Whether they’e trying to scare you or not, many games take just as much inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft as the literary world. The concept of a cult or society hiding a dark secret that involves elder gods or cosmic entities is a trademark of Lovecraft and games that seek to create the same type of atmosphere. The idea of powers that exist so far beyond human comprehension and in turn, humanity’s place in the universe is unimportant, is embodied in the many creatures and gods he’s created. A lot of the time, these gods and deities were nonsensical in their design or purpose to illustrate how humanity couldn’t grasp the workings of the universe if they tried. The absolute and dour nature of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos is essentially a disempowerment fantasy. In games, this is much harder to achieve since every action you take would be outlined by the fact that none of what you do matters.

That’s not to say that it can’t be done in video games. A lot of what makes Lovecraft’s stories compelling is the sense of discovery and connecting the dots between the different stories to make sense of the world. Games like Bloodborne and Demon’s Souls do this exceptionally well by obfuscating a large amount of information from the player but leaving clues throughout the game to fill in the gaps. This leaves a lot of room for interpretation but it wouldn’t be Lovecraft if the narrators weren’t as unreliable as the universes they inhabit. Most of the time, the very idea and implied existence is the most unsettling aspect of the eldritch creatures in these stories. These 10 blasphemous creatures embody H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror better than any other.

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