A scary game is a video game genre centered on scary fiction and typically designed to scare the player. Unlike most other video game genres, which are classified by their gameplay, scary games are nearly always based on narrative or visual presentation and use a variety of gameplay types. One thing that makes them even more terrifying would be if the games are solely based on true stories that happened in real life. Talk about a really twisted plot in video games.
These video games are quite interesting to be played but every time we remembered that they were based on true stories, it does make the players feel some type of way because the experiences that we face in the video games might happen again. But for horror lovers, these are nothing for them. So, these are 5 scary games based on true stories.
1) Fatal Frame
Paranormal horror game Fatal Frame sets investigative sister, Miku Hinasaki, to Himuro Mansion to find her missing brother, who has mysteriously disappeared after visiting an alleged haunted mansion to look for his folklorist mentor. The Himuro Mansion does exist in Japan and is considered to be the location of one of the greatest mass murders in the country’s history, seven people allegedly found dead from eerie occult rituals. One of the rituals purportedly carried out there was known as the “Strangling Ritual,” in which a young girl would have ropes attached to her limbs, only to have them stretched apart and ripped off of her, in order to seal off evil spirits from the house.
2) Stairs
Swedish psychological survival horror game, Stairs, has you play as an investigative journalist who, seeking a new story, decides to explore the bizarre and unexplained disappearance of three missing persons in the nearby vicinity. The game is said to have taken inspiration from the Donner Party incident as well as the murders of Ed Gein as you explore an abandoned factory and much more.
3) Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper
Playing as either Sherlock Holmes or Dr. John Watson, you investigate murders in Victorian England, crimes thought to be committed by real-life serial killer, Jack the Ripper. Actual victims of Jack the Ripper appear in the game, such as Annie Chapman, who was found dead, throat slit wide apart. While Sherlock Holmes may be fictional, Jack the Ripper’s real-life DNA holds this game together.
4) Masochisia
Atmospheric, point-and-click adventure game, Masochisia has you play as a killer this time, a young Albert Fish to be precise. Known to have killed, molested, and even cannibalized countless children in the early 1900s, Fish was eventually caught by police in New York City and thankfully sent to the electric chair to cook for good in 1936. Masochisia, however, explores childhood psyche and mental illness, rather than focusing just on blood and gore. Seemingly choice-driven gameplay, yet woven into themes of fate, give this game an incredibly unique taste among the sub-genre.
5) Lizzie Borden: The PC Game
This upcoming game first-person adventure game draws its influence from Lizzie Borden, who, in 1892, allegedly murdered her father and stepfather with an ax in their family home. Although she was tried and eventually acquitted of the murders, speculation to this day maintains she did indeed commit the crimes. The game is still in early development, but the gameplay footage shows that you do get to play in and around the same family home the horrific crimes were committed to.
Sources: Fatal Frame, Stairs, Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper, Masochisia, New Lizzie Borden PC Game.