50 Fun Facts About Horror Game

Which genre label did Capcom first use in 1996 to market the original Resident Evil?

Survival horror was Capcom's own label for Resident Evil, and it was later applied backwards to older games such as Sweet Home and Alone in the Dark.

Capcom's 1989 Famicom RPG Sweet Home, an ancestor of Resident Evil, was made alongside what?

A film of the same name was directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa; its trailer advertised the game too, and Kurosawa is credited as the game's supervisor.

Alone in the Dark (1992) is set in a haunted mansion in which US state?

Louisiana's Derceto mansion was meant to carry the Call of Cthulhu name, but licence holder Chaosium refused its blessing, so Lovecraft's monsters stayed in without the brand.

Which two S.T.A.R.S. members can you play as in the original Resident Evil?

Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine play differently: he must hunt for keys, while her lockpick opens those doors, earning her the nickname 'Master of Unlocking'.

In the original Resident Evil, which item is used up each time you save your game?

An ink ribbon is used up by every save at a typewriter, and because the supply is finite, each wasted save can come back to haunt you later.

What is Resident Evil called in its home country?

Biohazard is the original title at home, but Capcom's US office warned the name could not be trademarked in America, so a staff contest came up with Resident Evil.

Who directed the original Resident Evil and later founded Tango Gameworks to make The Evil Within?

Shinji Mikami got the job in 1993 when his boss Tokuro Fujiwara asked for a horror game built on the systems of Sweet Home, the Famicom chiller Fujiwara had directed.

Resident Evil 4 (2005) sends Leon Kennedy to rescue the president's daughter from a cult where?

Spain is where Leon finds the president's daughter held in a remote village, and the game's over-the-shoulder aiming went on to shape a generation of action games such as Gears of War.

Resident Evil 7 (2017) broke with series tradition by adopting which viewpoint?

First-person view was producer Jun Takeuchi's idea for pulling the series back to horror after the action-heavy Resident Evil 6, with the whole game shrunk to one family's plantation.

Silent Hill, the town, is located in which US state?

Maine is the games' setting, but the 2006 film moved Silent Hill to West Virginia and modelled it on Centralia, the Pennsylvania town emptied by an underground coal fire.

In the first Silent Hill (1999), Harry Mason is searching the town for whom?

His missing adopted daughter Cheryl vanishes after a car crash outside town; the thick fog Harry searches through also helped hide the PlayStation's technical limits.

Silent Hill 2's James Sunderland comes to town after receiving a letter from whom?

His dead wife Mary's letter draws James back to the town where they once holidayed, yet the woman he finds by the lake is Maria, her uncanny double.

Which seemingly unkillable Silent Hill 2 monster wears a huge helmet and drags a giant knife?

Pyramid Head never speaks and never shows a face: designer Masahiro Ito wanted a monster with a hidden face, and the Great Knife is so heavy he can only drag it behind him.

P.T. (2014) teased the cancelled Silent Hills, a collaboration between Hideo Kojima and which filmmaker?

Guillermo del Toro was to make Silent Hills with Kojima and actor Norman Reedus, but Konami scrapped it in 2015 and pulled the P.T. demo from the PlayStation Store.

Silent Hill f (2025) is set in the 1960s in a fictional town in which country?

Japan was chosen because producer Motoi Okamoto felt the series had grown too westernised, so the team set out to make '100% Japanese' horror in the fog-bound town of Ebisugaoka.

In Fatal Frame, what do the protagonists use to capture and pacify ghosts?

A camera, the Camera Obscura, hits harder the longer it stays trained on a ghost, so players must hold their nerve and keep the spirit in frame as it closes in.

In Clock Tower (1995), Jennifer Simpson is stalked through the Barrows mansion by a killer known as what?

Scissorman can't be fought with weapons, because Jennifer has none, so she must run, hide or spring a trap.

Dead Space (2008) built its combat around what 'founding principle'?

Strategic dismemberment turns the usual shooter habit upside down: instead of aiming for the head, players must cut off a Necromorph's limbs to kill it.

What is the profession of Dead Space's protagonist Isaac Clarke?

Engineer Isaac Clarke is no soldier, which is why his weapons are mining tools such as the Plasma Cutter, turned on the monsters aboard the USG Ishimura.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010) was made by Frictional Games, a studio from which country?

Sweden is home to Frictional Games, founded in Helsingborg, whose Amnesia gives the player no weapons at all: the only answers to its monsters are to run or hide.

What is the name of the amnesiac protagonist of Amnesia: The Dark Descent?

Daniel wakes in a Prussian castle with no memory and finds a note in his own hand: he wiped his past on purpose and must now go down and kill the baron, Alexander.

In Outlast (2013), the only way to see in the dark of Mount Massive Asylum is through what?

A camcorder's night vision is the only way to see in the asylum's dark, but it drains batteries, so journalist Miles Upshur has to scavenge them constantly.

Who created Five Nights at Freddy's, largely single-handedly, in 2014?

Scott Cawthon built Five Nights at Freddy's mostly alone after critics said the characters in his family game Chipper & Sons Lumber Co. looked like creepy animatronics.

In the first Five Nights at Freddy's, which limited resource must the night guard ration?

Electricity is rationed each night: watching the monitors and shutting doors drains it, and once it runs out the doors and lights fail, leaving the guard defenceless.

Who plays Mike Schmidt in the 2023 Five Nights at Freddy's film?

Josh Hutcherson plays the night guard in a film that streamed on Peacock the day it reached cinemas yet still opened to $80 million, then Blumhouse's biggest debut.

Alan Wake (2010) is set in which fictional small town in Washington state?

Bright Falls was built from life: Finnish studio Remedy sent a team through Oregon and Washington and came home with over 6,000 photos of small towns, diners and lakes.

In the PlayStation horror Until Dawn (2015), what mechanic makes players' choices reshape the story?

A butterfly effect system lets small choices ripple into later deaths, under three rules: anyone can survive, anyone can die, and whoever dies stays dead.

Alien: Isolation (2014) casts you as Amanda, which relative of the films' heroine Ellen Ripley?

Her daughter Amanda sets out 15 years after the 1979 film to learn why Ellen vanished, and the game copies that film's lo-fi look instead of the gung-ho sequel Aliens.

Which studio, best known for the Total War strategy series, made Alien: Isolation?

Creative Assembly was handed three terabytes of original production material by Fox to rebuild the 1979 film's world, from set designs to costume photos.

Dead by Daylight is an asymmetric multiplayer game with what player split?

One Killer versus four Survivors is lopsided by design: the hunted get a wider view of their surroundings, while the Killer's narrower view stays fixed on the prey.

In Phasmophobia, which item reveals a ghost's fingerprints on doors and switches?

A UV light (or glowstick) reveals fingerprints on doors and switches, one of the game's evidence types alongside EMF readings, spirit-box responses and freezing temperatures; Twitch streams made it a hit in October 2020.

In Lethal Company, what do players collect and sell to meet The Company's ever-rising quotas?

Scrap from abandoned exomoons is sold to meet the Company's profit quota, and the earnings buy passage to moons with higher risks and richer hauls.

Poppy Playtime is set in the abandoned factory of a fictional company that made what?

Toys are the trap here: Playtime Co.'s creations have turned vengeful, and the returning ex-employee has only a GrabPack with two extendable hands to get past them.

Doki Doki Literature Club! (2017) disguises itself as what kind of game before the horror kicks in?

A dating simulator is the disguise: it opens as a cute school romance, then a shocking death in the club reveals the psychological horror underneath.

The 2012 indie game The Eight Pages has players collecting pages while avoiding which creepypasta figure?

Slender Man never attacks: the danger is looking at him, which drains the player's sanity until the game ends, so the pages must be found with eyes averted.

Little Nightmares (2017) follows Six, a hungry little girl escaping which grim place?

The Maw is a vast metal vessel full of grotesque diners; when developer Tarsier was bought by Embracer in 2019, publisher Bandai Namco kept the series and carried on without it.

Bloodborne (2015) takes place in which plague-ridden Gothic city?

Yharnam was famed for a blood-based remedy that drew the sick from far and wide, and those pilgrims are now the plague-ridden citizens who never left.

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (2002) is famous for 'sanity effects' that do what?

Break the fourth wall is the idea: as sanity drops the game pretends your save data has been deleted, part of a sanity system Nintendo went on to patent.

Left 4 Dead (2008) uses an AI called what to control pacing and item placement?

The Director watches how the players are coping and tailors the frequency and ferocity of zombie attacks to match, so no two runs play out the same.

Soma (2015) is set in what kind of location?

An underwater research facility, PATHOS-II, has been cut off: the radio is dead, food is running out and its machines have started to think they are people.

System Shock 2 (1999) was designed by which man, who later created BioShock?

Ken Levine led design at Irrational Games, which co-developed it with Looking Glass Studios; it was going to be a standalone game until EA, which owned the System Shock rights, came on as publisher.

BioShock (2007) is set in Rapture, an underwater city built by which fictional magnate?

Andrew Ryan is built on the heroes of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: a tycoon who turns his back on the world's 'parasites' to found a city where the talented answer to no one.

Condemned: Criminal Origins was a launch title for which console?

Xbox 360 owners got it on day one in November 2005, a horror game where guns are scarce, so most fights are settled with pipes and planks torn from the scenery.

Signalis (2022) has the player control what kind of character?

An android, the Replika technician Elster, searches a hostile off-world mining facility for her ship's missing pilot, a quest the game frames as a search for 'her lost dreams'.

Darkwood (2017) traps its characters in a dark forest somewhere in what region?

The Soviet Bloc setting comes with a strict routine: by day you scavenge the ever-changing forest, and by night you can only barricade your hideout and pray for morning.

Bendy and the Ink Machine puts you in the shoes of Henry Stein, a retired what?

Animator Henry Stein goes back to the cartoon studio he left years earlier after a letter invites him, and finds it abandoned and haunted by the work of the Ink Machine.

Slay the Princess (2023) inverts which classic storytelling archetype?

It inverts the damsel in distress: instead of rescuing the princess, your objective is to kill her before she ends the world; The Pristine Cut expanded it in 2024.

Which 9-foot-6 vampire stalks Ethan Winters through her castle in Resident Evil Village (2021)?

Lady Dimitrescu appeared in a brief teaser months before release, and fan art, memes and cosplay of her spread across the internet before anyone had played the game.

In 3D Monster Maze on the ZX81, which unbeatable creature hunts the weaponless player?

A Tyrannosaurus rex pounced so suddenly in testing that programmer Malcolm Evans added warnings such as 'Rex has seen you'.

In Doki Doki Literature Club!, which club member turns out to be self-aware and deletes her friends' character files?

Monika knows she is inside a game: she rewrites it to turn the player against the other girls, then deletes their character files so only she is left.