Chile’s ACE Team studio, named for and run by brothers Andres, Carlos and Edmundo Bordeu, grabbed the gaming world’s attention with their 2009 debut Zeno Clash, a punk fantasy journey to the end of the world. The brothers’ off-the-wall inventiveness has turned cartwheels through the industry ever since, and now, with The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu, lands on the edge of madness. Intel Gaming Access met the ACE Team there, in advance of the game’s July 15 release.
“We have a long history of creating visually unique and mechanically innovative titles,” ACE Team admits. “We specialize in blending surreal art directions with deep, engaging gameplay. The new game is heavily inspired by HP Lovecraft’s more obscure lore—specifically the sci-fi/horror novella The Mound.” For those unacquainted, the story is about a gateway to a subterranean civilization full of unspeakable creatures. Fertile ground for the brothers.
“The game is a coop horror,” Ace Team explains, “but above all it’s a ‘moment generator’. Set at the time of the conquistadors, you play in a squad of up to four players, exploring a cursed jungle that plays with your perception. Expedition after expedition, you are able to go deeper, to find new equipment and new monsters, all in search of ‘The Mound’, a legendary underworld said to hold incredible riches. But the deeper you go, the more the madness system of the game will play with your eyes and ears to trigger accidental sabotage.”
In other words, it’s a world where monsters are real, but sometimes they’re not. The enemy is them, until it’s you. Nothing is as it seems, but you have to defend yourself from it anyway. “What makes the game unique in the coop horror genre is the madness system. The way the game plays with player perception to trick them is unique and quite new. It is designed to make players doubt what they see and hear, and create moments of tension,” ACE says. “The main antagonist is the setting itself: the Valdivian jungle. Uncertainty drives our core mechanics. Players can easily confuse a friend for a monster or vice-versa.”
The originality doesn’t end with the madness system, as ACE explains. “The madness system receives a lot of light, but the setting at the time of the conquistadors has also been less used. The ‘conquistador technology’, means oil lamps, torches that can fade, muskets that take time to reload, weapons that can’t fire in the rain… it all creates something special that fits very much with what the game is trying to do: making you feel vulnerable in this cursed jungle.”
The monsters that prowl that jungle provide plenty of head-splitting moments but how about the real-life headaches behind creating such a complex blend of horror and delusion? “The madness system was our most challenging feature to develop,” ACE affirms. “We were inspired by Eternal Darkness, but we needed to take the concept further. Tricking a player’s perception is relatively simple; the hard part was designing sanity effects that force concrete actions and choices, directly impacting the team’s chances of survival. A second challenge was rendering the Valdivian jungle with authenticity. Capturing this specific, authentic look was a big technical and artistic challenge, but it delivers an environment that will feel new to players.”
If you feel extra brave, you can go it alone into the jungle, but there’s no penalty (and no shame) if you buddy up. “The cooperation dynamics—and how they are hijacked by our madness system—create some truly unique gameplay moments,” ACE says. “High performance is critical because fluid, responsive gameplay directly impacts survival in a high-stakes co-op shooter. Furthermore, maintaining a solid frame-rate is vital for preserving the immersive, tense horror atmosphere. So while the game can be played solo, we highly recommend diving in with friends.” Good advice. Intel couldn’t let ACE Team go it alone in the developer jungle, either.
“Integrating Intel XeSS allows us to significantly boost performance and deliver sharp visuals across a wide range of hardware, ensuring smoother gameplay during intense encounters,” ACE explains. “While we have always maintained a great relationship with Intel, this integration represents an exciting, deeper technical collaboration to directly optimize our latest title for modern PC hardware. Throughout development, we have relied on Intel hardware configurations to test and benchmark the game. This has been essential for analyzing how the game scales on different PC builds, allowing us to ensure a stable, smooth experience for players across a broader range of systems.”
You have until July 15 to prepare your minds to be messed with, while ACE Team have vowed their continued support and care for The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu after launch—and that you can believe.
Wishlist The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu on Steam