There are now 10 video games based on the Evil Dead series, not counting games in which Ash has cameos like Dead By Daylight and Poker Night 2. That’s a decent number, although the Alien series beat him, especially counting the various Alien vs Predator games. . There have been four Blair Witch games, each developed by a different studio, and even Texas Chainsaw Massacre was made into an Atari 2600 game in 1983. Meanwhile, several attempts to make Hellraiser games were canceled before release, including one in Duke Nukem. Build Engine and one in the same engine as Wolfenstein-3D. That hardly seems fair.
What horror movie would make a good video game?
Here are our answers, plus some of our forum.
Wes Fenlon, Editor: It follows. Imagine some kind of life simulation game like Bully. You are a teenager, you go to school, you choose whether your character studies at night or goes on dates in the retro town square. But at any time, an NPC could actually be a horrible, unkillable force of nature to rip your head off. You can ward off death by dating and sleeping with other people in the city, but when you hear about their grisly murders on the news, you’ll know your number is coming.
This game would probably be terrible. Great movie, though.
Chris Livingston, Feature Film Producer: March of the Penguins. Let me finish. Yes, it’s a beautiful film about the triumph of life in extremely adverse conditions, ending with the heartwarming sight of all those adorable little baby penguins whose parents fought like mad to protect and provide for them. But then you just think…wait, these baby penguins are going to grow up and have to endure everything we just saw their parents go through: months of starvation, near freezing to death, whale attacks, loss of a group of their children, and the relentless agony and misery of trying to survive in the coldest place on earth. It’s not uplifting. It’s a fucking horror story! The life of these penguins is nightmarish.
But there should be a game about penguins, because they’re cute.
Tyler Wilde, Editor: Host. A pandemic horror movie in which scary things happen over a video call was guaranteed, but it wasn’t guaranteed to be good or even watchable, so I think we did pretty well with Host . It’s 57 energetic minutes and does everything you’d expect from a Zoom horror story. (There’s good use of automatic face detection, as seen in the trailer.)
A game would work, I think. Fake computer interfaces are all the rage (Her Story, Emily is Away, Duskers, Pony Island, etc.), and Five Nights at Freddy’s has proven that a game of mostly looking at scary things on monitors is viable. You would want great spatial audio so the video call sounds like a video call, but the footsteps sound like they’re behind you.
Morgan Park, Editor: Is A Quiet Place a horror movie? I’m never sure about these things, but let’s just say it is. I think you could make a really good third-person survival game out of the first movie if it really relied on the “don’t make a sound” thing. I imagine tense moments of looting a grocery store while trying not to step on broken glass or knock over a tin can. It would probably have to be a road trip story not to spend 10 hours locked up on the same farm as Jim Halpert’s family. Ideally, it would be more stealth than action, much like the original Splinter Cell series.
Jody Macgregor, Weekend/AU Editor: I mentioned the multiple Hellraiser games that launched but never came out in the intro because that’s what I’d like to see finally happen. Solve puzzles, get chased by extra-dimensional BDSM demons, take a trip through the labyrinthine hell they call home. What’s not to like?
DXCHASE: The human centipede. You have to lure people into your lab, then sew them together, then send them out to fight for you.
Sarafan: The Underworld series deserves a solid in-game adaptation. It might not be pure horror, but there are certainly plenty of elements to it. The first film received an adaptation on PS2, but you don’t want to play it… The series has enormous potential in many different genres, be it RPGs, FPS and even strategy. It’s strange that no one has decided to deliver a good game set in this universe. Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines would finally have a strong competitor.
Brian Boru: I’m not a horror guy, but has anyone made a Frankenstein game for PC? I only know of one console fighter from about 30 years ago. You can build your monster using a finite number of parts, for example 20, with a certain number of parts required, such as the head and 2 legs. The rest is up to you – you want 8 arms, go for it!
Once you have your plan, you must hunt down and assassinate the locals, bring them back to the dungeon you won in a PC Gamer contest, and whip out your trusty, rusty hacksaw to acquire their contribution to great project.
The different quests you send your monster on will require very different layouts – cutouts? – so there will be a lot of reconfiguration and adjustment needed.
flashn00b: Does The Purge count as a horror movie? I guess if you don’t count the second and fourth movies, then maybe?
I feel like for a game based on The Purge to work it would have to be a life sim, base builder, open world survival ship and of a third person shooter in one. Life simulator because the key to a successful purge is gaining the trust of the right people, base builder because you’re going to have a house and a neighborhood to defend, open-world survival ship because you’re going to have to leave the security of your home to reclaim a city-turned-warzone and third-person shooter because ALL CRIME WILL BE LEGAL FOR THE NEXT 12 HOURS.
I guess if risk/reward is going to be a thing for the life sim part of a Purge game, they could also offer the ability to commit off-Purge crimes, although America’s new founding fathers even take the offenses the most minor very seriously.
