PC
I’m very much a latecomer to the world of Lovecraft. Despite the number of stories, games, authors, movies, and on and on that were directly influenced by the writer’s works, I just had a big gap in my knowledge of the source. In recent years I’ve begun to explore it much more, inspired by listening to the truly wonderful dramatic podcast The Lovecraft Investigations. Which also means I arrived to the work already knowing quite what a revoltingly hateful racist Lovecraft was, affording me the luxury of parsing his stories through that lens rather than only learning about it afterward and having all that horrible realisation.
The Dark Rites of Arkham is the third game from José María Meléndez, following the very splendid Nightmare Frames and even better An English Haunting. While the influence of Lovecraft is visible in both previous games, in Dark Rites the themes are entirely overt, the game piecing together various aspects of a number of Lovecraft’s tales, in the story of two detectives attempting to solve a gruesome murder in 1933. And like An English Haunting, the game does not shy away from the racist attitudes of the early 20th century, instead casting central characters who offer us a channel through which we can object. This is a game in which the non-cosmic antagonist is a racist arsehole, and in writing the story this way the game quite neatly demonstrates its objection to the creator of its source material.
Detective Jack Foster is back on the force, after being put on leave following what appeared to be a severe breakdown. His former partner had killed himself on the job, and Foster was convinced he’d been influenced to do so by some sort of malevolent evil. As such, his return is not welcomed by his colleagues, and he’s treated as a pariah. With the exception of newer detective Harvey Whitman. Whitman, a former psychologist, is particularly interested in the actions of various cults and ritualistic killings, making him the ideal partner for Forster as he begins investigating the seemingly impossible beheading of an unidentified man. Found in a locked room, the headless corpse is discovered lying on a satanic-looking symbol painted on an apartment floor, the head seemingly torn off. The only other clue in the room is a peculiar burn mark up one of the walls, below which lies a smouldering severed arm.
Dark Rites wastes no time getting all spooky. In a refreshing move, Foster doesn’t have to be convinced of the unnatural and mystical, not least because of his own recent experiences, and so the pair immediately start looking into less rational explanations for the murder. This very quickly takes you to the Arkham Museum of the Unusual, which contains all sorts of easter eggs and treats for Lovecraft fans, as well as a stolen Innsmouth figurine that the two want to return to a rather fishy character running an antique shop in town.
What unfolds is a splendidly varied adventure that swoops in and out of various Lovecraft tales, with eldritch horrors and ancient threats, backwoods cults and alien technology, and plenty of good-natured banter between the two leads.
Once again, Meléndez demonstrates what an extraordinary pixel artist he is, with both the character art and animation, and the luscious backgrounds. The writing is solid, if perhaps a little too on-the-nose too often, and Foster is an entertainingly anachronistic sort of grump (at one point he says something is a “bummer,” which puts him a good 35 years ahead of that term arriving in the vernacular!). There’s one incredibly clumsy attempt at talking about racism of the era, in which a black woman rides a bus without money for a ticket, and the detectives confront the racist bus driver, but then elsewhere it does a much better job of evoking the anti-immigration attitudes of that time (and indeed this), without it feeling like a “life lesson.”
I’m so delighted Meléndez is making these fantastic games. They really do measure up to the output of the Wadjet Eye family, which is no small compliment, and deliver a classic point-n-click adventure without being arch or (ironically given the development studio name) postmodern about it. It’s a real pleasure to be playing an old-school adventure without the game feeling the need to be self-referential about it, and instead letting you focus on the specific story. (And yes, OK, there is a slightly sarcastic moment in which Foster picks up a ladder, and a couple of “of course it couldn’t be that simple” lines of dialogue, but shhhh.)
Lovecraft fans should be delighted by the huge number of references and inspirations on display here, while creating a new story set in that world. And non-Lovecraft fans can still enjoy a fun, smartly-created point-n-click adventure with spooky happenings, grisly scenes and very likeable characters. An English Haunting remains my favourite of the three, but The Dark Rites of Arkham is a very close second.
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