Summary
Horror gamesare great. They can lull players into a false sense of security, likeBaldi’s BasicsorDoki Doki Literature Club,or get them tense from the start, like the classicResident Evilgames andSilent Hill. Either way, they’ll gradually ramp up the tension until some terror bursts in and leaves players frantically looking for an escape route.
If those are horror games, what would reverse-horror games be like? One where the player is the terror, be they a ghost, monster, or killer, stalking the innocent to do something nasty to them. There are somegreat reverse-horror gamesout there too, from lesser-known indie titles, to some particularly big names.
LikeCarrion,The Dwellerputs the player in the role of an amorphous beast chasing after scientists. Specifically, they’re an entity that can only move across the rocks within their underground city, but it’s now overrun with archaeologists exploring their cavernous lair. They must figure out how to get them out using their limited mobility and their surroundings.
Using strategically placed boulders, the player can move from section to section to devour the diggers, crush the classicists, or send the paleontologists into a panic to make them run off the edge of cliffs. The further they get into the game, the trickier its levels get. It’s a short game, but figuring out all its different tricks will keep players occupied for hours.
Dead By Daylightis perhaps the most famous reverse-horror game around right now, or at least the first one that’s intentionally horror-based. Players can choose to be one of the four survivors, who must avoid the killer and power up enough generators to open the exit. Players can also be the killer, who must catch each survivor and sacrifice them to the Entity by impaling them on hooks.
When it was originally released in 2016, the game got middling reviews because of its online problems. However, it improved its flaws and caught on so well that it has received a host of spin-offs (like theHooked On Youdating sim), and licensed DLC. If players didn’t want to play as the default killers, they could be Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers,Silent Hill’s Pyramid Head, orResident Evil’s Nemesis, among other characters, for the right price.
Countless games let players fight zombies, even silly ones (seeSaints Row the Third), but there aren’t manywhere players can BE zombies. There’sDarkstalkers, theDying Light Be the ZombieDLC,Left 4 Dead’s Zombie Mode, and this game,Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse. It’s perhaps the most famous zombie sim because it spells out what it’s about in the title.
Stubbs is out for revenge on the city of Punchbowl, PA, and aims to achieve it by raising an army of the dead and eating people’s brains. He can use his desiccated body parts as makeshift weapons, or call upon his newly converted hordes to fight back against the police, militia, and more. It’s not a long game, but it’s a neat bit of retro-futuristic undead fun.
Most games will make the player run away from or fight against monsters. InCarrion, they ARE the monster! They play as an amorphous, red tentacle monster known simply as ‘The Creature’. They were found and contained by Relith Science, but now they’ve broken out, and they’ve got to find a way to escape the facility, taking out any soldier or scientist standing in their way.
It’s more of a straightforward action-horror game, as the Creature can move through vents and break through barricades to get the jump on its foes. At first, it can only do so much against the gun-toting soldiers, but as they explore the facility, players will find pieces of their Creature DNA that they can reabsorb to grow bigger. They will also get new upgrades, learn more about their past, and find out how they ended up at Relith.
If players want tobe Jason Voorhees, but couldn’t get theFriday the 13thgame before its delisting,Party Hardmight scratch their itch for digital death dealing. It’s an action stealth game where the player must sneak around a house and pick off its party guests one by one without getting caught. Otherwise, they’ll have to kill the witness ASAP or flee before the police arrive. That sounds like standardMetal Gear-esque fare, but it plays more like a slasher-based version ofHitman.
Whether it’s as the basic guy with a knife, or one of the four unlockable characters, players can lay traps like poisoned drinks or exploding speakers to take out stragglers. Dead bodies can also be hidden in dumpsters and special locations to avoid alerting guests or patrolling cops. The more the police are called in, the harder they’ll be to avoid or kill off, until they start bringing in Special Agents. They’ll make it even harder to survive or avoid getting arrested. If that happens, it’s game over.
One of the few other zombie sims isZombie Night Terrorwhere, likeStubbs the Zombie, the player must lead the brainless hordes towards their living human meals. Only, instead of being a fellow zombie in a third-person adventure, they’re picking out ways to help the hordes get around traps and avoid weapon-toting foes to feast on those brains.
In other words, it’sLemmingswith zombiesand survival elements. Unlike DMA Design’s series, the player has to look after their zombies and keep them fed as they work out the game’s 50 increasingly-complex levels. They can recruit new zombies by infecting humans, and make them stronger by mutating them any way they like. It’ll just take a lot of gray matter to keep them going.
One would think the almightyGhost Trick: Phantom Detectivewould fit this list. Unfortunately, Sissel isn’t intentionally planning on scaring people or terrorizing the town whenhe pulls off his tricks. However, Sick Puppies used a similar item-tricking idea for their 2003 titleGhost Master. It’s an RTS puzzle game where the player must right wrongs and increase people’s belief in the supernatural by scaring them.
It’s not enough to flood the level with as many ghosts as possible, as some phantoms can only do certain jobs. Water spirits need watery hazards like plugholes and puddles, while only the ghosts of killed victims can haunt lethal items. Each scare earns Plasm, which can be used to produce more ghosts, or make current ghosts stronger. If the player isn’t using their resources well, they’re not going to be scaring anyone.
Really? The big meme game thatgot kiddy manga stripsis horror, reverse or otherwise? Kind of.Among Usis more of a social deduction game a la ‘Mafia’/‘Werewolf’, which has been used for horror stories before. But it was also inspired by John Carpenter’sThe Thing, the sci-fi horror where anyone in its cast could be a murderous threat. Up to 15 players play as astronauts, with most of them trying to figure out how many ‘Impostors’ are among them.
The Impostors' job is to sabotage the ship and kill the rest of the crew. If the crew thinks they’ve found an Impostor, they can call a meeting and present evidence. If it’s convincing enough to get enough votes, the suspect will be flushed out into space. For the crew, it’s a survival horror. For the Impostors, it’s aHitman-style stealth killer sim.
