Interactive Story Horror Games

There are many horror video games out there, especially for the Playstation console. With these games, however, there is a very special sub-genre that is not necessarily everyone’s cup of tea: Interactive Story Horror Games. Unlike as in Resident Evil video games for example you play by making story changing choices or performing Quick Time Events (QTE). And that can be very suspensful and thrilling. With these games the story is more important and the scary moments come from story-driven elements. Let’s see which interactive story horror games exist.

Quantic Dream games

The French developer studio Quantic Dream is specialised in interactive storytelling. It made two great horror/thriller video games. Let’s check them out below.

Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy)

Fahrenheit (2005) was one of the first video games I ever played, at the time on PC. And it was a great experience, it made me love video games! The story was mysterious and strange, the animations and graphics were pretty good for the time. And the character of NYPD police lieutenant Carla Valenti, one of three protagonists in the game, was really hot and intriguing 🙂

If interested you can still play it on a PS4 version, it’s available in the Playstation Store.

Heavy Rain

When I played Heavy Rain (2010), I got impressed with an intense, captivating serial killer story and it made me really like Quantic Dream. The game is a mix between horror and crime-thriller. The characters are well-developped and the graphics impressive.

Sometimes the controls are a bit odd, but the excellent rest of the game make you forget about that. And here again you have a really stronge (and sexy) female character Madison Paige (motion capture by model Jacqui Ainsley), a young journalist who helps the main protagonist solving the Origami crimes.

Supermassive Games

Supermassive Games is the second studio specialized in interative story video games. Unlike Quantic Dream it only makes horror games. Let’s see their list below.

Until Dawn

If you love horror video games, you need to play Until Dawn (2015). Even if you don’t like interative stortelling and QTEs; it’s a must-play! The game is the perfect interative teenage slasher horror you always wanted to have.

The title’s trademark Butterfly Effect means that every action has a consequence and that no playthrough is similar. Until Dawn centres around a group of eight teenagers who decide to have a holiday for a night in a cabin on the fictional Blackwood Mountain. The nightmare begins… Enjoy!

Dark Pictures Anthology

The Dark Pictures Anthology is a series of stand-alone, branching cinematic horror games. Eight games are planed, two exist already: Man of Medan (2019) and Little Hope (2020).

Man of Medan

The first game of this horror series was Man of Medan (2019). Met with mixed critics this horror game has still some great shock effects and interesting storylines, but the playable characters (maybe besides Fliss) were not really well developed and some of the game-play was pretty bad.

However, if you enjoyed Until Dawn, you will like this game too!

Little Hope

The next game of this horror anthology is going to be Little Hope (2020). The game revolves around a group of five people – a teacher and four of his students. The five different characters find themselves in the cursed town of Little Hope. There the group is confronted with a merciless fight for survival… According to its own information, the studio has made some improvements compared to its predecessor. Let’s see how this will affect the game!

Other games

There are of course other interative story horror games. But some development studios have gone a different way: Instead of using computer animation, they used real film. This for example was the case for Erica (2019).

Erica

Erica is an interactive thriller about a shadowy world of murder and cultists. The real-life acting in this interesting game is pretty well and the fact that you can’t save your progress is also an innovative thing. No saving means that you need to play the game in one time, like a movie. And that’s exactly what the intention was: keep it suspensful like a horror movie!  

Despite some minor flaws, it’s an intense experience!

 

Let me know if I forget any interative story horror games!

Picture: Pexels