The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu could have been a big win for Nacon

The Mound has all the right ideas but doesn't land the execution

Loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft's short story, The Mound, Omen of Cthulhu has a fantastic setting for a horrific co-op extraction game. After spending around ten hours delving into its atmospheric world, I'm convinced it has plenty of great ideas, and when played with friends, it's a chaotic blast of fun, but its potential is overshadowed by poor execution and lackluster optimization. Before I dive into my experiences, I first want to highlight that you can start your journey collecting The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu achievements on Xbox Series X|S for $29.99 / £24.99 / €29.99, making it excellent value for the experience you're getting.

It's definitely worth your time, too, and my hope is that developer ACE Team will continue to clean up the more nagging issues in the coming weeks to give The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu the best chance of success. https://youtu.be/Lg0a3M2K0Co?si=AViunk0HeswzS005 As I said before, the game has a ton of great ideas, sending you on haunting missions to collect treasures while attempting to survive Lovecraftian horrors. You pick your character purely off of aesthetic alone, as each Expedition you embark on gives you a selection of weapons, armor, and items to take with you before heading into the jungle.

While there are upgrades and additional items to find along the way, characters don't have any attributes, meaning every player has the same blank slate to work from before entering the jungle. Each Expedition tasks you with finding food, equipment, and treasure worth a particular sum of gold. Once you've equipped the gear provided, you'll then choose where in the jungle you'll head to, with the harder missions seeing you get closer to the titular Mound.

As you explore the area for treasure, the noise you make stirs the jungle and the monstrosities within it, forcing you to work as a team before all Hell breaks loose. There are so many cool ideas at play in the game, such as being able to cut branches off trees and cut down tall plants so you don't rustle them as you pass by. The weather system means you can't use flintlock weapons when it's raining, and the more broken weapons you find can misfire in a disappointing sizzle when you're trying to fight off a monster.

https://www.trueachievements.com/customimages/176938.jpg It's all wrapped in gorgeously crafted levels that provide enough randomized elements to make them feel fresh each time you set out on an Expedition. Well, gorgeous if you're playing on an Xbox Series X. Its little brother, the Series S, is so poorly optimized that the world looks like a fuzzy, glistening mess as it attempts to wrangle the in-game lighting effects.

I've also fallen victim to a host of audio issues, both in-game and via Xbox Party Chat, presumably as the game attempts to use your mic for its own in-game comms. While the Series S performance is disappointing, my main concerns about the game currently revolve around the general gameplay. There's very little in the way of progression bar upgrades for food and buff items called totems.

Expeditions are solely focused on RNG, from the gear you're offered before you set foot into the jungle, to the items you find. Additionally, while it's an extraction-style game, you're unable to keep anything you find when exploring. Instead, you're rewarded with a standard amount of in-game coins, which you can use to upgrade your weapons and purchase items from the shop.

In theory, that sounds great, but in practice, any upgrades you make or items you buy only last for the next Expedition, meaning you're barely rewarded for your time. Right now, The Mound: Omen of Cthulu has some glaring issues, but I'm still finding myself drawn back into its nightmarish world for "just one more run." With a little more love on the performance front and some form of progression system, it could cement itself as an excellent co-op horror game, but it needs that extra love to get it there.

Still, I'll be continuing my adventures and getting ever closer to the mysterious Mound.