The Nameless City Review | TheXboxHub

A First-Person Journey into Lovecraftian Horror

What is it that makes the world of H.P. Lovecraft, the famed author, such a fountain of resources for game developers? I think it’s to do with the fantasy elements and the alien presence of a mythical, god-like sea creature that is most alluring. But it’s also the strangeness of the work, and the hero’s descent into madness while trying to work out what is real and what is unreal. 

So many games have been made and influenced by the man and here we are with yet another, this time put together by a small development team (Paradnight Studio). Join me as we dive into the madness of The Nameless City.

Revisiting a Classic

“The Nameless City” was a short story by H.P. Lovecraft, written in 1921 and published in an amateur press journal called The Wolverine. It’s considered the first story he wrote that was set in the Cthulhu universe, of which he is famous. 

The story for this game goes like this: You are the unnamed narrator and protagonist, who is in the Arabian Peninsula searching for an ancient lost city. After setting up camp, the adventurer enters an ancient building with strange runes and markings on the walls. Soon they are discovering ancient glyphs that seem to power spells capable of dispelling mystic barriers. As he goes deeper, reality twists and turns, and soon he sees things in the shadows…

Glyphs and Spells

I like the way the developers have taken this short story and imagined this game world, all while still keeping true to the original text. It’s a familiar tale if you have ever read or played any of the Lovecraft material before, but it’s told well here in The Nameless City, with some good narration and observations from the main character throughout.

The game is played in the first person and, for the most part, is an exploration horror experience. You walk and run around a barren desert area, but soon you are crawling through low spaces to get into ancient, alien buildings. Here the world is dark, and you need a torch to explore. Throughout the game, the objective is to collect a series of glyphs that not only move the story forward but also introduce a new gameplay mechanic; one that surprised me when it first happened.

Madness and Mystic Barriers

You collect these glyphs in a sort of spellbook, which you can use to help you progress. For example, you might first of all see a barrier that you can’t get past, but by going into the book, you can put a couple of these glyphs together – which makes sense when you see them – and hey presto, the barrier disappears. There are spells to put barriers up later in the game to help you pass areas where the wind will push you off the edge to your doom.

There are also further ones to give you more light in the dark, which is much needed later on. Further to that is a sanity meter on the right of the screen which, if left unchecked, will reach its limit and cause you to go insane. It will be then when The Nameless City will be over.

There are other elements in the game as well, ensuring you are not just left to make your way from A to B. There are puzzles, like a quite elaborate one on a strange plane of existence which includes moving switches in the right order. There is also an endurance section where you must get to the light quickly before going insane. 

Lo-Fi Horror and Eerie Sounds

Overall, The Nameless City is not going to tax your brain too much, and I only died a few times in my hour-long playthrough. And that’s probably the worst bit of things – it is a short experience. Yet perhaps that is reflected in the price.

The Nameless City comes with a low-poly, old-school art style that wouldn’t look out of place on an early ’90s PC. But the frame rate is solid, and what it does with its tech is unsettling, as the story dictates. When you feel lost at times, The Nameless City comes up with a nice trick, subtly visually showing you where to go next with some nice lighting effects.

Audio-wise, you have a very sombre and effective monologue from a narrating actor who does a good job. But there is also a strange, electronic soundtrack that is brilliantly composed and works perfectly with the material.

A Short but Haunting Lovecraftian Adventure

The Nameless City isn’t the first, and it won’t be the last, to examine and play around with the works of H.P. Lovecraft. I liked the adaptation of this short story into what is a very short gaming experience. The exploration, the spell mechanics, and the light puzzle-solving work well, and there is most definitely a bit of a market for these short-story games. 

It would be great to see more of them in the future, perhaps built out from other sources instead of Lovecraft, but should you be looking for something unique and different, come and explore The Nameless City.

Important Links

Buy The Nameless City, Optimised for Xbox Series X|S – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/the-nameless-city-xbox-series-xs/9n978kts6466

There’s an Xbox One edition too – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/the-nameless-city/9mw23tm58qjp