Content Warnings:
Abortion, Kidnapping, Rape
I’d expected to love this game, but a lack of cohesion between the storyline and the setting left me unsatisfied. Being a sex/horror game, Lust for Darkness had bravery and vision. Unfortunately, it required more courage during creation, leaving what’s supposed to be red hot lust feeling simply lukewarm. I believe the sex cult being a static backdrop rather than a tangible setting is what let it down.
Story
The game is set at a sex cults private party, held in a large mansion – I was expecting wonderful things. During the opening, I believed they were about to deliver on my expectations! You navigate from a dungeon to a sex room, with bondage equipment hanging on the walls and multiple items of sex furniture including King Edward VII’s famous love chair. This is the game for me, I thought.
When you return to the room at the end of the game, it’s all been packed away. The room is empty, which was a very fitting metaphor. Though you see some of the furniture in use from a distance and cultists having group sex, the unfettered human hedonism I was hoping for from this game feels half-hearted, with the bulk of the deviancy kept to iconography & statues. Sex is treated as merely decorative. It’s supposed to show you the kind of people you’re around, and the environment you have to rescue your wife from. Unfortunately, it’s entirely irrelevant to the story.
Writing
The storyline sticks to the basic horror game formula of Man loses Wife > Man goes to find Wife > Horrified by where he finds Wife. He’s just your average gruff, wife-loving sad man, nothing to make him stand out amongst horror protagonists.
My favourite detail came in the form of environmental storytelling. She vanished shortly after they’d moved into a house he had designed for her. Boxes were never unpacked, and clocks never set. It was clear how hopeless he felt since losing her – his fridge, freezer and countertop were filled with takeaway boxes.
I couldn’t understand the villain at all. It felt like they were going for revenge, but revenge for what? They kidnapped your wife and got away with it! There’s a gross main plot point where the villain has aborted your wife’s baby, and inseminated her with their own demon brood in some weird display of dominance & victory over you. As they don’t have your wife’s love, they brag about fathering her child instead.
I wish I could say that this is sex being included in the story, but the writers have taken the easy route. Yes, sex can sometimes make children, but show us everything else sex is capable of. It can elicit such a variety of emotions, and a great cult leader would have harnessed those. All this villain does is flaunt their jealousy and try to kill you.
Gameplay
Moving around in this game felt like wading through slime. I hated having to manually nudge open doors, but enjoyed operating the cunnilingus machine. One of the worst things about this game was the dizzying visual distortion. Whenever you’d see something supposedly frightening or shocking (which was constantly), you’d start breathing heavily and the screen would distort and pulsate. Your FOV becomes blurry, and a fisheye lens rapidly zooms in and out. There’s a photosensitivity warning, but appears to be no way to turn this nausea-inducing effect off.
There’s puzzles, chase sequences and stealth which are all just okay. I enjoyed one environmental puzzle near the end. The puzzles typically require you to form the cults logo with whatever tools you’ve been given, whilst the stealth requires you to locate an item before proceeding. Should you be caught during a stealth mission, a cheesy Oblivion-esque face zoom ensues and you’ll be returned to the last checkpoint.
My issue with gameplay returns to my issue with the whole game – Sex was not involved. Not even once did the antagonist or any of the cultists try to fuck me. Whilst the voyeuristic cultists would be masturbating in a plush armchair, nobody batted an eye when I’d simply wander around gawking at them. Utilising the stealth mechanics that were already there, I personally believe I should’ve been required to have just enough sex to avoid suspicion, but as long as I was wearing the correct uniform they didn’t seem to mind – at least they respected my boundaries? I’m not asking for the game to be akin to an erotic flash game, but with the lack of sex in the story, at the very least I’d have liked sex in gameplay, something like God of War’s sexual minigames.
Final Thoughts
Unfortunately, I found this game disappointing. It’s a relatively short game, at around 2-3 hours so if you’re interested in quick horror RPG’s you may enjoy it! However, for all the reasons stated above, if you’re interested in its sexuality most of all it’s not worth playing. Perhaps watch a playthrough online, or the trailer with the funky song (epilepsy warning).
I’m planning on giving the sequel Lust from Beyond a try in future. It’s better reviewed, so I hope it’ll combine sex & scare more effectively. Whilst this game in particular wasn’t what I wanted, I don’t intend to shrug off the genre nor the developer.
I wanted this game to seduce me, to lure me towards this hedonistic cult by showing me the pleasure, power and delight I can find by following lust. It failed to give me that.
Further Reading: Interview with the Developer