Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

Call of the Elder Gods puts observation ahead of reflexes. You explore in first person, scour environments for useful details, and work through object-based puzzles that ask you to notice how pieces fit together. That slower, deliberate rhythm is a good match for its occult mystery, because every useful clue can feel like another small crack in a much larger secret.

The standout idea is the ability to switch between Professor Harry Everhart and Evangeline Drayton. Their investigation crosses time and space, and the puzzles are designed as multi-part problems rather than a string of isolated locks. When that structure clicks, it should give the game a satisfying sense of discovery: you are not merely using an item, you are reconsidering what another character knows and where that knowledge belongs.

There is also a smart amount of control over friction. Toggleable hints, icons, and journal entries let you decide whether a puzzle should be a prolonged personal breakthrough or a story speed bump you move past quickly. Start with the guidance reduced if you enjoy taking notes and sitting with a problem. Turn it up without guilt if the mystery matters more to you than proving you can outlast every riddle.

Graphics

The journey moves from firelit libraries in a New England mansion to red Australian sands, frozen wastelands, and cities seemingly detached from ordinary time. That range gives the game more visual variety than a single haunted-house investigation, with warm interior light set against harsher open landscapes and stranger locations.

Its Unreal Engine 5 environments are intended to be richly detailed, and the locations themselves sound like the main draw: a library should feel suitably close and secretive, while the outback and frozen regions offer a broader, more exposed contrast.

Story

This is a cosmic-horror story with grief and family at its center, not simply a parade of monsters. Harry is troubled by shadows at the edge of his vision, while Evangeline is pulled toward impossible dreams and an artifact unearthed years earlier. Their missing loved ones give the investigation a personal stake before the larger Lovecraftian revelations take over.

Drawing inspiration from H. P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow out of Time is a promising fit for a mystery about fractured perception, ancient knowledge, and forces too large for its characters to comfortably understand. The best version of this setup lets the supernatural material deepen Harry and Evangeline rather than bury them under lore, and the dual-protagonist structure gives the narrative room to do that.

The fully voiced cast is another reason to give the story time to breathe. Yuri Lowenthal and Cissy Jones return to these roles, which should help the emotional through line carry across the game’s increasingly unreal locations. If you liked the character-focused side of Call of the Sea, this follow-up has a stronger, darker premise to work with.

Overall Experience

Call of the Elder Gods has the makings of a thoughtful supernatural adventure: methodical investigation, flexible puzzle support, two connected viewpoints, and a mystery with more emotional weight than a standard artifact hunt. It is not aimed at anyone looking for fast action. You need to enjoy reading a room, examining details, and accepting that progress may come from a connection you missed earlier.

The main potential frustration is also part of its ambition. Multi-stage puzzles across characters, time, and space can be wonderfully satisfying, but they can also make a stalled solution feel more intimidating than a simple inventory puzzle. The adjustable hints are not a minor convenience here. They are the feature most likely to preserve the game’s pacing for anyone who wants the story to keep moving.

For patient puzzle-adventure fans, the payoff looks worthwhile. The unusual travelogue of mansion libraries, outback sands, ice, and otherworldly cities gives the investigation a welcome sense of scale, while Harry and Evangeline’s search keeps it grounded in loss. For more on the game’s premise and its connection to the earlier adventure, see the official Call of the Elder Gods game page.

Retro Replay Score

7.6/10