Spookathon 2022: Jacob's Horror Video Game Picks
III: Phasmophobia (Early Access)
If you’re looking to scare yourself with some friends, Kinetic Games’ Phasmophobia is the way to go. Rarely are multiplayer horror games capable of serving the same scary experiences as their single-player counterparts, but Phasmophobia is a sure exception. Though still in Early Access, Phasmophobia has proven its ability to create a fun, replayable, and terrifying experience. In this cooperative session-based game, players work as professional ghost hunters called to investigate a number of various maps ranging from abandoned asylums to suburban homes. Together, players must gather evidence of one of the twenty-four currently implemented ghosts using all the real-life paranormal equipment one might see in a show like Ghost Adventures, including EMF Readers, UV Flashlights, and Spirit Boxes.
The beauty of Phasmophobia emerges in the cooperative synergy required to complete a successful hunt. Depending on the size of your team (1-4 players), everyone has multiple jobs to accomplish, as players can only equip up to 3 items at a time. One player may sit in the van watching the camera feeds of a video camera set down by another, while someone else uses a temperature sensor to locate cold spots in the environment. If you’re like me, you’ve been delegated the task of using the Spirit Box, which requires players to be alone and in the dark to function. Nothing in the game is quite as haunting as using your real-life microphone to ask “Where are you?” only to be met with a distorted response: “Behind you”.
The session-based nature of the game allows it to be infinitely replayable, with a plethora of maps to explore, and consistent quality updates. Dynamic ghost behavior is also a big element of its replayability, making for a unique experience each and every time. Ghosts respond to player behavior and even certain keywords they can identify from the in-game voice chat, such as “scared”, “hide”, and “run”. If you’re not careful, ghosts may also initiate special events, wherein they manifest in a physical form and hunt players, resulting in the death of those who are caught.
Phasmophobia is available for purchase through Steam.
II: Resident Evil 2 (2019)
In 2017, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard reinvigorated publisher Capcom’s iconic survival horror franchise for a new era, kindling a fresh interest in what had been a dying genre. While there was a time when Resident Evil was the very pinnacle of action-adventure horror gaming (rivaled only by the more cerebral experiences of Silent Hill), a slew of half-baked adaptations and cash grab sequels dug the series’ own proverbial grave. With the success of RE7, Capcom sought to reintroduce some of their older entries to a new generation, beginning with a remake of the game that had made Resident Evil a household name: 1998’s Resident Evil 2.
On January 25, 2019, Resident Evil 2 Remake was released to critical acclaim. This slow and atmospherically dense trek through a zombie infested art museum-turned-police station is rarely dull because of its impeccable design, both technically and aesthetically. Players explore the station, solving various environmental puzzles, and slowly piecing together what’s happened to Raccoon City. In doing so they encounter a number of shambling corpses, which are convincingly animated and sincerely haunting. Players must also be wary to conserve firepower, as ammunition is intentionally limited, making for particularly tense stretches of gameplay that occur when proper preparation has not been accounted for - especially when the enemies you thought you’d killed suddenly reanimate.
What was perhaps most influential about the original, and what is so thoughtfully recreated here, was RE2’S invention of a survival-horror staple: the stalker. In survival-horror, stalkers are near-invincible enemies which perpetually trace the player character’s movement, effectively hunting them. In RE2, the game developers lure the player into a false sense of security in a police station dotted with various safe spaces and zombie-free zones. Then Tyrant appears.
As hackers have shown, clever artificial intelligence has Tyrant actively searching the environment for the player in real time, though he is attracted to certain giveaways such as rapid movement and loud sounds. The terror of hearing this stalker’s slow footsteps march towards your location when you have nowhere to
hide is a testament to Capcom’s ironclad game design, and well worth the cost of admission alone. If you can handle it.
Resident Evil 2 (2019) is available for purchase on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
I: P.T. (2014)
In the summer of 2014, a psychological horror game from an unknown developer by the name of 7780s Studio appeared for free on the Playstation Store. At the time, not much was known about P.T. beyond the contents of a 53 second long teaser which had been revealed at Gamescom earlier that year: a dark hallway, a blood soaked paper bag, the blood curdling screams of authentic game testers.
When players booted up P.T. for the first time, they awoke in a nondescript, fluorescently lit room with a single doorway leading out. And then the hallway. Said hallway looped around an unremarkable suburban home adorned with family photographs, a landline telephone, a radio reporting on a tragic incident of uxoricide. At the end of the hallway, another door. But upon passing through, players found themselves
once again at the beginning of the very same hallway. And the loop continued.
Without speaking too much on what happens over the course of this relatively short, but thoroughly haunting experience, I can confidently say that P.T. is the single most terrifying piece of horror media that I have ever encountered. Through a series of increasingly obscure objectives, players make their way
through P.T.’s hallway over and over again as they are pursued by a vengeful spirit called Lisa. Expertly tuned pacing, realistic graphics, and, most notably, sound design is what enables P.T. to transcend the medium and leave me time and time again with the uncanny feeling that my PS4 itself is haunted by the
grotesque energy that emits from this game. But beneath P.T.’s surface lies greater mystery.
See, P.T. isn’t real. As discovered once certain savvy players cracked its cryptic design, P.T. was, in fact, a “Playable Teaser” intended to announce the development of Silent Hills, which was to be the newest iteration of publisher Konami’s storied franchise, Silent Hill. Furthermore, the game would star Norman
Reedus of The Walking Dead fame, and be co-directed by filmmaker Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy), and the legendary game industry innovator and auteur, Hideo Kojima (Death Stranding, Metal Gear Solid). Or was it?
Shortly after it was revealed, Konami announced the cancellation of Silent Hills, and the termination of their longtime partnership with Hideo Kojima. P.T. was permanently removed from the Playstation Store, leaving only those who had already downloaded it the ability to keep playing. It was then that P.T.’s
cryptic method of storytelling and delivery began to unfold. It wasn’t just a game, but a vessel with which, through a series of metaphors, Kojima was able to bypass his non-disclosure agreement with Konami and tell the world about his mistreatment at the Japanese megacorporation, as well as signal his
future intentions to start his own studio. It was unadulterated genius.
P.T.’s existence, though short lived, left an unquestionable impact on the games industry, and paved the way for the survival-horror resurgence we are experiencing today. The pure terror it engenders combined with the ingenius delivery of it’s subtext are what makes P.T., in my mind, the greatest horror game of all time.
While P.T. is no longer available to play in its original form, plenty of fan-remakes have surfaced online. The most notable of these is Unreal PT, which can be downloaded for free on PC. Just be sure to shut the lights.