Cyanide Studio recently handed out a limited number of preview keys for Call of Cthulhu -- its psychological horror "Investigation-RPG" based on the Pen and Paper classic of the same name and H.P. Lovecraft's short story and other Lovecraftian lore. So we said yes, and played through all four available chapters.

We said yes because we've been pretty excited about what we've seen hands-off in preview sessions, but there's nothing quite like playing for yourself and formulating a far more informed picture of what sort of product we might all have here.

Here's an excerpt"

Cyanide Studio, I’ve said in the past, is a developer “verging on Triple-A success”, based on my studio-handled preview sessions with Call of Cthulhu, so it was with great enthusiasm I said yes to being handed a preview key for a PC build of the game where I’d get to experience the game’s first four chapters. What I came through with after playing through all four chapters is that based on this preview build alone Cyanide is definitely an ambitious developer, but that budgets, chapter-focus, pacing and promises are all a bit of a mixed bag ranging from subpar to outstanding, with increments in between. All combined, I had a great time with the game, but it’s clear that there’s areas the studio poured more resources and love into over others, which in preview form gave me a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde experience, to maintain the horror theme.

For example, you kick off the game in a nightmare, which is intense (and interactive), only to awaken on your couch in your office. It’s the early 1920s in Boston, Massachusetts and you play as Edward Pierce -- a Private Detective fighting his own post-war demons with a concoction of antidepressants, sleeping pills and good old-fashioned whiskey. Interestingly, one of the first things you can do in your office is take a drink from a glass of whiskey on your desk, nestled nicely next to a paper clipping about prohibition. Doing so, however, nets an in-game warning that “this will affect your destiny”. How it will doesn’t really play out within the first four chapters, so what impact it has will remain to be seen, but that the game is already telling you decisions you make manifest unique outcomes speaks to the aforementioned ambition of Cyanide’s vision.

Click here for our in-depth Call of Cthulhu hands-on preview.