!
Buy: Amazon