The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu Review – Welcome to the Jungle, Where Nothing Quite Works as Intended

The Mound is proof that literally anything can be turned into an extraction-style title—even a ghostwritten H.P. Lovecraft novella about a dimensional gateway buried beneath an ancient burial site. The question, of course, is whether it’s actually fun. And when the developer is ACE Team—the studio behind the gloriously weird Clash: Artifacts of Chaos and Rock of Ages—expectations are, shall we say, unconventional. The answer? As always, it’s complicated.

A Prologue That Sets the Wrong Tone

You play as part of a crew traversing cursed lands in search of treasure, bound together by a thin thread of plot. That plot kicks off with what might be one of the strangest single-player prologues I’ve ever encountered. You control Zamacona, a character from the original novella, and after a short walk toward the mound—interrupted only by the occasional vine to hack at—you encounter a mysterious figure and become mentally scarred, seemingly forever.

This entire sequence lasts less than three minutes. It’s a walking simulator, not an introduction. “Not putting its best foot forward” quickly becomes a running theme.

A Lethal Company Flavor, But Different

As one of four explorers, your job is to scour regions for anything useful to the expedition. Forbidden relics are the obvious prize, but provisions and supplies matter too. Each character has their own backstory, though it barely affects missions or gameplay. At its core, The Mound plays like Lethal Company: enter a location, grab as much loot as possible, and escape with your sanity intact. Die, and you lose everything.

Well, not quite everything. You’re not chained to a quota or building a steady supply of tools. Instead, you’re assigned random gear before each expedition—a flintlock pistol here, an old rapier there, maybe some ammonia salts to revive a downed ally. You can buy extra items from a vendor using Tokens, but the selection is initially limited to torches, a medallion, and a map. Those same Tokens can upgrade or trade weapons. I don’t actually mind this approach, even if that polehammer I grew attached to in one mission vanished upon return.

Where’s the Extraction Thrill?

One of the core appeals of an extraction shooter is gathering sick loot and escaping against all odds—including other players. The Mound offers neither. You don’t keep what you find, much less use it in future missions, and the threat of other players is handled… differently. On the plus side, anything found can be used within the mission itself, which removes the usual barrier of grinding for an arsenal before tackling tougher content. So, thumbs up for that.

Contracts let you choose a location with different conditions and modifiers. Weather and time of day are genuine difference-makers—matchlock pistols and rifles become useless in rain, while nighttime and fog slash visibility. So you might swap to bows and arrows, saving firearms for clearer skies. Some missions require retrieving a Logbook from a fort at the end, which unlocks new locations and sheds light on previous adventures.

Sanity Effects That Wear Out Their Welcome

With static maps and straightforward objectives, The Mound freshens things up with its own take on the Sanity system from Eternal Darkness. There’s no meter to track—instead, the longer you stay in a mission, the weirder things get (though witnessing effects does chip away at your health). One of my allies turned into a tree—hilarious for about a minute. Ominous birds herald effects like teammates and the wagon turning invisible. Flies crawl across your screen. On one occasion, my character blacked out and woke up somewhere else entirely.

Allies can also become Corrupted if downed and not revived in time, turning into AI-controlled enemies. It can happen at random, and don’t get me started on monsters impersonating teammates—only a beast-like noise or proximity voice chat gives them away. Without a mic, you’re relying on telltale signs to avoid sudden betrayal.

At first, there’s intrigue in decoding the different Sanity effects. The problem? They quickly become repetitive. The walking tree goes from bizarre to comedic in short order. The Eldritch ox is more annoying than frightening—looking at it drains sanity, especially when you’re just trying to deposit loot at the wagon. The Mound repeats these effects for the sake of acclimation, but that only underscores why the system works better in a single-player setting, where your character’s grasp on reality is constantly challenged.

Combat: A Dice Roll Every Time

With one core gimmick feeling more gimmicky than effective, it’s down to combat and exploration to carry the experience. Unfortunately, they stumble too. Even if you adjust to slow aiming and lethargic sprinting—reinforced by a lack of stamina—combat feels finicky. Every swing feels like a dice roll. Backstabs work when sneaking up on a foe or when an ally distracts them, but not when you dodge an attack and get behind them.

Firearms feel underwhelming compared to bows in damage and lack the benefit of reusable arrows. Enemies can be harrowing to fight—especially giant twisted beasts—but you have little recourse against them early on. All they need is a close-range grapple that drains all your health and breaks your armor before dissipating. Oh, and when an ally turns out to be corrupted, one stab from them ends the expedition before you can recover. And every. Single. Enemy. Can make you stumble, triggering a third-person cutscene that breaks the flow every time.

Wasted Potential

The Mound has interesting ideas wrapped in a typical extraction loop, especially if you can meet the combat and movement on their own terms. But its mix of psychological horror, co-op treachery, and survival elements often feels shaky—when it’s not just annoying. Solo players are advised to stay away, even with an AI companion, because getting swarmed and losing 15 minutes of busywork is far too easy.

Performance on PC is also puzzling—turning down settings and enabling DLSS/Frame Gen eventually stabilized things, but the visuals hardly justify such poor optimization.

Verdict

If you’re looking for a co-op horror title for hijinks with friends, The Mound might be a decent fit—as long as you keep expectations in check regarding the core gameplay, presentation, and narrative. But as much as I tried to find the fun amid all the oppression, it simply felt like wasted potential.