Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of The Earth - Development

Development

The game has been in development for at least six years, and the development can be traced back to August 1999 and a Usenet discussion in which the Mythos fans contributed ideas for the game to Headfirst's artist/designer Andrew Brazier. This and other feedback was later used to create the game, which Brazier termed "FPHAS - a First Person Horror Adventure Shooter". The game's protagonist Jack Walters has been repeatedly redesigned before his final look was created by Tim Appleton. Headfirst initially have used the game engine NDL NetImmerse for rendering graphics combined with the Havok physics engine but later developed its own engine.

The first screenshots were shown in December 1999, and the game, originally planned for the PC and PlayStation 2, was scheduled for release in the third quarter of 2001. In 2000, Hesdfirst secured rights from Chaosium, publisher of Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. Before E3 2001 the game was stated to be "70 percent complete", but was then repeatedly delayed. In late 2002, the game's original publisher Fishtank Interactive was taken over by JoWood, which had no interest in the title. The developers then signed a deal with Bethesda to release the game for the PC and Xbox, and the development of the PS2 version was cancelled.

Headfirst Productions originally intended for a much larger, nonlinear RPG-type storyline to be fitted within the game, including more characters and locations, as well as a co-operative gameplay system for up to four players, which would have enabled players to pick one of four characters and carry out their own investigation independently or team up with the others (in case of single-player gameplay, the other three investigators would be under computer control). A multiplayer version of the game would have allowed for online deathmatch battles in specifically designed levels. Several other ambitious features, such as a deeper sanity system and high environment interactivity, were also scrapped due to budget and time constraints and problems with the level design. The game was always supposed to use first-person view, but the screenshots from 2001 indicated third-person view stealth gameplay elements. Much of "a wide array of weapons" at the player's disposal was conceived but ultimately removed from the game, including a wooden club, a Mauser rifle and a pump-action shotgun. Various weapon models, including unused ones, and concept arts from the game were released by Niel Venter on his deviantART account.