A captivatingly moody Lovecraftian horror-mystery FPS published by Bethesda. There's shooting, stealth, platforming and puzzles. The latter can be too obtuse without a guide, and the game is plagued with glitches, some of which are game-breaking. You'll need to download patches for the game. It's a flawed gem. https://youtu.be/Nygz9XQnpGo

A brilliant classic of horror games. Must play if you enjoy the mythos of Howard Philips Lovecraft.

In order to get the Steam version to not crash in the prologue I had to torrent an iso of the retail CD version (which runs even worse), install the fan made patch (which isn't compatible with the Steam version because BS legal reasons, or at least the patch I found), play past the tutorial, and then copy the save to my Steam directory. It's been said that the GoG version is better so do with that info what you will, I myself am a masochist. If you're tech illiterate, then you're best off just getting the Xbox version, and I don't mean that in a demeaning way, this game is a ♥♥♥♥♥ to run on modern machines and you have to really want to play it. On top of all that I was never able to prevent it from crashing whenever I hit the windows key or alt+tab, so good luck if you want to play this with other processes in the background.

With that said I'm giving the game a recommendation anyway because it's a truly fantastic hidden gem. Seamless blend of detective mystery puzzle solving and survival horror FPS. The game is linear but every environment is dense and worth exploring inch by inch. I don't usually read things like the journal logs, but the mythos was so engrossing that I read every single one and tried to not miss any on my first playthrough. Some of the puzzles towards the end of the game can be obscure, not everyone will have the patience for that, but if you played adventure games from the 90's onward you'll be comfortable with the challenge. The combat is not especially deep, but there's a surprising amount of weapon and enemy variety to keep you engaged and looking for ammo. I wouldn't say I was scared for most of the experience, but there were some startling moments that made me jump and shake to the point where I couldn't aim (If you find deep ocean stuff scary then there's a boat section that will make you ♥♥♥♥.) The only real negatives I can call out is that the game is just overall janky. It lacks a lot of polish like bigger budgeted games from the same era, but if you aren't a total ♥♥♥♥♥ then it won't be a problem.

I wanted to get a positive rating up because if you look at the negative reviews you'll notice most of them are just because the game takes some effort to get running. I'm not saying paying for a product that you should then bend over backwards to get functional should be normalized, but I am saying there's a good product here despite that.

I'm clocking out at the notorious boat section, not because this game has been bugging out on me, in fact with the fan patch installed I haven't ran into much problems (i.e bad AI, sections refusing to work, crashes). I'm tapping out because this game is just such a jumbled mess.

I fell in love with the first half of Dark Corners of the Earth pretty fast. I knew going in to not expect frantic shooting, and that first half in the town of Innsmouth is just captivating. The game sits in this dreamlike quality that most older games normally achieve on accident. The story and dialogue were genuinely captivating. Prime adventure game kino. I thought the entire game would be like that, but enter the back half of the game and I'm doing turret sections and fighting enemies like I'm playing H.P Lovecraft's Duke Nukem 3D. There is nothing less hope-shuddering than accustoming me to a town shrouded in intrigue and mystery, only for me to gun down all of its inhabitants.

The game loses these dreamy qualities, and just becomes downright dreary, an unpleasant mess in all the wrong ways you don't want a gritty setting like this to go. I will say that this game does makes me want to check out the rest of the series, so I might go do that at some point. I wish this game was finished properly, but that's not the world we get to live in sadly.

An amazing and atmospheric game, even if it has some flaws.
Highly recommended for admirers of H.P. Lovecraft.

This is an amazing game. I got up to the very end and then had some bug that wouldn't let me finish the game unfortunately. However, despite that, I enjoyed the journey I had in this game.

It's a Bethesda game so I was expecting it to crash several times but this game absolutely takes the cake with the amount of bugs it has. I'm not going to rant about the number of things that make this game unplayable because the list practically goes on forever. Just don't buy it

Man, I really wanna recommend this game. It absolutely nails the Lovecraftian atmosphere, and walking around Innsmouth for the first time is one of the greatest horror experiences I’ve had in a game. The devs really understood Lovecraft’s world—paranoia, mystery, and that creeping sense of dread are all spot on.

But here’s the problem: the game is a buggy mess. Constant crashes, game-breaking glitches, and an FPS system that feels like an afterthought make it frustrating to play. In fact, I couldn’t even finish the Steam version because of how broken it was—I had to find a different download just to get through it. So I won't be giving the steam version a thumbs up.

Still, if you’re a hardcore Lovecraft fan, it’s worth finding some way to play this… just be prepared to battle more than just eldritch horrors. Maybe try GOG.