Lust from Beyond is a horror/adventure game created by Movie Games Lunarium released on the 11th of March, 2021. A sequel to 2018's Lust for Darkness, this game centers on Victor Holloway, an antiquarian, who is tormented by visions of a sinister land full of lechery and pain.
A sequel, Lust of God was announced on December 15, 2023, it's release date currently unknown.
This video game provides examples of:
- Actionized Sequel: In the first of a few behind the scenes videos from the makers of the game, they stated they realized that the previous game Lust for Darkness was a walking simulator, and when it came to this game, they decided to make it more exciting by adding more action into the story, which has resulted in several sequences such as the running across the rooftops of Bleakmoor, the fight with Tim and the multiple boss fights with Amanda, amongst others.
- Alas, Poor Villain:
- Victor can kill several Scarlet Lodge cultists over the course of the game. While these people are into kidnapping, torture, and rape, they're insane from having been broken by the sexual pleasures of Lusst'ghaa. Dr. Austerlitz, in particular, is legitimately trying to heal his followers and restore their minds. He just goes about in one of the worst ways possible.
- Even lauv'abrarc could qualify as this in the backstory, as he genuinely believed that making his people into the Changed was the best way to achieve eternal happiness, but the Demiurges punished him by spreading a cancer to Lusst'ghaa, and imprisoned him in Xu'thrar when he tried to flee to Earth.
- Amanda Moon also falls into this. See Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.
- Badass Normal: Jonathan. His wife is the most powerful Seeing in the world, able to open portals to Lusst'ghaa at will. Victor is also a Seeing and is revealed to be, like Amanda, an avatar for a god of Lusst'ghaa. Despite being a very mundane human in comparison, Jonathan saved Amanda from the Cult in Lust for Darkness and helped conduct no less than three successful raids into the Eden Theatre in this game.
- Becoming the Mask: A few examples of this, both very spoilery.
- Lily was sent to seduce and spy on Victor for the Scarlet Lodge, but ended up genuinely falling in love with him.
- On the Cult of Ecstasy side, Mabel goes through the exact same thing: she was sent to seduce Christopher, but ended up genuinely falling for him. According to Jonathan, she frequently sheds tears over his "disappearance."
- Big Damn Heroes: A Scarlet Lodge member has captured Victor and is raping him when Amanda and Jonathan arrive out of nowhere, shoot the cultist in the head, and save Victor.
- Black Speech: The few times lauv'abrarc is heard speaking come off as this, though the Seeing Ones are capable of understanding what he says.
- Blatant Lies: In an attempt to get off the phone with Mrs. Hudson, Victor can tell her he needs to attend to his dog. Mrs. Hudson promptly points out that Victor doesn't have a dog.
- Body Horror: What happens to Amanda in the end... isn't pretty. Her son isn't any better, and is arguably not even human anymore.
- Bondage Is Bad: The Scarlet Lodge cultists are a decidedly more evil flavor of sex cult than the Cult of Ecstasy, and BDSM themes appear often among them. Most cultists have injuries consistent with impact play that was definitely not safe, sane, or consensual.
- Bottomless Magazines: In the final levels, Victor's revolver has infinite ammo. You still need to reload it after six shots, but you can reload as many times as you need to.
- Cellphones Are Useless: Victor forgot to charge his phone before driving Bleakmoor, effectively isolating him from any help. It never shows up again, likely lost or destroyed during one of the times the Scarlet Lodge captured him and took all his stuff.
- Chekhov's Gun: A literal example: Victor can examine his revolver at the beginning of the game, commenting that he should put it away as his fiancée doesn't like guns. Lily gives him that gun later, allowing him to fight his way out of the Eden Theatre.
- Chekhov's Skill: Victor being an antiquarian means he likes the Cult's old-style mansion, with its dust and furnishings and clutter that's 100 years out of date. It also means, when he officially joins the cult, he's ideally suited to research the deeper mysteries of Lusst'ghaa, lauv'abrarc, and Xu'thrar, making him essential to Amanda's plans even if he wasn't the avatar of Ughro'ecna.
- The Chessmaster: Dr. Austerlitz is rather fond of chess analogies, but it is Amanda who proves the superior player. Lily and Austerlitz concoct a scheme to lure Victor back to the Eden Theatre, knowing that Victor would unhesitatingly rush in to save Lily. Amanda knew the same thing and sent Jonathan to "help" Victor. Victor's actions underneath the Eden Theatre allow Jonathan to steal back a valuable book Austerlitz had taken before. Jonathan also kills Lily, driving Victor to despair, making him easy prey for Amanda to recruit him into the Cult. Amanda then successfully tricks Victor into finding the Mask of Ughro'ecna, the key only he can use to open Xu'thrar.
- Collection Sidequest: There are no less than 6 in the game: the clown statues in Bleakmoor, the lauv'abrarc statues in Sabinian's Mansion, the 3 sets of side-stories (the Queen of Ecstasy, the Scarlet Lodge, and the Demiurges), and (added in a later update) the Guardian Statues in Lusst'ghaa.
- The Corruption: Lusst'ghaa is revealed to be plagued with a cancer called Ghar'ne, which is destroying the Land of Eternal Ecstasy and affecting the Enthralled and the Changed.
- Cosmic Horror Story: Like its predecessor, the game has all the trappings of one: A Cult wants to open portals to another dimension and free a trapped God who will bring about the end of the world. Even if that plot is stopped, the protagonist commits suicide over the horrors he's lived with and it's implied that all he did was delay the inevitable.
- Covered in Scars: Most members of the Scarlet Lodge, some of the Cult of Ecstasy. More prominent in the latter after The Time Skip, as former Scarlet Lodge members have come to the Cult due to lack of options. If you choose to have sex with Mable, once she ditches her dress you can see she has lots of nasty scars, hinting at some seriously bad stuff in her past.
- Dawn of an Era: Should the player choose to open Xu'thrar, lauv'abrarc will be freed and begin turning Earth into a new Lusst'ghaa.
- Deadpan Snarker: Victor has quite a sense of humor, and explicitly cracks jokes when something's bothering him. He gets some pretty good digs on just about everyone.
- Despair Event Horizon: Rhea and many members of the Scarlet Lodge upon seeing the results of the Chamber of Change in Victor.
- Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male: Played with. In order to send Victor into Lusst'ghaa, Dr. Austerlitz forcibly performs oral sex on him while he's restrained. The former is properly horrified, while the Scarlet Lodge members consider this a great honor as Austerlitz apparently only does this sparingly.
- Driven to Suicide:
- A number of members of the Cult of Ecstasy ended up killing themselves after the events of the previous game. Many others became part of the Scarlet Lodge. They also end up killing themselves after seeing Victor when he goes through the Chamber of Change.
- Victor himself ends up doing this if you refuse to open Xu'thrar, being unable to live with all the horrors he's suffered over the course of the game.
- Victor can do this during gameplay, and you get an achievement for it. Let his sanity drop enough after he's found a weapon, stare at a "visual hallucination" for a few seconds, and Victor will decide he's done with this weirdness and take the most direct way out.
- Eldritch Abomination: lauv'abrarc, especially in the Agree ending. According to the epilogue, merely being in his presence drives everyone nearby into an endless sexual frenzy.
- The brief cutscene showing him over Bleakmoor when you find his tear only highlights this, as he's revealed to be a massive humanoid being that towers over the town, his lower half is a collection of tentacles instead of legs, and his head wouldn't look out of place on Cthulhu.
- Eldritch Location: Lusst'ghaa, the Land of Eternal Ecstasy is this.
- Evil Is Visceral: Lusst'ghaa is this, just like in the last game.
- Fan Disservice: There is a lot more nudity and sexual imagery in this game than the previous title, and it's mostly played for shock and horror. The Scarlet Lodge sequences in particular are rife with this, as are the inhabitants of Lusst'ghaa. Amanda at the end of the game is also fought (and fucked in the Agree ending) in the nude, but she's so heavily mutated that she barely qualifies as human anymore. That said...
- Fanservice: The game still has a few moments of this. One memorable moment has an orgy going on, and you are required to take part in it to progress the story. You can also have sex with Mabel and/or Amanda (pre-mutation), the latter being plot mandated and the former depending on choices you make through interacting with her (along with two more optional sexual encounters with Amanda, one just for fun and one to help her open Xu'thrar and release lauv'abrarc to turn Earth into Lusst'ghaa 2.0, though Amanda has pretty much become a Daemonette by that point). In general, the game's adult content skips merrily back and forth over the lines between Fanservice and Disservice, with much of it intended to be titillating and disturbing in equal measure, and very little being entirely one or the other. As a for instance, Victor's romantic night with Lilly quickly turns into rape as he goes harder than she likes and does not stop immediately when she asks, followed by him freaking out and backhanding her after a dream visit to Lusst'ghaa. It's sexy. . . right up until it isn't.
- Fate Worse than Death: The Scarlet Lodge believes being turned into the Changed is this, especially after Victor returns from his visit to the Chamber of Change.
- Foreshadowing: After taking control of Victor, examining his laptop will have him comment that his girlfriend, Lilly, often asks to use it, and he wonders what he'll tell her if she asks why his browser history is empty. A bit later, you can find a fleshlight in his nightstand, which he says he's been meaning to get rid of since he and Lilly got together. Early hints that Victor has an above-average sex drive, exactly the kind of person a sex cult would want to recruit. As a Seeing One, Victor is connected to Lusst'ghaa and lauv'abrarc, making his libido actually supernatural.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: In conversations early in the game, Lilly will mention two bandmates of hers, Tim and Steve. Much later, you can find notes indicating they're both in the Scarlet Lodge. Which makes the reveal at the end of that chapter that Lilly's a member too a lot less surprising.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: There is one map where you have to build a bridge only for you to be scripted to fall through the bridge to continue the story. If you happen to fall into the hole before building the bridge, you just die, and have to go back and build it like the game wants you to.
- Genius Loci: Lusst'ghaa is established to be this to a degree.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: There are shades of this everywhere. The Scarlet Lodge and the Cult of Ecstasy can hardly be considered paragons, but they genuinely believe that their path is the best possible way forward for the world. Amanda is incredibly manipulative of everyone, but she believes that freeing lauv'abrarc will end all suffering everywhere.
- Guide Dang It!: Downplayed. It is possible to save Mabel from her injuries near the end of the game, but compared to the choices of killing Austerlitz and Jonathan, the game does not make it especially clear as to how you can do so. What you're supposed to do is talk to Theodore again after finding Mabel, and he'll direct you to a potion that can save her life.
- Like a Son to Me: In Charles Austerlitz's backstory, Lasih attempted to dissuade Willard Yelverton from killing Charles by saying he saw Charles as a son. It didn't end well for Lasih. Charles in turn saw Rhea this way.
- Meaningful Echo: After Jonathan and Amanda save Victor from the Scarlet Lodge, Victor can eavesdrop on Amanda and Sabinian talking. Amanda asks Sabinian how the new Seeing One (Victor) is doing, and Sabinian replies that he's understandably terrified and confused. Much later, Victor has joined the Cult, and Theodore asks Victor how the new Seeing One (Natalya) is doing. Victor responds with more-or-less the exact words Sabinian originally used to describe him.
- Mind Rape: Along with plenty of actual rape. According to the ending where Xu'thrar is opened, this also happens merely by being in lauv'abrarc's presence, as being in proximity to him essentially shatters the mind with overwhelming sexual ecstasy.
- My God, What Have I Done?: In the epilogue, it's revealed that Amanda feels this if Jonathan dies, feeling guilty about how her connection to Lusst'ghaa has destroyed their love. Even before that, it's implied she regrets what she's done to him.
- Multiple Endings: Two major branches: whether or not you agree to help Amanda with her plan or refuse. Ending slides will change based on the characters whose lives or deaths are in your hands (Austerlitz, Jonathan, Mabel, and Amanda.)
- Navel-Deep Neckline: Amanda (when she wears clothes) wears blue jeans and a leather jacket over a white shirt whose neckline fails to reach her navel only on a technicality.
- Notice This: Critical items you can pick up to progress the story tend to flash white. This doesn't help if they're in a cupboard, chest, closet, drawer, or otherwise concealed from plain view until you open the right container.
- Palm Bloodletting: Victor does so to open the gate behind which he can find the Mask of Ughro'ecna, as he is the avatar of Ughro'ecna and only his blood can open the gate.
- The Precarious Ledge: During Victor's stay in a second-floor room of the Hotel Desire, a member of the Scarlet Lodge attempts to break into his room to brutalize him. Victor escapes out the window onto a small ledge and has to shimmy across it to an adjacent window in order to escape the attacker.
- Running Gag: If you throw Victor's fleshlight in the garbage, he'll say "Goodbye, old friend." While investigating the Cult of Ecstasy mansion, you can go into the rooms of assorted cult members and look around. Most of them have sex toys hidden somewhere near their beds; upon finding them, Victor will comment "Hello, X's old friend."
- Sealed Evil in a Can: It turns out that lauv'abrarc is imprisoned in Xu'thrar because the Demiurges didn't approve of lauv'abrarc making Lusst'ghaa a static, unchanging world, and locked him up to prevent him from doing the same to other worlds.
- Shout-Out: Some of the symbols for the Cult of Ecstasy are very similar to the symbol for Slaanesh. Probably the easiest to find is in the mansion as you start, painted in black on a white wall near Theodore's room. At the climax — ahem — the Final Boss transforms into basically a Daemonette, complete with nudity, Slaaneshi pink-purple skin, and something like a lobster claw for a left arm (only left arm, mind).
- Tarot Troubles: Mabel will offer Victor a tarot reading, telling him to choose 3 cards out of a total of 12 face-down cards. The 3 cards represent past, present, and future. All 12 cards are, in fact, unique, and all have some bearing on Victor's path through the game. It's worth noting that Mabel only offers the 12 cards and not the full 22 in the Major Arcana.
- Thin Dimensional Barrier: At one point, it's noted that the walls between dimensions are weaker during the Summer and Winter Solstice. When combined with having sex in the Chamber of Trinity, this allows one of the Seeing Ones to attain the power of the Lusst'ghaan deities.
- Time Skip: After Victor agrees to join the Cult of Ecstasy, six months pass before the game picks back up.
- Took a Level in Badass: Both Amanda and Victor obtain the power of a god of Lusst'ghaa - Ac'mlale for Amanda and Ughro'ecna for Victor, making the damsel in distress from Lust for Darkness and the unassuming antiquarian the most powerful Seeing Ones Earth has ever seen.
- Verbal Tic: Theodore, essentially high priest for the Cult of Ecstasy, has one rendered in subtitles as "Mhm," but he says it more "Mm — HM."
- Video Game Caring Potential: You get an achievement for not killing or letting die four characters whose fates you can choose: Austerlitz, Jonathan, Mabel, and Amanda.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: You also get an achievement for killing or letting all four of them die.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Scarlet Lodge show shades of this. They are cultists like the Cult of Ecstasy who brutalize the Seeing Ones they capture, subjecting them to torture and regularly sending them to Lusst'ghaa. But after the events of the first game, they want to ensure that lauv'abrarc is never able to affect the Earth again.
- Wham Episode: Wrath of the Queen, fitting for a final chapter. The nature of lauv'abrarc and Xu'thrar is revealed, and that Amanda's attempts to release lauv'abrarc are against the will of Demiurges and the "paradise on Earth" will mean complete stagnation.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Midway through the story, after playing a crucial role as a spy in the Scarlet Lodge, Sabinian just disappears from the plot entirely, with only mentions of him being outside Bleakmoor. In one of the endings if Victor rejects Amanda, Sabinian shows up with Natalya to try to induct him into a new cult he is forming, only to find Victor's corpse after he shoots himself. Sabinian takes the Mask of Ughro'ecna that Victor had in the back room, hinting at a possible storyline for another game as a result.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Amanda is this when you consider the events of the first game. While she is the new leader of the Cult of Ecstasy and wants to spread Lusst'ghaa to Earth, she was broken down from the events of the first game, both during her suffering at the hands of Yelverton, and brainwashing thanks to the voice of lauv'abrarc. It's exemplified during the end scene if Jonathan dies, where it's revealed that Amanda is secretly guilt ridden for breaking her husband's mind and destroying their love during her quest for Lusst'ghaa.
- You're Insane!: Victor yells this to Dr. Austerlitz and the Scarlet Lodge. He's more-or-less correct — not that it helps him much.
