DESOLATIUM

My first impression of DESOLATIUM was genuine curiosity about its construction: SUPERLUMEN, a small Spanish indie studio, built each level by recording real physical locations in 360 degrees and then compositing 3D elements into those photographic environments. The result sits somewhere between a graphic novel and a diorama you can slowly rotate inside of. That visual ambition is the game's strongest quality, and when the lighting and geometry align, the locations carry a genuine unease that cheaper horror games can't manufacture. Mechanically, this is a node-based first-person point-and-click in the tradition of late-90s CD-ROM adventures, closer to Necronomicon or Dracula than anything built on a modern engine. You stand fixed at pivot points, rotate the camera a full 360 degrees, and hunt for interactive hotspots using a reticle cursor. Clues, notes, objects, and conversation prompts populate each scene. Puzzles include lockpicking a car door with a hidden security card, manipulating movement locks on doors, and the classic adventure-game rhythm of examining everything before you can advance. The loop is deliberate and unhurried. If you have no tolerance for pixel-hunting, that single save slot, or the occasional unclear pathway between nodes, DESOLATIUM will frustrate rather than absorb you. The story follows four characters - Carter, Sophie, James, and Christopher - each arriving at the Innsmouth-adjacent horror from a different direction, all searching for the same missing person. Multiple endings exist depending on which decisions you make, though the branching is quiet enough that you may not notice your choices landing in real time. The narrative borrows heavily from Lovecraft's canon, sometimes too heavily; dedicated mythos readers have flagged that the game name-drops Dagon, Cthulhu, Azathoth, and Innsmouth within its opening minutes, which flattens rather than amplifies the cosmic dread. For newcomers to the source material, that same density reads as world-richness rather than fan-service overload. The soundtrack deserves a separate mention. Composed with clear craft, it layers ringing bells and high-pitched synths over ambient environmental sound - footsteps, distant water, object handling - to produce something genuinely atmospheric. It is the part of the game that most lives up to the Lovecraftian promise. Voice acting is less consistent; some performances land, others fall flat and occasionally drift from the subtitles. The mixed-aesthetic character portraits used in dialogue - pulp-print collage style, distinct from the photo-realistic environments - add charm, though switching between the two visual registers can jar. The PC version on Steam currently sits at a mostly negative user rating from a small sample of reviews, so if you are weighing formats, that is worth noting before committing. Console reviews across different outlets trended more favorably, praising the presentation while acknowledging the short runtime, which lands somewhere around four to five hours on a single playthrough. Replay value beyond achievement hunting is limited once the endings are seen.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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