I’m a huge horror buff and one of my favourite subgenres of horror is cosmic horror, also known as lovecraftian horror. When you dive into the world of cosmic horror there are two names you can’t avoid. H.P. Lovecraft, the original master and namesake of the genre, and Junji Ito, the modern scholar who has skilfully made the subgenre his own by adding visuals to a genre built on the indescribable with his gruesome drawings. The new roguelite horror RPG World of Horror from developer Panstasz and publisher Ysbryd Games calls itself a 1-bit love letter to the aforementioned Junji Ito and H.P. Lovecraft, and their influence is felt in every pixel of the final product.
World of Horror is a big game and it’s hard to figure out where to start, so let’s just start where the game does. Every time you start a new run, a number of elements are randomized. Your character – and along with them stats, items, spells etc. – the elder god that’s threatening your village, each of whom has their own effect on your playthrough, and the mysteries you’ll be exploring in your run. Five completed mysteries and you can start ascending the lighthouse. Ascend the lighthouse and you complete your run.
These mysteries are each their own little quest, telling fantastic horror stories. A new ramen shop appears out of nowhere that everybody gets addicted to the moment they taste the food. People are falling into incurable comas and anyone who tries to interact with them falls into one as well. A fisherman drags a mysterious black ooze on land that causes him to act weird before he disappears with more fishermen following the same patterns. They all have that cosmic horror touch of nothing particularly gruesome but something undeniably unsettling. They also all come with multiple endings, although this isn’t your classic good ending, bad ending system. Some endings might be better than others, but you’ll hardly find a happy ending here.
You complete these mysteries by investigating different locations. Investigating makes it sound more involved and complex than it is. You pick one of the available locations, like the forest, hospital, or school, and you’ll be faced with a random event applicable to that location. These are also tinged in cosmic horror but on a much smaller scale than the full mysteries. Imagine them as almost one sentence horror stories, in comparison to the mysteries which are full chapters. On occasion you’ll also have to fight an enemy, in which case it’s time for some turn-based combat. You can, of course, strike your enemy and deal damage, although you’re not guaranteed to hit, but you also have a plethora of other options that can be used to outmaneuver your enemies. If you face a ghost, for example, you’d probably be better off trying to complete a ritual by performing bows and claps in the right order, rather than aimlessly swinging at it with your weapon.
World of Horror makes it very clear for you which locations you should be investigating next to progress the questline, but you can absolutely choose to go a different route if you feel that might help you going forward with your run in the unlikely event that your investigation leads to anything but psychological or physical damage to your main character. The more likely reason you might want to investigate locations outside the one your mystery is leading you towards is that you want to complete the sidequest that every mystery has. By doing so you might get items, spells, increase your stats, and maybe even get information that might help get a better ending for the mystery you’re trying to solve.
There are so many things that can impact your every playthrough, every mystery, every small event. Invisible stat checks, items you have collected that range from weapons to sunglasses to written notes, spells as unimaginable as the eldritch nightmares you’re facing. They will impact your moment to moment decision making and that will in turn impact how soon you will fail. World of Horror is an RPG in every sense of the word, and a deep one at that, with layered systems that have to be explored by yourself. This results in feeling completely overwhelmed the first time you open the game, but you’ll figure it out as you go along. And if worst comes to worst, just make sure to preserve your stamina and reason. As long as those stay above zero, you could be doing worse.
Due to the overwhelming amount of layered RPG systems in World of Horror, the UI can also be quite overwhelming at first because of how much is going on on your screen at any given moment, but you’ll get used to it. And despite the somewhat cluttered UI, the game is beautiful to look at. It’s here where the Junji Ito influence becomes most obvious with illustrations that could be from the master himself, displayed in a 1-bit aesthetic that works with black and white contrasts in a striking way. The art style, the creature design, and yes also the writing just scream Junji Ito, much more so than H.P. Lovecraft in my opinion.
World of Horror is a deeply layered horror RPG with so many different stories to explore you won’t get bored for a long time. But this isn’t a case of quantity over quality, as what the game offers isn’t just plentiful but also outstanding.
Nairon played World of Horror on PC with a review key. World of Horror is also available on Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, and Playstation 5.
