From Capcom’s recently-released survival horror epic Resident Evil Village to upcoming titles like Dying Light 2 and Back 4 Blood, horror is an important part of the modern gaming landscape. However, while it has been decades since the genre was made popular by game-changing titles like Silent Hill, horror wasn’t particularly prevalent in the medium’s formative years.
Many early attempts at horror gaming come off as laughable by today’s standards. However, a few titles released in the 1980s continue to terrify despite their dated designs and limited capabilities.
10 Sweet Home (1989)
Early console-based horror games often failed to elicit a sense of fear in players; with less than 2 KB of RAM and under 300 KB of storage space to work with, establishing a foreboding atmosphere on something like the original NES was almost impossible.
Yet, that’s not to say it couldn’t be done. Though it was never released in the West and was based on a film with which most Western gamers wouldn’t have been familiar, Capcom’s Sweet Home did an excellent job of establishing an aura of dread despite the limitations of Nintendo’s console. An RPG featuring an ample amount of puzzle-solving, close encounters with horrifying monsters, and party member permadeath, Sweet Home certainly wasn’t for the faint of heart.
9 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1983)
An incredibly early foray into console horror gaming, 1983’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, an adaptation of the Tobe Hooper film from nine years prior, is perhaps the most visceral, shocking title to debut on the Atari 2600.
Not only did it have the audacity to allow players to take on the role of the scary Leatherface, but the game’s ultimate goal was to rack up a high score by slaughtering innocents with a chainsaw. Though painfully rudimentary, it remains a perverse anomaly in the console’s library.
8 Mystery House (1980)
The first-ever game developed by legendary point-and-click adventure publisher Sierra, Mystery House, also known as Hi-Res Adventure #1: Mystery House, was an innovative take on the text-based adventure craze which dominated PCs in the early 1980s.
Featuring some seriously crude visuals and some oddly obtuse puzzles, Mystery House is a quirky, occasionally frustrating whodunnit thriller that’ll take some serious patience and ingenuity to get through. While hilariously dated, the title’s primitive aesthetic and complete lack of audio makes it rather eerie, and an extended play session may get to be a bit unnerving after some time.
7 Splatterhouse (1988)
Released as an arcade title in 1988 and ported to the Turbografx-16 two years later, Splatterhouse is a fairly well-known early horror title that combined elements from iconic slasher and monster movies to form a classic side-scrolling action platformer.
Questing to rescue his girlfriend from the twisted machinations and evil experiments of one Dr. West, Rick Taylor must take on all sorts of baddies, most of which are indescribable piles of flesh ripped straight from an ’80s sci-fi horror film. Though it’s far too action-oriented to be truly terrifying, Splatterhouse’s assemblage of grotesqueries will still have players gawking in disgust.
6 Personal Nightmare (1989)
With ’80s horror icon Elvira herself on the cover, the 1989 Amiga adventure game Personal Nightmare was ahead of its time in quite a few ways. A complex title that featured a day-night cycle and demanded that players constantly be aware of the in-game time along with a surprising amount of freedom to explore, it beat many staple point-and-click ’90s titles to the punch.
It also features some utterly creepy pixel art, and most of the game’s monster and malicious entities wouldn’t look out of place in a retro-styled horror game in 2021. Plus, the raw and rough sound effects can make the experience downright harrowing.
5 Go To Hell (1984)
According to The Sun, developer Madmind courted a bit of controversy by depicting the plains of Hell in the ghoulish game Agony. Though remembered for its unique setting and aesthetic, it was far from the first video game to take place in the underworld.
Sporting a garish color pallet and trying to pass some nails-on-chalkboard blips and bloops off as music, the 1984 ZX Spectrum title Go To Hell was, despite its flaws, a boundary-breaking game. Though offensive to a fault, the title’s harsh visuals and relatively unappealing nature made it memorable, and it’s every bit as uncomfortable to experience today as it was nearly forty years ago.
4 Mad Doctor (1985)
The Commodore 64 may have been one of the most influential home computers of the 1980s, but when compared to the home consoles of the period, it was severely limited in terms of pixel-pushing power. That said, some developers worked around the restrictions of the hardware, foregoing the sidescrolling platformer style in favor of something completely new.
1985’s Mad Doctor was essentially a simulation game that put players in the shoes of a royalty-free version of Dr. Frankenstein. Tasked with harassing and killing villagers, robbing graves, and assembling a monster out of miscellaneous body parts, the title’s titular doctor pushed the limits of what could be depicted in a video game at the time.
3 Uninvited (1986)
Originally released for the Macintosh Plus in 1986 but perhaps best known for its subsequent NES port, Uninvited is a point-and-click adventure horror game, a combination that would have been unheard of on consoles at the time.
The game’s interface may come across as relatively unintuitive today, but the first-person perspective and unique art style remain novel. What’s even more memorable, however, were the downright horrific enemies. Arguably made all the more terrifying by the one-bit aesthetics of the original Mac installment, the game’s in-your-face skeletons and zombies are still offputting — albeit just a bit corny.
2 Soft and Cuddly (1987)
Much like the aforementioned Go to Hell, 1987’s ironically-titled Soft and Cuddly was a ZX Spectrum game intended to garner attention by way of some seriously disturbing visuals. A platforming shooter which tasks the player with collecting the dismembered limbs of an android queen, the title screen alone could send chills down the spine of an unsuspecting ’80s computer enthusiast.
Although the gameplay isn’t all that captivating, Soft and Cuddly is worth experiencing thanks to its otherworldly presentation. Akin to titles like Yume Nikki or LSD: Dream Emulator, it’s a maze of unending oddities and almost-indecipherable horrors.
1 Chiller (1986)
According to DreadXP, 1986’s Chiller was one of the first video games to be banned from arcades due to excessive violence. The game was somewhat of a playable version of a direct-to-VHS video nasty. Morbid, macabre, and unapologetically gory, Chiller pushed boundaries and generated controversy.
A series of four shooting galleries, players have a set amount of time to blast bodies into a pulp and activate all manner of gruesome devices in order to rack up a high score. Due to its disturbing content, some players have even taken to Reddit and referred to Chiller as “one of the most nasty games in history.”
