Cosmic Fear review

• Reviews by Serena Nelson
• Published:

Limited gameplay might be the scariest part of this compelling Lovecraftian sci-fi horror adventure

Where do we come from? Where are we going? Is there intelligent life out there beyond us terrestrials? These are just a few of the many questions we ask ourselves from time to time, and in Cosmic Fear we just might get some of them answered. But are they answers we really want to know? In this first-person 3D horror adventure by Alessandro Guzzo (The Land of Pain, The Alien Cube), we stumble down the proverbial rabbit hole as we delve deep into the mysteries of existence, in between running for our lives. It is rather short and feels more like a walking simulator with some survival elements than a typical adventure, but any fan of Lovecraftian horror or alien abductions should find something to like here, and if you enjoy both I highly recommend it just for the narrative and mood alone. 

You play as Benedict West, a researcher into the weird and unusual. After a very brief prologue, Benedict wakes up in his office and searches for the address of a couple who own a remote farmhouse and invited him to experience a “Great Ceremony” in the nearby forest. It’s never revealed exactly what this ceremony is, but we can infer that it’s a rare occult ritual. Benedict and his colleagues Rosa and Jakob are very much interested in the goings-on in said forest, but it seems that his coworkers left without him.

After arriving at the farmhouse, you find it empty. You’ll be spending most of this first chapter in daylight looking for keys to open various doors and finding scattered papers everywhere for clues as to what’s going on. These notes provide the bulk of the backstory about a mysterious cult at the center of the secret ceremony you’re there to witness. Just what this cult is and the nature of the ritual they’re trying to enact isn’t explained until much later in the game. What you do know is that they have holed themselves up in a castle where strange things have been happening, with reports of green lights and strange noises in the area. To find the answers you need, you’ll have to make your way to this castle and find out just what is going on.

Once you head out and begin searching the beautifully rendered photorealistic forest, it quickly becomes apparent that while neither the farmers nor your colleagues are anywhere to be found, you are nevertheless not alone. This becomes all the more alarming when night falls. Whereas the majority of the first chapter feels like a relaxing stroll, after dark the forest becomes a haven of nervous tension. The audio work really sets the tone for the rest of the game, as the noises and undercurrent of music had me on edge throughout most of my four-hour play time. And there is indeed a lot of fear to be felt in Cosmic Fear.

The sounds of the forest come at you quickly and never really stop. There’s plenty of howling, growling, hooting, and the rustling of the leaves and grass – even when you’re not moving. The wind in the boughs of the trees, and the crack of thunder and rain pattering are equally unnerving. The vast majority of sounds are of the various wildlife inhabiting the forest, but more disturbing are the grunting of what I can only describe as a rabid alien or otherworldly monster that ends up stalking you, and the noise of an unidentified flying object casting eerie lights overhead. 

You never get to see what Benedict looks like, but you’ll occasionally hear him speak and his voice actor sounds convincingly like a man gradually losing his sanity. The music is filled with creepy wind instruments and the beating of drums during the tensest sequences. I found myself constantly looking over my shoulder expecting something to jump out at me.

Occasionally my paranoia paid off, albeit at the expense of my heart beating like a mad drummer. A couple times you’ll be accosted by the savage beast, and to escape it you’re expected to sneak around or run as fast as you can before it gets you and munches on your tasty flesh. If you’re caught, the screen is splattered with your blood before fading to black, only to dump you back at the beginning of the nearest checkpoint. 

I could have really done without these survival sequences, as they’re a rather jarring and stressful experience. In fact, I had such a hard time with them that I had to look up a walkthrough just to get past them. If you make even so much as a single noise anywhere near this creature, it’ll catch on and chase you until you can outmaneuver it – or die trying. This thing is fast and will catch you rather quickly, making stealth the name of the game when the beast is prowling nearby. Unfortunately, I’m not particularly good at sneaking around in games.

Cosmic Fear

Genre:	Horror
Presentation:	Realtime 3D
Theme:	Myth/Folklore, Lovecraftian
Perspective:	First-Person
Graphic Style:	Photorealism
Gameplay:	Walking simulator, Exploration
Control:	Direct Control
Game Length:	Short (1-5 hours)
Difficulty:	Low
Action:	Chase

Otherwise, the story itself is gripping. From the get-go we’re treated to a Lovecraftian nightmare, pitting us against the unseen cult as whatever they’re up to needs to be observed, if not outright stopped. It appears they’re trying to summon something not of this world, and that our planet is in danger if they succeed. At the very least, the forest and its surroundings are in peril. There is a large helping of science fiction thrown in for good measure, as you face possible abduction by your typical grey-skinned aliens in a flying saucer.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the military has become involved, and all residents of the forested area have been shuttled off to some nearby refuge. This means that, aside from a disturbing number of corpses and blood, as well as a brief scene of Jakob yelling at you to find a way across a broken bridge, every location you visit is devoid of life. From the farmhouse and its surrounding area, you’ll eventually reach the small town where you were supposed to meet your friends. Some of the houses look like they were hastily abandoned. It’s graphically beautiful, if macabre, looking like it could have been any sleepy American town – albeit situated in the middle of a creepy forest, with some gory evidence of violence left behind. 

The game can be controlled via keyboard and mouse or a gamepad, and the default key bindings should be familiar: WASD to move around, spacebar to jump, and shift to run. Not much more is needed, as there are no real puzzles to solve in Cosmic Fear. The vast majority of the gameplay experience is just getting from point A to point B, which is probably the biggest letdown for me. 

There is a sort of inventory as you can pick up items, but you can’t look at them or even have a chance to use them. When you possess the right object needed to advance, a simple left-click in the correct place will automatically either unlock a door or plop it down where it needs to be. And aside from a few alien-looking artifacts, such as glowing orbs and purply cylinder thingies, most items you’ll be stuffing in your pockets are keys that open up new areas to explore.

A good portion of your time is spent in a semi-open world, and it can be very easy to get lost in the woods. I found myself running around in circles several times just trying to figure out where to go or how to find that one elusive item I needed to move on. Thankfully, you get a flashlight that will illuminate an (admittedly limited) area of darkness for you, and there are plenty of lamps and torches dotting the landscape to get you back on the right path. However, without a map or clearer markers, it is very easy to end up circling around and backtracking without realizing it.

There are a few items you can find that aren’t tied to the plot. These little statuettes can be picked up and count as “secrets” that may have an effect on subsequent playthroughs. After finishing Cosmic Fear, I got a popup stating that I’d found enough of these collectibles to open up various briefcase-looking things with a weird circle emblem on them. I have yet to do so, but while there’s only a single ending that I’m aware of, I’m curious enough about what these contain that I’m tempted to go through the harrowing experience a second time to find out.

Just like in most walking sims, much of the story is told through notes and letters littered around. Within the various houses and unnerving underground passages, these can be picked up and read. They’ll be added to your journal so you can re-read them, but none are strictly necessary to continue the story. Within them there’s talk of aliens or monsters, as well as a “pre-human” civilization, and what essentially amounts to either a “chosen one” or an ambassador of sorts between the nefarious cult and the beings they worship. The ending, unfortunately, feels a bit rushed as once you come face to face with the result of the cult’s plan, the game just…ends.

That said, despite its flaws and limitations, Cosmic Fear is generally fun to play. I was on the edge of my seat throughout my entire playthrough, and there are plenty of jump scares. Several times I literally leapt out of my seat in fear that another one of those beasts was about to charge out at me and kill me. In between the nerve-wracking scares, the mystery of this forest was so compelling that I had to make it to the end, despite my own sanity slowly eroding from fear. I really enjoyed the extraterrestrial angle, something that Lovecraft himself used a lot in his works.

Speaking of deaths, you can also meet your end by falling down deep shafts, which I found out the hard way. While running around, I abruptly found myself plummeting to my death when I wasn’t paying attention. Thankfully, like with the more grisly demises, the game will just deposit you back at the nearest save point none the worse for wear.

That’s good, because there are no manual save slots. The game itself will record your progress at various points, which thankfully are pretty frequent. Once you complete a chapter, it will be added to the selection list, allowing you to go back and replay it if you wish. Each chapter lasts roughly an hour or so, except for the fifth and final one, the shortest at about 20-30 minutes. While brief, the concluding chapter is one of the most visually stunning experiences in the entire game, and perhaps my favorite part of the whole. Without spoiling anything, this surreal and otherworldly environment can best be described as an alien structure, and it feels as if H.R. Giger designed this place.

Final Verdict

Cosmic Fear may be a fairly short walking simulator experience, but it’s a pretty good one. The various notes and letters you find scattered about really help establish the lore and will keep you wanting to find more of them just to discover what the hell is happening in this secluded forest. The ending may be a bit of a letdown, but the hair-raising journey overall outweighed my few gripes, especially the photorealistic artwork and atmospheric sounds that really sell the feeling of being alone in a hostile land. It’s perhaps more of an experience than a full-fledged game, and ideally I would have preferred there to be more to actually do, but being scared doesn’t always need to be particularly deep to have a good time.

Serena played Cosmic Fear on PC using a review code provided by the game's publisher.

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