The Cutprice Guignol

Ever since the dawn of the creepypasta, haunted video game horror has been a staple.

Stories that revolve around video games that have been, whether literally or metaphorically, infected by some dark meta-narrative are an iconic and much-memed upon version of internet horror and beyond.

Ben Drowned, about a haunted version of Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, was, for many an internet user, their first introduction to these internet folklore stories, and since then hundreds of stories have followed this outline with varying degrees of success. While movies and TV have tried to take on this sub-genre a few times (such as 2006’s dreadful Stay Alive), the most impressive examples of the idea, for me, have come in the form of online ARGs (for example, Petscop, which I still think is one of the most singularly impressive horror achievements across any genre in the last ten years or so) and actual video games that work in a meta-narrative about the game’s haunting to the gameplay (like the recent Shipwrecked 64, Doki Doki Literature Club, or Andy’s Apple Farm).

These examples often have a dedicated internet community focused on decoding their meaning, and this approach to the storytelling – not as a linear throughline, but as a collection of puzzle pieces scattered across a board for players to try and piece together – is a really compelling way to delve into a horror narrative. This interactivity is part of the reason I love ARGs and creepypastas as much as I do, but I also think it’s a factor in why haunted video game stories have such an enduring appeal in the horror genre.

Video games are one of the few pieces of popular media that ask for a piece of the consumer to complete them. No matter how limited the interactivity is – whether you’re just clicking on answers to the questions your would-be crush is asking in between English classes – you have to drive the plot. You’re the one pulling the trigger, proverbial or otherwise; in plenty of games, the choices you make directly dictate the outcome of the story or character arcs. It’s an aspect of video gaming that’s almost unique to the medium, at least one that’s become as mainstream as gaming has, and it’s that interactivity that makes the idea of a haunted or malevolent game so much more impactful. A haunted movie, that’s one thing – but a haunted game? You’re actively participating in it, opening a connection to the story and characters you can’t with other mediums – and that leaves you open for something to come back through that connection.

So many of these stories, too, feature a fictional game creator’s actions influencing the direction of the game, whether subconsciously or not; it’s the ultimate example of being unable to separate the art from the artist. In an era where we’ve been exposed to the truth of the kind of people who create the art a lot of us love, it’s interesting that these stories have used such an explicit example of a creator’s wrongdoing directly influencing the content of their art.

Also interesting: A lot of the haunted video game stories that have come out in the last few years have featured consoles and platforms that are long-since defunct. As I wrote about in my review of Skinamarink, there’s a uniquely unsettling quality to things that brings us back to our childhood when they’re viewed through this horror lens. These platforms and the aesthetics that came with them exist for a finite amount of time, so using those graphics, sound design, and tropes that existed only for a certain window is an instant and easy way to tap in to that specific period of childhood nostalgia and twist it around into something nasty. It’s one of the reasons Petscop worked so beautifully for me, because of how it invoked PlayStation aesthetics to tell a story about childhoods lost; what better way to put us into the point of view of the children at the story’s heart than by taking us back to the sounds and sights to what so many of us grew up with?

Similarly, video games have, for a long time, encouraged players to search for hidden details amongst the regular gameplay – the term “easter egg” came about to describe concealed minutiae in video games way back in 1980, and it’s been a staple of gaming ever since. Turning these easter eggs into pieces in a wider meta-narrative feels like a natural extension of their inclusion in games in the first place – looking for more than meets the eye when it comes to gaming creates an invitation for this kind of storytelling within games, and makes them singularly well-suited to this kind of narrative.

I’m a huge fan of haunted video game stories, especially the ARGs and creepypastas I’ve seen around the genre in the last few years, and I can’t wait to see where it goes next. Do you have any favourite examples of this kind of story? Drop them in the comments below!

If you liked this article and want to see more stuff like it, please consider supporting me on Patreon, and checking out my fiction writing!

(header image via Medium)