Summary
Horror games can be set in places all around the world, on distant planets, and even during the past. Recently, however, some of the best horror games made in the modern day have been set in North America.
Whether it’s the damp bayous or crowded metropolises, there are a lot of great horror games set in North America, but some are arguably a little better than others. For those brave enough to face them, here are thebest horror games set in North America.
This ranking has been determined both by the quality of the games and how well they take advantage of their North American setting.
In the mid-2010s, theResident Evilfranchise was having a rough time. Coming off increasingly unpopular entries, many wondered whether the franchise would ever recover. Doubts were high aboutResident Evil 7turning the tide, but it did so in majestic style, producing one of the verybest games in the wholeREfranchiseand reinvigorating the franchise so much that it’s still going strong to this day.
A big reasonResident Evil 7works is the bayou setting of Louisiana. It’s an entirely new context for the Japanese-developed games to play in, and it helped show that there was plenty of creative energy still brimming at Capcom.
Ever since the release of theBlair Witch Projectin the late 1990s, gamers have been wondering whether the found footage concept could translate to the world of video games. Undoubtedly,Outlastwas the first game to truly master the idea, where the camera is both the player’s perspective and the only way of seeing through the pitch-black corridors of an overrun asylum.
By setting the game in the depths of Colorado in the middle of nowhere, Red Barrels evoked a strong sense of isolation in the rural wilderness where there was no help to come, all while evoking the US’s sordid history with asylums (andthe people who inhabit them). It’s a game that wouldn’t work in a different setting, which is a testament to its intentionality.
The late 2000s saw the boom of multiplayer games breaking into the mainstream across console, PC, casual, and hardcore gamers alike. The originalLeft 4 Deadwas a great first entry into the budding survival co-op shooter genre, butLeft 4 Dead 2perfected the formula and remains one of the best examples of the genre to this day.
Through a series of campaigns,Left 4 Dead 2follows George Romero’s steps in imagining American suburbia and cityscapes as playgrounds for undead mayhem. It gives the game a very specific, appealing flavor that ties back to zombie cinema.
In classical literature, the odyssey narrative usually involved a trek around Greece and its surroundings, but ever since the 19th century and the myth of the Frontier, North America has become the English-speaking shorthand for adventure and large-scale journeys.
Among other things, this is the exact visual language thatThe Last of Usis pulling from. As Joel, players are tasked with escorting Ellie, a teenage girl,across America (and its many cities)to save the world. It’s a familiar trope, but it’s one that’s deeply intertwined with the US as a setting, making it a compelling iteration on a centuries-old idea.
Sometimes, in the English-speaking world, it can be easy to fall into the trap of seeing American perspectives as the default way of looking at things, which makes it all the more delightful when non-Americans imagine America as a setting for their own games. These perspectives are usually a little quirky, very individual, and utterly unique.
Few games better exemplify this strange, slanted perspective of North America thanAlan Wake 2,Remedy’s cerebral horror game that confronts players with strange, surreal visions of Cascadian idyll and suburbia, acting as both reverence and satire. It’s a completely unique vision of North Americathat’s even better today than it was at launch.
In the late 1990s, Japanese developers knew that the American market was growing fast, and the easiest way to tap in was to start setting games in North America. This was a foundational idea for theResident Evilfranchise, which eventually came up with the very conspicuous name of “Raccoon City” for its amalgamated vision of a modern American city.
Raccoon City is, put bluntly, really weird, but that’s exactly what gives theResident Evilgames their distinct charm. It’s very clearly drawing from American zombie cinema, just from an outsider perspective, making it stand out from its peers. For those looking to get a taste of this fun imagining of a North American city,Resident Evil 2is the best game to check out.
It’s hard to imagine a more influential addition to the horror genre in recent decades thanP.T., the short-lived playable demo for the canceledSilent Hillsgame. It was to beheaded up by the one and only Hideo Kojima, who in turn always renders America in idiosyncratic but delightfully cutting video game stories.
One reason whyP.T.is so scary is that it plays upon the familiarity of a suburban home corridor, something that will be familiar to millions of players, then makes that familiarity frightening and threatening by injecting ever more scares. It’s a subtle setting choice, but it’s one that’s essential for the game’s killer scares to work.
When Japanese game developers attempt to represent America in their games, they usually invent a new city (like Raccoon City fromResident Evil) instead of adapting an existing place. Of all those creations (Krimson City inThe Evil Withinbeing a particular dark spot), none is more iconic, essential, and brilliant than Silent Hill.
Though Silent Hill as a town isn’t really a static place (the lore is a little contradictory on this), it is quintessentially American, playing upon familiar tropes of cafes, restaurants, apartments, and boardwalks. TheSilent Hill 2remake puts all of that specificity into modern glory, bringing the strange but brilliant work of Team Silent to a whole new audience, undoubtedly making it one of the best horror games ever made.
