The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu

The pitch works because your squad becomes the monster

The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu lands in a really interesting spot. It’s co-op horror, it’s extraction tension, and it’s cosmic horror all jammed into one cursed jungle trip. And honestly, that lane still hasn’t been completely solved. We’ve had plenty of games where four players run around yelling in the dark. We’ve had plenty of spooky loot runs. But this one’s best idea is sharper than that: every player can be living in a different version of reality.

That’s the thing that makes it stand out. Your teammate might look like an undead thing. A horn call might sound like help, but it’s actually bait. The jungle messes with you, but more importantly, it messes with trust. In Phasmophobia, the ghost scares the team. Here, the team itself can become the threat, because you can’t always tell what’s real and what’s your sanity breaking. That’s a much nastier kind of fear. It’s not just “what’s around the corner?” It’s “is the person next to me still a person?”

And yeah, that’s the reason I’m giving this side of the game a 7 out of 10. Not because it’s the cleanest thing in the world. It’s not. But because the idea is strong enough that I kept thinking about it after the session ended. ACE Team has always been an ideas-first studio. After Zeno Clash and The Eternal Cylinder, that shouldn’t surprise anyone. They make weird stuff. Sometimes messy stuff. But when The Mound is firing, it feels like a bold co-op horror swing from a studio that would rather be strange than safe.

This is for a regular crew, not the lonely hero with a sword

Here’s who should actually buy this: people with a fixed group. If you’ve got three friends who like atmosphere, bad decisions, and yelling over voice chat when nobody trusts each other anymore, this is built for you. The game supports single player, multiplayer, and co-op, but the design is clearly selling that four-player panic. The official setup is explorers hunting treasure in a cursed jungle, with monstrous creatures altering reality, and that only really hits when real people are trying to read each other under pressure.

The jungle helps a lot. It doesn’t just sit there as wallpaper. Branches bend to block you. Noise wakes enemies. Animal calls in the distance might not even be real. The UE5 visuals and spatialised voice sell the feeling that the place is alive and angry. Then you add the ox-cart mobile base, which leaves a trail you can follow back out, and suddenly wanting more has a cost. Push deeper for more treasure, or protect your escape route before the whole trip turns into a funeral march. That loop has a nice bite to it.

But if you’re a solo player who wants a smooth, polished horror-action game, pump the brakes. Solo play is noticeably harder with AI allies, and that undercuts the best part of the design: real people doubting real people. Combat also isn’t the big selling point. You’re mostly smacking enemies with whatever you’ve got until they drop, while they parry, disarm you, and make boss fights feel weirdly unclear. Sometimes I wasn’t tense because the monster was terrifying. I was tense because I wasn’t sure if the game wanted me to fight or run.

The hype is real, but so are the rough edges

There’s real heat behind this one. Before launch, The Mound had over 800,000 wishlists, and the demo pulled more than 200,000 downloads during Steam Next Fest. That’s not fake buzz. People were paying attention, and some players were even comparing it to Left 4 Dead 2. I get why. It has that “get the crew together and survive the run” energy. But I’d be careful with that comparison, because this is not really chasing pure combat flow. It’s chasing paranoia.

That’s also where the weaknesses show up. The polish is thin. The UI still has that unfinished feel. The cart AI can backtrack off the main paths. Performance still needs work. And if you know ACE Team, this tracks. Their imagination usually gets there before their sanding block does. The Mound has a killer concept, but it doesn’t always have the finish to match it. So if you’re the kind of player who gets furious at jank, this could wear you down fast.

For version and platform choice, I’d keep it practical. The standard price is $29.99, and the 20% launch discount makes the buy-in a lot easier to swallow, especially if your whole group is jumping in together. Cross-play helps, because nobody wants the horror to start in a platform argument before the game even boots. Player-hosted servers are also a good sign, since it avoids that live-service leash where the game’s future feels completely out of your hands.

So my overall take is pretty simple. The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu is not the co-op horror game for everyone. It’s too rough for that. But for the right group, the hook is nasty in the best way. If you want polished solo action, skip it. If you want a cursed jungle trip where your best friend might be lying, or might be a hallucination, or might be both, this is absolutely worth watching.