This Horror Game Is Getting Mixed Reviews, But Its Best Parts Are Amazing

Of all the games Lethal Company has inspired over these last few years, none of them have taken the concept in such an interesting new direction as The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu. While the game definitely lacks polish, as a horror-obsessive person, I feel comfy saying that fans of horror or horror-extraction games haven't played something quite like The Mound before, and that's mainly owed to its brilliant core mechanic: tripping balls.

I covered a preview build of The Mound a few weeks ago, but if you missed it, it's a four-player co-op horror game set in the age of exploration with a Lethal Company-like twist. With your pals in tow, you'll embark on a quest into Lovecraftian wilderness to extract enough loot to meet your quota from the trading company back home. It sounds familiar--this setup is the gameplay loop dujour in the horror world, and has been for some years now.

But it's easier said than done when the world is constantly messing with your head. You'll see things that aren't there. You won't see things that are there. You'll even sometimes see your friends as monsters, and need to do your best to see through the illusion before you hack them to bits. 

The Mound explains very little to you from the outset, and that's its secret weapon. You'll come to discover how things work over time, but even then, knowing is half the battle. You'll know to dodge zombie-like monsters because they can pounce on you from range. You'll definitely do a 180 and sprint away from the massive, spider-like creatures that explode on you when they get close enough. It's so creepy how nearly silent they are, too. It's made me unsure of when it's safe to turn around again. There are strange birds in some trees that, if you don't pick them off quickly and cleanly, seem to disrupt your surroundings even more. The "rules" of the world feel elusive.

The Mound is a game of hallucinations, of not trusting what you're seeing or hearing. I've put in several hours with this slow-burn nightmare, and I'm still wrapping my head around what the sinister influences in the game are capable of--where its boundaries are. Is a distant gunshot a signal that a friend needs help after we've separated, or was it a diversion to get me lost? Is that really a high-value loot object nearby, or is it a mirage that becomes a pit of spikes when I get close enough?

Some of the game's features do very well at making me paranoid, but I've found I've become so distrustful of my own senses that I am maybe even giving the game credit for things it isn't actually doing. But because I can't tell where the boundaries are, it all works wonders.

When a group of monsters is running toward our group's loot wagon, is one of them actually my friend, or should I just carve up anything that gets in melee range? This is a game where you learn things the hard way constantly, and just when you think you've mapped out how something behaves, it reveals new wrinkles to further confuse you. It's left me anxious and lost in the woods many times over, and that kind of immersion is an incredible feat.

The Mound is getting only "mixed" Steam reviews right now, with many players citing the game's poor feel and unpolished mechanics. I can't disagree. Combat, both in melee and gunplay, feels clunky. Perhaps worst of all is the first-person view, which features too many features for immersion, like headbob and weapon sway, in such a combination that it's a bit distracting for me, and even nauseating if you're someone like my wife, who can't often handle the worst offenders among first-person games. We've both turned off several of these features, and I'm thankful those toggles exist, but it's not been enough for her to get comfy with it, so I've had to trek on without her, sadly.

Still, in theory, a development team can fix things like bugs, performance issues, and some jank here and there. What's harder to fix would be a foundational misfire in a game's intentions. The Mound is free of that issue. The core idea is familiar, but done in a way I've not seen before.

Never has a game messed with my head as much as this, and I'm loving it for that. It'll surely go down as one of my favorite horror games of 2026 even with the jank in place. And if it's polished up a bit over the coming months, you'll likely see its Steam rating rise. But if you're horror-obsessed like me, I would bet you'll find there's already enough reason to be in its mouth of madness.

You can find The Mound on Steam, Xbox, and PS5. On PC, it features an introductory price reduction of 20% off the base price, though that expires on July 29.