The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu Key Art
Image: ACE Team & Nacon

I've long been a fan of Chilean oddball studio ACE Team. From the Zeno Clash series to Rock Of Ages, they've been a creative inspiration since the early Doom modding era. This week, their biggest-budget game yet rolled out - The Mound: Omen Of Cthulhu - a co-op eldritch horror adventure through some extraordinarily cursed 16th-century jungles.

While your average Cthulhu-bothering protagonist is a frail turn-of-the-century nerd who crumbles at the very thought of extradimensional evils, The Mound has players digging too greedily and too deep as a band of contracted 16th-century treasure-hunters. Exactly the kind of overconfident sorts that make up the cursed backstory of so many of Lovecraft's stories. That perfect mix of capable and highly expendable.

The Mound leans heavily on the idea of crumbling sanity, with some subtle effects in play that may cause a team to make unwise decisions. Your friends might suddenly appear to be shambling mutants in the middle of a panicky fight, or monsters might come looming out from behind trees that couldn't possibly have hidden their bulk. While combat is often required, it's definitely more of a horror game than the likes of Vermintide and far more so than Left 4 Dead, constantly encouraging players to push their luck for bigger rewards which will let them afford better gear on their next sortie.

Initial reviews for the game have been all across the board, which is usually an indicator of something creatively interesting, at the very least. While some complaints are broadly shared in Steam reviews (optimization shortfalls and bugs - patchable problems), everyone seems to have a different read on the game, with each system being cursed as much as praised. One other theme is common even in reviews that especially praised it - this is a game to be played with friends, not a random pick-up group.

One thing to be aware of is that The Mound is published by the deeply troubled Nacon (thanks to PC Gamer for the detailed breakdown), so there's a higher-than-average chance that support might be cut short on this one if the company goes under or otherwise struggles to make ends meet. Doubly frustrating, as it seems like the game is just a couple big updates from being something truly special - fingers crossed! The coin is still turning in the air on this one, but I'm betting on ACE Team lucking out.

The Mound: Omen Of Cthulhu is out now on Steam for £26.75/$30, minus a 20% discount until July 29th. But bargain-hounds can snag it even cheaper, with steeper launch discounts over at Gameplanet US, eTail Market and Fanatical, three stores which I regularly use and can fully vouch for, if you're willing to shop outside of Steam's handy refund policy.