RPGs with Horror as the main theme?

[buffalo bill]

Also, I'm on team "Roguelikes are not RPGs so Infra Arcana, CataclysmDDA, ect. don't count".

kys

 

[Skdursh]

Also, I'm on team "Roguelikes are not RPGs so Infra Arcana, CataclysmDDA, ect. don't count".

kys

You ->
Me ->

 

[V_K]

The Legacy, System Shock 2, Prey and BloodNet are the most obvious choices. Although I would say that most pure dungeon crawlers (i.e. without a town level) have a fair bit of horror to them - it's dark as shit and danger lurks behind every corner.
Quest for Glory 4 and West of Loathing have quite a lot of horror behind all the humour.
Shadows over Riva is high fantasy on the surface, but the main plot has a lot of horror tropes at play.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

RPGs may be (mostly) power fantasies, which may be kind of an antithesis to actual "Horror."

I'm still deeply disappointed that there haven't ever been more RPGs with horror/gothic themes though. Even THAT would make for a fantastic change in pace (there's a reason almost any of the more popular tabletops has its share of horror themed campaigns/worlds).

Speaking of tabletops, what's even more curious is that there hasn't ever been an actual game based properly on tabletop Call Of Cthulhu, not even back then (excluding action/adventure type of games).

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

On the very light side of RPG, we have Dismal Passages. (linked because there are two with that title and the one with 1 in its name is actually the sequel) Its not the best-looking thing, but its actually very solid as a game.
Defender of Boston (also an adventure/RPG hybrid)
There's the Amiga blobber series Black Dawn, but I'm unsure how horror it is.
Psionics is more of a scifi game, but it has a few horror elements. Its not very good though.
Don't Go Alone, but its very old and not very good.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

If you're a pussy arachnophobic nearly every RPG is a horror ackackackackack

 

[rusty_shackleford]

If you're a pussy arachnophobic nearly every RPG is a horror ackackackackack

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/67855

 

[monilloman]

Haven't played it yet but Pathologic 2 didn't look far off from new vegas in a creepy setting from what I saw.

 

[Serus]

Quest for Glory 4.
The whole series is not horror themed but this part is. It mixes comedy with a bit of actual horror. This is the only computer that made me feel uneasy at one or two places - without using jump scares or body horror/extreme imagery as primary sources of the effect.

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

It's more adventure game than it is RPG but it has some of that shit. It's also extremely short (about 3 to 4 hours long). If you're into Lovecraft I'd recommend it. I enjoyed it enough to get all the achievements.

 

[Berengar]

CoC: Dark Corners of the Earth and CoC 2018 are both so close yet so damn far away from being cool as hell horror RPGs. I hope one day we get a super rad CoC video game.

 

[ELEXmakesMeHard]

Quest for Glory 3. It's set in a place with black-skinned people.

 

[Starwars]

I think Bloodlines is probably the most successful one despite its many faults. Maybe one wouldn't say that it has horror as a main theme, not sure, but to me it was always the one with the creepiest vibe. Obviously everyone talks about the Ocean hotel level but even beyond that, the game did really well with building up a horror atmosphere without going "dis is a horror game". The whole snuff film quest has a great set up as well. And all in all, visuals and music came together to create a world that was dark, seedy, dirty and edgy in all the right ways.

I remember being sort of freaked out by it when I played it at release.

 

[Stoned Ape]

It seems to me that RPGs are somewhat antithetical to horror, beacause they're usually power fantasies. They're mostly about getting stronger, crushing your enemies, and coming out a winner, with a bigger dick and a hot girl stroking it.

So you're usually only going to find action RPGs dealing with horror as an atmospheric thing, a horror you'll succeed in pushing back by fighting. Even Diablo 1 with its bittersweet ending is like that. Horror is limited to the setting flavor.

Stygian had potential; and other games focussing on psychological horrors and sanity are interesting, but I'm not sure they succeed that well as cRPGs. There's always this distinction between making you, the player, scared, versus making the character scared and you dealing with the consequences of his insanity. FPSes and other first person games do the scaring the player better, but it's often cheap. In RPGs, the distance between player and character kind of blunts the horror. Quality of writing is more important then, and sanity or coping mechanics.

Someone I knew a while back came up with the premise of a RPG horror game where your character begins the game powerful, but after the first act is infected with a wasting curse that slowly removes thier abilities as they 'level up'. These level ups would be forced as soon as enough XP was accumulated. They had a ludic sketch knocked up for the first couple of levels and it was pretty interesting. Made the level up 'ping' sound effect something to dread and encouraged the player actively avoid trying to get into fights unless absolutely needed.

 

[wishbonetail]

It seems to me that RPGs are somewhat antithetical to horror, beacause they're usually power fantasies. They're mostly about getting stronger, crushing your enemies, and coming out a winner, with a bigger dick and a hot girl stroking it.

So you're usually only going to find action RPGs dealing with horror as an atmospheric thing, a horror you'll succeed in pushing back by fighting. Even Diablo 1 with its bittersweet ending is like that. Horror is limited to the setting flavor.

Stygian had potential; and other games focussing on psychological horrors and sanity are interesting, but I'm not sure they succeed that well as cRPGs. There's always this distinction between making you, the player, scared, versus making the character scared and you dealing with the consequences of his insanity. FPSes and other first person games do the scaring the player better, but it's often cheap. In RPGs, the distance between player and character kind of blunts the horror. Quality of writing is more important then, and sanity or coping mechanics.

Someone I knew a while back came up with the premise of a RPG horror game where your character begins the game powerful, but after the first act is infected with a wasting curse that slowly removes thier abilities as they 'level up'. These level ups would be forced as soon as enough XP was accumulated. They had a ludic sketch knocked up for the first couple of levels and it was pretty interesting. Made the level up 'ping' sound effect something to dread and encouraged the player actively avoid trying to get into fights unless absolutely needed.

So, it's like Oblivion then.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

The Ravenloft games.
Also Dungeon Master... indeed most first person dungeon crawlers can be scary if you are underlevelled.

 

[thelegend]

Dark Sun series

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

If you're a pussy arachnophobic nearly every RPG is a horror ackackackackack

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/67855

I wish I could see the horror someone goes through if they fuck up their load order and accidentally deactivate that mod.

 

[Stoned Ape]

So, it's like Oblivion then.

To be fair to Bathesda, playing their games do inspire emotions of shock and dread so it's probably the closest experience to watching a horror movie I've had while playing any RPG.

 

[Serus]

Quest for Glory 3. It's set in a place with black-skinned people.

Who turned into big cats... if i remember correctly, I played it long time ago.
Worst part by far of the three I played (1, 3, 4) but not necessarily the colour of skin caused it but less interesting puzzles and lack of the sense of humour as good as in part 1 and 4.

 

[c u in da ballpit ashren]

It seems to me that RPGs are somewhat antithetical to horror, beacause they're usually power fantasies. They're mostly about getting stronger, crushing your enemies, and coming out a winner, with a bigger dick and a hot girl stroking it.

So you're usually only going to find action RPGs dealing with horror as an atmospheric thing, a horror you'll succeed in pushing back by fighting. Even Diablo 1 with its bittersweet ending is like that. Horror is limited to the setting flavor.

Stygian had potential; and other games focussing on psychological horrors and sanity are interesting, but I'm not sure they succeed that well as cRPGs. There's always this distinction between making you, the player, scared, versus making the character scared and you dealing with the consequences of his insanity. FPSes and other first person games do the scaring the player better, but it's often cheap. In RPGs, the distance between player and character kind of blunts the horror. Quality of writing is more important then, and sanity or coping mechanics.

Someone I knew a while back came up with the premise of a RPG horror game where your character begins the game powerful, but after the first act is infected with a wasting curse that slowly removes thier abilities as they 'level up'. These level ups would be forced as soon as enough XP was accumulated. They had a ludic sketch knocked up for the first couple of levels and it was pretty interesting. Made the level up 'ping' sound effect something to dread and encouraged the player actively avoid trying to get into fights unless absolutely needed.

That sounds pretty identical to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

 

[c u in da ballpit ashren]

I've tried looking for good horror RPGs before but it's pretty much already been said in this thread that the normal formula for an RPG typically doesn't lend itself too well to horror. I would say World of Horror on Steam is pretty much your next best bet, but let me get on a tangent here:

Why would you even want an rpg to be a horror game, now that I think about it? It's not as if there isn't innovation to be made, but a lot of the things you could try to do with a horror RPG are better off being done in other genres if you genuinely want to scare people. I think this also goes down to the issue of "what is an RPG anyway" that the codex has a thread on, and it makes me wonder if something I've been playing recently could be considered a horror RPG, or at least entertained as one.

That would be Resident Evil 1 Remake, the one that came out on Gamecube and has a steam remaster. Pretty much anything you could do in theory with an RPG for horror, is more or less done there or subverted from the usual RPG:
-You do anything in your power to avoid fights with the zombies, and the mansion reacts to your every move trying to solve puzzles. You might be on one side of the mansion hearing zombies pound on the windows and they never actually come in, that is, until you finish a step to a grand puzzle. When you come back they break in through the windows, and there's 3 of them blocking key points so you have to try and git gud at evasion or risk losing a bullet or health, or find a route around them altogether.
-Alternate routes always involve their own challenges, and even if you did take those routes, there's usually something wrong with the way the rooms are positioned to where it might lead back to a dangerous spot at the risk of going back through other dangerous spots.
-Even if you clear out zombies from a room, there's only two ways to permanently end them from getting back up, even stronger and faster than before: 1. You shoot them in the head (this is dependent on RNG however, as the chances of you getting a headshot with a handgun are super low) or you burn their bodies which requires kerosene (which is severely limited at worst, and scattered through dangerous places at best)

I suppose what I'm saying is that you'd have to bend the rules for what an RPG even is, in some places, while bending the rules for what good horror would be if you mixed the two. That's how you get codex threads with people arguing if it's even an RPG, or a game at all. This wouldn't happen if you stuck independently to one genre. Though admittedly as a dev myself, I have looked into this an awful lot.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Someone I knew a while back came up with the premise of a RPG horror game where your character begins the game powerful, but after the first act is infected with a wasting curse that slowly removes thier abilities as they 'level up'. These level ups would be forced as soon as enough XP was accumulated. They had a ludic sketch knocked up for the first couple of levels and it was pretty interesting. Made the level up 'ping' sound effect something to dread and encouraged the player actively avoid trying to get into fights unless absolutely needed.

I definitely saw this premise used somewhere, but a bit differently. Instead of super powerful and a curse, it was just your average Joe becoming exhausted fighting these weird monsters.

 

[buffalo bill]

Someone I knew a while back came up with the premise of a RPG horror game where your character begins the game powerful, but after the first act is infected with a wasting curse that slowly removes thier abilities as they 'level up'. These level ups would be forced as soon as enough XP was accumulated. They had a ludic sketch knocked up for the first couple of levels and it was pretty interesting. Made the level up 'ping' sound effect something to dread and encouraged the player actively avoid trying to get into fights unless absolutely needed.

I definitely saw this premise used somewhere, but a bit differently. Instead of super powerful and a curse, it was just your average Joe becoming exhausted fighting these weird monsters.

In Infra Arcana—one of the best games I've ever played, up there with Fallout 1 and Jagged Alliance 2 and Ultima Underworld (and if you won't play it because you don't like the graphics, you are soft as fuck)—you tend to acquire insanity-related traits as the game progresses, as well as sometimes-difficult-to-treat wounds, which can make your character overall worse even as they increase power through level-ups.

Edit: not *you* as in Morpheus Kitami, just a more general 'you' as in the typical gfx whore who makes the codex a worse place overall

 

[agris]

RPG designation is debatable, but doesn’t the original Prey from 2006 qualify? I haven’t played it, I’m just generally aware of its existence and subsequent memory-hole’ing