Cthulhu Mythos features tons of otherwordly creatures, each one with its own set of strengths and weaknesses. In The Sinking City, developer Frogwares included several creatures that were directly inspired by Lovecraftian lore. It’s no surprise then that The Sinking City 2 will contain even more creatures inspired by Cthulhu Mythos.
Game Rant recently spoke to The Sinking City 2 publishing director Sergiy Oganesyan, where he discussed the process of turning Cthulhu Mythos into video game creatures as well as the development team’s approach to creating enemies that fit into the Lovecraftian world.
How Frogwares Stays In Line With The Cthluhlu Mythos While Also Creating New Creatures
Many of the creatures thought up by H.P. Lovecraft aren’t described in great detail, which gives The Sinking City 2 devs room to work on designing creatures that are unique yet fit in with the Cthulhu Mythos. This universe, however, isn’t just about “weird monsters and creepy designs,” according to Oganesyan, but loneliness, isolation, and a philosophical belief in cosmic horror and humanity’s role in the universe. All of this serves as the world-building and level design foundation for The Sinking City 2, all while allowing a certain degree of freedom. As Oganesyan said,
“It’s extremely rewarding because there is so much source material to use as inspiration, but you never feel you are tied down to an overly strict narrative, established characters, etc. Yes, there is a lot of set doom and gloom that you need to stick to, but it’s very open-ended in a lot of ways. So much of what Lovecraft wrote left a lot open to interpretation. Certain creatures are only hinted at or are very vaguely mentioned. If you look online, there are continual debates on people trying to establish a “creature hierarchy,” and while some of it is clear and set, there are many spots where people just simply can’t agree based on written ‘fact.'”
Creating creatures that are unique yet fit in with Lovecraftian lore will give players plenty of interesting combat encounters. Each creature is set to have its own set of behaviors, meaning that players will need to pay close attention to creature movements and their attacks in order to figure out how best to handle a situation.
The Process Of Turning The Creatures Into Video Game Enemies
Creating a video game is no mean feat, as countless hours of research and design go into crafting worlds for players to get immersed in. It’s also one thing when it’s an in-studio universe, but utilizing a fan-favorite mythos is another thing entirely. Cthulhu Mythos is something else beyond even that, especially because of the open-ended nature of the universe. To tackle it, Oganesyan detailed how everything begins with narrative design in The Sinking City 2. The team has collected every canonical description H.P. Lovecraft ever wrote, which in turn helps them understand key elements for designing new creatures. They also try to understand how each creature can not only fit into the game (as enemies, bosses, characters, etc.) but also a Lovecraft “monster hierarchy.” Speaking to the process that follows this, Oganesyan said,
“Then our concept artists need to visualize the idea based on the input from the game designers, tech and optimization artists, animators, etc. You have no idea how many guidelines and constraints there can be! We have plenty of metrics that guide us through the development – how wide a room is, how fast the main character is, etc., and each monster has to be designed with those in mind. Once we have all that, we can then create a 3D model, optimized for the game, and send it for test animations. If everything is in order, the model is finalized, and the most difficult part begins, creating gameplay.”
Thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, the developers at Frogwares now have the resources required to create these new creatures in The Sinking City 2. It’ll be interesting to see how fans receive them and what they add to the Lovecraft lore, but based on Oganesyan’s description of the process, it’s clear how much love the developers have for the Mythos.
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