Hack things, go mad, in cyberpunk cosmic horror adventure Transient
Announced at Gamescom 2020, lovecraftian horror meets cyberpunk tropes in upcoming adventure game Transient from Stormling Studios and Iceberg Interactive. Transient takes place in an enclosed, domed city called Providence—the last place human beings can survive on a post-apocalyptic Earth. The player is a hacker, Randolph Carter, who in the pursuit of a puzzling mystery does the usual cosmic horror protagonist thing and "stumbles across the terrifying truth, a truth that might tear apart his own sanity and lead him to question his very existence."
Classic Randolph.
Blending cyberpunk and cosmic horror isn't new, but it is generally pretty interesting fare. The themes of losing one's mind within a larger system, or the experience of greater-than-human consciousness causing revolting despair, are themes within both genres. Transient looks to be a first person horror adventure game, and the focus is on riddles, puzzles, and hacking.
If you recognize the name Randolph Carter, that's because it's a direct reference to H.P. Lovecraft's stories. An occult scholar and war veteran named Randolph Carter features in multiple short stories by Lovecraft—which I don't remember as being any of the egregiously racist ones, but memory is a fickle thing and I digress. Carter is someone who eventually journeys to the Dreamlands behind the human mind, which is a superb metaphor for cyberspace, don't you think? "Plug in to explore other dimensions," says the game description.
Iceberg Interactive previously published cosmic horror games Conarium and The Darkness Within from Zoetrope Interactive, which is this studio as well: The three person team behind Zoetrope Interactive is now known as Stormling Studios. Transient is due to release in October on Steam.
Also the soundtrack is pretty chill:
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