We hoped for the finally-good Lovecraftian investigation game. We get yet another co-op extraction, gorgeous but rough. ACE Team has the talent and the universe, but not yet the game.
Alexandrosse
InsertCoins.press Score
5/10
Verdict
Mixed
There's a curse more stubborn than any of Lovecraft's: the one on video games drawn from his work. They come out by the dozen, promise cosmic dread, and almost all miss. So, discovering The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu, we nursed a slightly naive hope: what if, this time, we finally had the great Lovecraftian investigation game we've always demanded? The answer is no, and it's frustrating, because the talent was there.
The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu is a co-op horror game developed by ACE Team and published by Nacon, available since 15 July 2026 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series with cross-play. It draws on Lovecraft's short story The Mound, moving its action two hundred years earlier into a cursed Peruvian jungle. The Chilean studio is no small name: it gave us Zeno Clash, Rock of Ages and The Eternal Cylinder, all games with wild, inimitable art direction. Suffice it to say we were waiting for them on this ground, that of the imagination, and on that point at least, they don't disappoint.
Let's be honest right away, because it matters for managing expectations. Whoever comes here looking for an investigation game, a slow descent into mystery and madness in the manner of Lovecraft's great tales, has the wrong door. The Mound isn't an investigation game, it's a co-op extraction for up to four players. You form a group of explorers, you set off to comb a hostile jungle for treasure, you scavenge, you survive, you extract, all in matches of about twenty minutes. It's the fashionable formula, that of extraction shooters, repainted in the Mythos's colors.
That clarification isn't a detail, it's the heart of the problem. The fan who hoped for a game of atmosphere and deduction finds themselves facing a loop of loot and flight, as far from investigation as you can imagine. The game plays in co-op or solo with a bot teammate, and it bets on shared thrills rather than intimate dread. It's not illegitimate, but it's a saturated genre, and seeing the Lovecraftian universe reduced once again to a pretext for extraction leaves a bitter taste. We dreamed of a game that would take this imagination seriously; we get a game that uses it as scenery.
Where The Mound nonetheless justifies its existence is in its staging, and that will surprise no one who knows ACE Team. The cursed jungle is superb, the monstrous creatures that alter reality carry that unsettling, unique touch the studio holds the secret to, and there are real moments of nightmarish grace. The sanity system, which distorts what you see and hear as reason wavers, is the game's best idea: it's there, in that crumbling perception, that Lovecraft's spirit finally truly surfaces.
In co-op, the experience also finds its salt. Exploring this jungle in a group, managing your fear and your collective madness, coordinating an extraction under threat, it works, and more than one demo player had a good time trembling among friends. The proximity voice chat reinforces that dynamic and gives the group a real presence. When the game aligns, it offers flashes that recall the enormous potential of its concept and its universe. The trouble is that these flashes are drowned in an execution that isn't up to par.
Because it must be said plainly: the game feels rushed. The feedback from the heavily played demo pointed to the same flaws, and they're serious. Repeated technical issues, faulty optimization, controls that reset, black screens, mid-match freezes. Beyond the technical, it's the game design itself that snags: paths that are too signposted, laborious inventory management, frustrating combat where attack ranges are illegible, and a general impression of sloppiness that weighs down the immersion. Several testers compared the demo to an alpha, and the judgment hurts.
The treasure meant to reward exploration was sometimes scattered right on the starting beach, killing outright the feeling of search and progression you expect from such a game. The directional audio, crucial for horror, proved approximate. None of this is beyond repair, and ACE Team has the time and talent to fix course post-launch. But as it stands, at release, The Mound gives the impression of a project shipped too soon, before finding the solidity its ambition deserved. The potential leaps off the screen; the execution betrays it.
The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu is a missed appointment, and it's all the more infuriating because all the ingredients of a success were assembled. ACE Team brings its unique art direction, the cursed jungle is a superb setting, and the sanity system finally touches what makes real Lovecraftian horror. In co-op among friends, there's pleasure to be had, thrills to share, moments that recall why this universe fascinates. On paper and in screenshots, the game wins you over with ease.
But we can't turn a blind eye to the rest. It's not the investigation game the Mythos fans dreamed of, it's one more co-op extraction, and it arrives on top of that in a state that feels unfinished. So the curse continues: another Lovecraft game that had everything to be good and settles for being pretty. We keep hoping ACE Team fixes and fleshes it out, because the foundation deserves better. But today, the great Lovecraftian game we've awaited for so long keeps us, once again, waiting.
A gorgeous but rough co-op extraction that uses Lovecraft as scenery instead of embodying it: ACE Team's talent is there, the finished game isn't yet.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Tested on PC.
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