Ludography
59/100
Players27 ratings
60/100
Critics1 review
More scores
Metacritic9 critic reviews
50/100
Metacritic usersuser score
52/100
GameFAQsSimple-Easy
2.5/5
Player reviews
68% positive3,983 reviews
Steam Deck
Playable
Runs on
Windows, Mac
Price
US$1.49

Where to get it

Lust for Darkness cover

2018 · Adult · Adventure

Lust for Darkness

Nintendo console exclusive

A psychological horror of seeking satisfaction on the border of two intertwining worlds.

Released
12 June 2018
Platforms
Nintendo SwitchWindowsmacOS
Genres
AdultAdventureIndiePuzzleRole-playing
Developers
—
Publishers
—
Modes
Single-player
Perspective
First person
Themes
ActionHorrorErotic
Age ratings
ESRB AOPEGI 18
Languages
Chinese (Simplified), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Russian, Spanish (Spain) and 1 more
Time to beat
2.5hmain story4hcompletionist

About

Lust for Darkness is a 2018 horror game developed by Movie Games Lunarium and published by Movie Games. It is an erotic horror story inspired by Zdzisław Beksiński, H. R. Giger, and H.

P. Lovecraft. It was originally released for Windows and macOS. SimFabric published it for Switch and PlayStation 4 in 2019 and 2020, respectively.

›Story

Jonathan Moon receives a letter from his wife who has gone missing a year before. Following information from the message he heads for a secluded mansion where an eldritch, occult ceremony takes place.

Gates to another world – the profane, perverse land of Lusst’ghaa are opened.

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Players control Jonathan Moon, who has spent the past year searching for his wife Amanda after she disappeared abruptly. When he receives a letter from Amanda insinuating that she's being held by a cult, he investigates a mansion mentioned in the letter. There, he finds a sex cult engaged in an orgy designed to open a gateway to a dimension called Lusst'ghaa, where the demonic inhabitants engage in sexual violence and torture. Lust for Darkness is played from a first-person perspective and has elements of stealth games.

Players occasionally have to solve puzzles to progress, and they must enter Lusst'ghaa, where they are sometimes chased by demons that they must escape. Eventually, they confront the cult's leader in Lusst'ghaa.

Development

Lust for Darkness is the first video game developed by Movie Games Lunarium. They are based in Poland and attributed a trend of transgressive Polish games to a backlash against conservative religious movements. The visuals were inspired by Zdzisław Beksiński and H. R.

Giger, and the plot was inspired by H. P. Lovecraft. It was released for macOS and Windows on June 12, 2018; for Switch on July 12, 2019; and for PlayStation 4 on October 16, 2020.

Reception

On Metacritic, Lust for Darkness received mixed reviews on Windows and negative reviews on Switch. Adventure Gamers wrote that it has "an abundance of horrifying imagery" but called it an "indiscriminately gratuitous" game that fails to live up to its interesting premise. PC Gamer called it a "flimsy attempt at Horny Amnesia". Commenting on the sexual content, they said Lust for Darkness has "a juvenile, shallow fascination with sex" and criticized it for avoiding discussions of sexual trauma, anxiety, and taboos.

PC Magazine Australia called it a "decent horror-adventure game". They praised its visuals and what they felt was a "genuinely refreshing" focus on sexuality that avoided crude immaturity. However, they criticized what they felt was a "weak story" and too much focus on gameplay involving stealth and evading enemies at the expense of exploration. Although Digitally Downloaded said it fell short of the standard for erotic thrillers set by Eyes Wide Shut, they felt it was "still leagues ahead of the clumsy, overly-simple idea of 'horror' that most game developers aspire to".

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
macOS12 June 2018Worldwide
Windows12 June 2018Worldwide
Nintendo Switch12 July 2019Worldwide · North America 20 March 2020

Editions and related releases

Ported as
Lust for Darkness: Dawn EditionLust for Darkness VR
Built on it
Lust for Darkness VR

Games like this

Collections2 collections

Genres

Platform libraries

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.