Summary
- NightDive Studios excels at reviving classic games, like System Shock, with quality improvements for modern audiences.
- The remastered version of The Thing was well received, showing NightDive’s potential to revitalize another cult classic, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.
- NightDive’s specialization in working with and acquiring the rights to lost or forgotten properties makes it a perfect fit to possibly remaster Dark Corners of the Earth.
NightDive Studios is a developer that has carved out a unique niche within the industry since its formation in 2012. While gamers have gotten an increasing number of remasters and remakes of beloved and/or forgotten games from various studios in the past few years, NightDive was basically formed with the explicit intention of reviving defunct but previously popular IPs. These were often ones that had become abandonware or were otherwise stuck in legal limbo regarding their rights and licenses. NightDive built its reputation on bringing back a range of classic games that had since slipped through the cracks, with the System Shock: Enhanced Edition in 2015 and subsequent full remake in 2023 being some of its most notable projects.
NightDive’s most recent release, The Thing: Remastered, brought the 2002 title up to par through the studio’s trademark quality of life and graphical improvements to more fully realize its vision and provide a smoother experience for current audiences and hardware. The remastered version received largely positive reviews from fans and critics, further solidifying NightDive’s status as delivering quality titles of its kind. On the heels of this success, and given its history and choice of games to revive, there’s another long-dormant horror cult classic worth updating that would align extremely well with the developer’s general taste and expertise: Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.
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NightDive has become well known for their fantastic remasters of older games, making them accessible and enjoyable for modern audiences.
NightDive Studios Remastering Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth Would Be a Match Made in Heaven
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth Deserves a Remaster
Developed by Headfirst Productions and published by Bethesda for the Xbox in 2005 (and ported to PC in 2006), Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth was an early attempt at marrying H.P. Lovecraft’s visions with game design at a time when doing so was much less prevalent. Essentially an adaptation of Lovecraft’s classic tale, “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” Dark Corners of the Earth featured recognizable chunks of the story’s framework, characters, and themes along with its own original takes into an FPS with stealth sections and puzzles sprinkled in. The resulting game experience could be described as akin to an immersive sim-lite. Though it was praised for its ambition and style, it also had notable flaws, with difficulty spikes and sometimes uneven direction detracting from the overall intent.
Despite that, one element that Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is most often remembered for is accurately recreating the gloomy Innsmouth atmosphere and unsettling depiction of its bizarre citizens. It played up the otherworldly fear, paranoia, and hostility intrinsic to the story, making them a core part of its mechanics and presentation in intriguing and fitting ways. In the time since, there have been a plethora of video games inspired by Lovecraft that sought to capture the same feeling. With 2025 marking its 20th anniversary, there might be no better time, and no better developer, than NightDive to try resurrecting Dark Corners of the Earth for the modern era.
Dark Corners of the Earth remains available on Steam and GOG, but is noted to still contain various bugs and performance issues present in the original.
Why NightDive Studios Remastering or Remaking Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth Would Be the Perfect Fit
NightDive has amassed an impressive track record of revitalizing and updating some forgotten but fondly remembered titles, with its catalog including projects like:
- PowerSlave Exhumed
- Star Wars: Dark Forces
- Shadow Man
- Bladerunner
- Turok
- Blood
- Forsaken
- Killing Time
- I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is considered a cult classic in many circles. It could easily fit into the above range of IPs that were either overlooked or underappreciated, or were simply left to languish in legal obscurity before NightDive rescued them. The Thing: Remastered is just the latest example in the long line of the studio’s success and talent with building upon these games’ original potential and improving them with modern sensibilities. There’s good reason then to believe it could do so for Dark Corners of the Earth.
On top of the high-quality production and attention it puts into reworking games themselves, NightDive has displayed a knack for navigating and untangling the complicated issues usually surrounding the ownership status of lost and abandoned game properties. Call of Cthulhu seems to fall into this category, and the studio likely has the necessary experience and knowledge to acquire the rights if it desires. Although NightDive hasn’t announced any official intention to remaster or otherwise revive Dark Corners of the Earth, it would nevertheless be a great fit for it to possibly consider. A potential remaster or remake would continue NightDive’s proven streak of delivering new versions of titles from prior generations that may have slipped through the cracks in one way or another, but are primed to reap the benefits of the studio’s patented upgrades.
