The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu | Where Your Own Mind is the Ultimate Boss

Cross beneath the oppressive, cursed canopy of The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu, and you will meet horrors, changing terrain, and deadly traps. As you delve deeper into the new release of the extraction horror game, which comes from developer ACE Team, you'll soon discover that the scariest thing in this conquistador era expedition isn't waiting in the bushes. It's located between your ears.

Into the Cursed Canopy

The main game starts on a ship (the galleon) with you and up to 3 other players, where you sign contracts, collect items and choose a region in a jungle in South America to raid. After reaching the mainland, everyone is left alone, using spatialized voice communication to navigate and synchronize with the other participants, against ever changing Lovecraftian dangers. You're looking for a hidden "Mound" to find and bring back with treasures you've never heard of, to make abandoned forts unlocked as new starting points for your next runs. But the jungle isn't just survivalist, it actively distorts your sense of reality the longer you remain inside, in a manner that a typical survival game never tries to do.

The Ultimate Saboteur: Your Own Mind

The best part of this game over other co-op shooters is that there's a very cool aspect of madness. The Mound has no sanity bar or sirens to alert you that you are losing your mind, unlike other horror games. But the game subtly gaslights you by changing the environment as you play.

When your mind fades, you may end up getting pelted by a local downpour of blood that your fit teammates are unaware of. Even more devious are the auditory hallucinations. A distant comforting sound of a horn indicating safe extraction or a teammate in trouble may be heard. You think it's real and without hesitation, you can start exploring the shadows, only to find that it is your own mind that tricked you into a lethal trap.

Co-op as a Sanity Anchor

Your senses are constantly under attack, your teammates are now more than just additional firepower. Your only real time sanity check is them. Being able to communicate verbally is a constant necessity for survival, to confirm what is occurring.

Your team will be asking you to repeat sounds and/or movements in the distance frequently. But if your mind is completely broken, you can't do anything but give up on your perception and leave everything to your crew to lead you through the murky darkness. It's a mental battle and you are not only fighting the monsters in the dark, you're fighting your own mind.

A Polarizing and Punishing Trek

Reception to the game has been extremely atmospheric and divided, with the sound and visual design being lauded for being awesome, but the difficulty level – sometimes frustrating – being criticized. It has a limited amount of metagame progression in that every weapon you eventually get is just what you've learnt about the jungle tricks.

Additionally, there are differences in performance between platforms. The visuals and the reality distorting foliage are probably one of the reasons why the Xbox Series S is supposed to be less powerful than its siblings.Though the PC and Xbox Series X versions offer a solid, atmospheric experience, the less powerful Xbox Series S seems to be less able to keep up with the visually demanding reality warping foliage. The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu is a wholly immersive and atmospherical take on the extraction genre for those who have a dedicated squad and love an uncompromising experience.