Horror games are an acquired taste. But like the following of horror movies, it exists. The number of people is enough to create entire companies that are genre-specific. There are too many RPG horror games to count. The gaming world t introduced the concept of sequels and spin-offs, if not prequels. It’s difficult to list the best RPG horror games of all time, let alone this decade or the one before that. However, that’s what we tried to do with this list -read on.
The horror genre is the creator’s favourite and has been around since the forties in India. Indian audiences have seen several tropes of horror. Likewise, the gaming community has seen horror-themed games. When personal computers became a thing, we had few other options than to rely on freeware and game demos. Even in those days, games like House of the Dead were a staple download.
RPG Horror Games in India
When India got introduced to the 8-bit games that were PC playable, we had games like Castlevania rub shoulders with the mainstream stuff like Prince of Persia.
With all this, the question still stands – what is an RPG? RPG, short for Role Playing Game, is where the player takes on the role of a character who single-handedly, or with the help of others, completes the storyline. Such games usually work with the missions concept – where the user/character has to complete several missions to complete the game’s story.
RPGs are a quite popular journey. The genre became more popular in the early 2000s, with the gamers getting a chance to ‘see’ their character with the shoulder camera concept. Before that, the games were always in a First-Person model, and the player could only imagine what their character looked like. While games like Tomb Raider and its character Lara Croft are landmarks, we have had other RPGs like Heretic, Hexen, Doom and even Quake that have captured the audience’s imagination like none else.
Classic RPG Horror Games
Resident Evil
The Resident Evil franchise has gone through several things – from being a game-changer in the world of games to being a tired old franchise and then returning to the top with one great sequel. The very best of this series is Resident 7: Biohazard. In this episode, an investigator gets a message from a young girl to save her – and he finds out later that the man girl died three years ago.
Blood Rayne
Oh, to live in the early 2000s and play Bloodrayne for the first time! If you owned a graphic card in that decade, you have played or bought this game. Bloodrayne was one of the few games then that were over the top and blood-thirsty to another level. A kick-ass female protagonist slashing at problems rather than solving them, Bloodrayne was the hot-blooded male’s dream. Too bad there are a couple of Uwe Boll movies in the franchise now.
Phantasmagoria
If there ever was a game that changed how we looked at point-and-click adventures and horror games, it’s Phantasmagoria. The game was a landmark in game-making, because it hired actors and shot live-action sequences, a novelty back in the day. The Indian import was a 14 CD pack, and the player would spend an equal amount of time changing CDs as they did playing the game – but this was the crazy twenties, and it was all worth it.
House of the Dead
If you bought a PC in the nineties, you have played House of the Dead, one of the few low-res games that are as much today as it was back then. The game had a video-game feel to it. It is one of those games that didn’t have the player bother about movements. All they needed to do is shoot at the various zombies that were invading the screen. House of the Dead makes this list, not because of an intricate storyline or well-formed characters. It’s because it was a fun-a-minute game that didn’t require a lot of specs, something that you could rev up and complete before the other co-workers in the office ventured up to you. Sega, the people behind the game, used the same engine for their other successful and popular game, Virtua Cop.
Newer RPG Horror Games
Vampyre; Masquerade – The Bloodlines
In the early 2000s, when the Indian gaming world started looking at the PS3 and Xbox as gaming options, some excellent PC games created a niche for themselves – and one of them was the horror classic Vampyre Masquerade.
The stories engaging as well, a dead human revives as a vampire, and they have to stop an incident that might be the end of all vampires. Vampyre is a true RPG, like Warcraft, it has several clans, and the character learns their advantages and disadvantages as they go ahead in the game.
Vampyr
If you have played Wolverine Uncaged and loved it for the brutal action, Vampyr is for you. Vampyr is a period game that mixes an interesting storyline with pretty addictive gameplay. A World War II surgeon turns into a vampire and has to know what turned him and how he can survive. There’s some heady action, but that’s guaranteed with a well-made horror RPG anyway.
Dead Space 3
It’s difficult to choose the best in a franchise because the first remains the best for the fans. But Dead Space 3 gets the RPG component correct, with the player enhancing weapons as the game progresses. The graphics, of course, are cutting edge, and the story’s one of the finest when it comes to a horror RPG set in space. Dead Space 3 is a one of its kind game, and the players have had a tremendous experience, right from the guns to the characters to the antagonists that they have to clear out.
Dark Souls
Dark Souls is an RPG with its roots in the PC genre and is available on mobile. The game is pretty highly rated – with some saying that it is one of the best games of all time. It’s one of the few games from the PC genre that created a buzz in the world of mobile entertainment as well. Dark Souls is particularly popular because of its swashbuckling action – something that they brought together to the mobile phones, making all of it an instant success.
Bloodbourne
If we speak about Dark Souls, this list should have Bloodbourne. Gamers say that it is a better game than Dark Souls. Reviewers say that the kind of monsters that we see in this game is a rare case of perfection. Bloodbourne is popular among gamers for its character art, and because it pays homage to classic horror creators Lovecraft and Bram Stoker. Like one other game in this list, critics count this as one of the best games of all time.
Call of Cthulhu
If you have been searching for the best RPG nowadays, you will find this title in your search results. The game has a private investigator investigating a murder – but that’s only the first layer of a story that unravels quickly enough to keep the audience in an enrapture.
These are the top ten Horror RPG games that are everyone’s favourite. Some Japanese horror games have a big following, but they have yet to get a mainstream following in India.
Most of these games are now available as digital downloads at incredible prices. This gives gamers a chance to buy and download them from the comforts of their houses and experience the gameplay.
India has yet to get its big gaming moment, even though the higher-income individuals have played PC games for decades. The market evolved a lot from when one acquired the latest games only through questionable sources on the street. Today, with the digital divide crossed, we can access all the best games and more.
Must Mention RPG Horror Games:
The Papa of all RPG Horror Games:
Gabriel Knight Series is ageing better than any game franchise of the eighties and the nineties. Gabriel Knight is a point of click adventure. It is an experience few gamers can forget and fewer games can recreate. The series has a private investigator, Gabriel gets caught in a web of intrigue, murder and the supernatural. Every game in this series is a must-play. ButGabriel Knight: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned is goosebumps moment for even veteran RPG players.
In a list of horror RPGs, you need to talk about one titled F.E.A.R. An out-an-out shooter, it introduces us to a unique, supernatural character haunting mercenaries trying to escape from an attack. If not the best game, people consider it to be the best shooter in recent times. It misses out on this list because the character doesn’t have defining traits. Heis an average Joe trying to get out of trouble.
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