Rising Sun and Pandemic Legacy designers unite for Cthulhu: Death May Die

Two of gaming’s most revered designers are teaming up to put their own spin on one of the tabletop’s most popular themes: Lovecraft.

Cthulhu: Death May Die is the new game from the combined forces of Eric M. Lang – known for Blood Rage, Rising Sun and countless other blockbusters – and Rob Daviau, the legacy game pioneer who has explored his innovative format in Pandemic Legacy, Risk Legacy, Betrayal Legacy, SeaFall and more.

Subtitled after the iconic quotation from Lovecraft’s influential short story The Call of Cthulhu – “That is not dead which can eternal lie/And with strange aeons even death may die” – that first introduced the now ubiquitous cosmic horror, Cthulhu: Death May Die is being published by Zombicide studio CMON, which plans to bring it to Kickstarter ‘soon’.

Details on the dice-driven gameplay are scarce, but it sounds somewhat similar to Lovecraftian classic Eldritch Horror, with players taking on the roles of investigators working together to fight monstrous evil.

The twist here is that the game’s chapters start with the investigation already finished and the ritual to awaken the slumbering creature well underway, giving a certain amount of time before they appear. The players’ characters will also already be insane, suggesting that keeping your sanity in check won’t be as much of a concern as you ready to fight the approaching presence, although your fraying mental state could have repercussions both good and bad on your actions.

Lang and Daviau are joined by artists Karl Kopinski (Magic: The Gathering, The Godfather: Corleone’s Empire) and Adrian Smith (Hate, Warhammer), as well as sculptor Mike McVey, who will be turning his hand to the game’s miniatures.

Cthulhu: Death May Die is billed as being a mix of “narrative, theme and action” – with the promise that you’ll be able to shoot things in the face. Whether that will make a difference depends on how you play. The game is broken into standalone episodes, each with two acts - if even a single character dies before the monster is summoned, the players lose.

We’ll find out more in the coming weeks, with a date for the crowdfunding campaign and release date yet to be announced.