Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of The Earth

Story

After the introductory sequence set in the psychiatric hospital Arkham Asylum, the game begins on September 6, 1915, when police detective Jack Walters (voiced by Milton Lawrence) is called to a run-down mansion in Boston, Massachusetts. The mansion is inhabited by a small, bizarre sect called the Fellowship of the Yith, led by a certain Victor Holt, who has specifically requested that Walters come and talk to him. As he makes his way to safety from a firefight, he is separated from the police and held captive in the mansion. When the rest of the police finally break in, they find the cultists dead by mass suicide and Walters obviously insane. He is committed to Arkham asylum, where he remains for several years. Six years later, Walters is released and becomes a private detective. On February 6, 1922, he takes on a missing persons case in Innsmouth, a xenophobic seaside town where Brian Burnham, an employee who had been sent there to set up a branch for the First National Grocery chain, has disappeared. When Jack arrives in the remote town, which seems to be depopulated and in a state of collapse, he unsuccessfully asks for Brian. He spends the night in a hotel, where he narrowly escapes an assassination attempt and then flees a chase by an armed mob. From now on, Jack is forced to sneak through the alleys, buildings and sewers of Innsmouth to evade the murderous patrols of the corrupt police and the cultists looking for him. He gets weapons to defend himself and meets undercover agent Lucas Mackey, who tells him that the town is under government investigation. Jack eventually finds Burnham and his girlfriend Ruth, but their car crashes as they flee Innsmouth, killing Brian and injuring Jack (whether Ruth was killed or not remains unknown). Jack recovers from the incident and, after a brutal interrogation, is taken in by the FBI, led by J. Edgar Hoover himself. On February 8, Jack helps Hoover and the FBI raid the Marsh Gold Refinery, where he is attacked by an ancient creature, the Shoggoth, and discovers a Cthulhu shrine. The refinery is then blown up using explosives. After the attack on the refinery, the US military launches a combined land and sea invasion of Innsmouth on February 9. The only thing that proves problematic in the large-scale assault is the headquarters of the Esoteric Order of Dagon, a religious organization focused on two undersea demigods and Cthulhu that has the entire town in its grip. The building is impregnable to the Coast Guard and Marines, but Jack finds a way through an old smuggling entrance (guarded by a Starseed of Cthulhu). Inside, Jack frees Agent Mackey, kidnapped for a ritual sacrifice, and puts down the building's magical shield. After discovering a secret chamber, he falls through the bottom of a tunnel that leads to the sea. Jack is rescued by the USS Urania, a Coast Guard cutter that is part of a group heading to Devil's Reef on February 10 to follow a lead from the FBI. Along the way, wizards on the reef summon powerful tidal waves to destroy the flotilla, but Jack captures the ship's cannon and kills them. The humanoid fish people, known as Deep Ones, launch a mass attack on the Urania, killing most of the crew and disabling the engines. Jack manages to reactivate the engines, but is then attacked by the gigantic Father Dagon himself at the bow. Jack manages to defeat the demigod with the cannon, but not before he causes the Urania to sink. Jack survives the encounter and finds himself on the Devil's Reef, where he discovers old smugglers' tunnels under the seabed that lead him to the underwater city of Y'ha-nthlei. It turns out that the city is located beneath the Devil's Reef and is home to the Deep Ones and members of the Order. Naval submarines attempt to torpedo Y'ha-nthlei, but are stopped by a magical barrier protecting the city. The Temple of Dagon is the source of the barrier, but the entrance is sealed to prevent any interference. Jack finds another way through ancient tunnels, feared by the Deep Ones, in the foundations of the city. Apparently, this passage leading to the temple is an ancient prison for flying polyps, the enemies of the Great Ethnicity of the Yith. Jack manages to defeat them with the help of a Yithian energy weapon. Jack then enters the Temple of Dagon and kills Mother Hydra, whose song creates the barrier, stunning some of the Deep Ones with her song so that he can take control of them. After the barrier falls, the subs attack the city while Jack escapes through a portal back to the Order's headquarters. In the end, it turns out that a Yithian exchanged the spirit of Jack Walter's father when he was conceived. In the flesh, Jack Walters is human, but he has inherited the psychic powers of the Yithians, which was the reason for the cultists' intervention.