Thehorror gamesof 1995 were quite different from horror games in 1996 and beyond, as Resident Evil and then Silent Hill came to define the survival horror genre that would continue to be iterated on. 1995 was like the pre-transition period of horror gaming. You still had a lot of point-and-click puzzle adventures and interactive FMV games, though with very original and quality storytelling.
While it might seem that horror games with the poorer graphics and acting present in the ’90s might not be as scary as the ones launching today, you’d be surprisedat how much atmosphereand genuine scares they can generate. And you can still play most of these today, thanks to Steam and GOG!
The 11th Hour is an interactive point-and-click FMV video game that serves as a sequel to 1993’s The 7th Guest, taking you once more toHenry Stauf’s infamous haunted mansion. The game is part interactive movie, part puzzle game, and part first-person point-and-click adventure through the spooky mansion environment.
The story takes place 70 years after the events of The 7th Guest,where investigative reporter Carl Denningtravels to the chilling monster and puzzle-filled mansion to search for his colleague and lover, Robin Morales, who’d disappeared there during her assignment. There will be plenty of unsettling moments throughout the gameplay.
Nightdive Studios, the publisher and game developer behind System Shock Remake, The Thing Remastered, Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster, and Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition, partnered with Trilobyte Games to launch this title on Steam in 2013. It’s also available via GOG.com.
9Phantasmagoria
Phantasmagoria was probably the definitive horror game experience you’d associate with the ’90s,a fully FMV point-and-click-style gamewhere your protagonist was the actual live-action render of the main actress starring alongside other actors in the digital space. The game is creepy and intriguing, and it comes from game designer, writer, and co-founder of Sierra Entertainment, Roberta Williams.
Phantasmagoria is heavily inspired by Stephen King, particularly elements of The Shining. A writer named Adrienne Delaney and her husband, Don, move into a mansion where demonic forces unbeknownst to them are afoot. The game was as notorious as Night Trap for the panic surrounding its violent and sexual content. This was, in part, due to a controversial rape scene tied to the possession of the main character’s husband, which led it to be banned in countries like Australia.
While most of the Call of Cthulhu video games borrow from the original short story or intertwine ideas from The Shadow over Innsmouth, Prisoner of Ice takes its storyline from Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness. It takes place in the lead-up to WW2 and sees the Nazis build a base over the frozen ruins of the ancient alien civilization discovered in the Antarctic mountains.
you may think of the gameas Indiana Jones meets Lovecraftian horror, as you play an American intelligence agent aboard the English Royal Navy vessel, the H.M.S. Victoria, who must see what experiments the Nazis are up to in the Antarctic base and stop them (hint: it’s something alien). There’s also a connection to the developer’s previous Lovecraftian game, Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet.
7The Dark Eye
Lovecraft wasn’t the only classic author to get a video game adaptation in 1995. Even more surprisingly, Edgar Allan Poe saw that treatment. The Dark Eye was one of the weirdest, creepiest, and most original games in the horror genre to come out that year,implementing stop-motion animation on claymated charactersand first-person point-and-click traversal.
This game adapts three of Edgar Allan Poe’s horror tales – The Cask of Amontillado, The Tell-Tale Heart, and Berenice. The atmosphere and vibe will certainly immerse you in that era of Poe, and the animation is even done by Doug Beswick, whose stop-motion and VFX credits include Evil Dead 2, Aliens, Gremlins 2, The Empire Strikes Back, The Terminator, Blade, and Beetlejuice.
Author William S. Burroughs of works such as Naked Lunch (adapted by David Cronenberg into a 1991 film), Queer (adapted into the 2024 Luca Guadagnino film starring Daniel Craig), and Junkie was the main voice actor for the game.
6Aliens: A Comic Book Adventure
Before you had Alien: Isolation and Rogue Incursion, there was Aliens: A Comic Book Adventure, which isn’t exactly what you think. It’s a game based on the Dark Horse Aliens comic book series, but it’s not actually a visual novel done in a comic book fashion. This game is a point-and-click horror adventure that gives you a premise similarto the original Alien movie and Aliens.
Lt. Commander Henry Hericksen (a nod to Aliens actor Lance Henriksen) and his team journey back to Earth from a terraforming mission until their ship’s MOM system picks up a distress signal from the mining planet B54c. When they land on the planet, there’s evidence of a Xenomorph threat in the colony, and the tale of survival ensues. Even though it’s so old, the gory visuals can be as unnerving as any in the films.
5Dark Seed 2
The art of H.R. Giger has been a huge inspiration for sci-fi horror ever since Alien’s biomechanical sets created one of the most iconic cinematic experiences.You had games like Metroid, Contra, and later Scorn fully taking advantage of it. But there was also the Dark Seed series, where Giger collaborated with the developers for the art style of the Dark World setting.
Dark Seed 2 places you back in the shoes of protagonist Mike Dawson after the events of the first game. He’s now a prime suspect in the murder of his girlfriend and once more has to prevent the alien invasion of the Ancients from the Dark World. If you love H.R. Giger’s aesthetic and a compelling sci-fi mystery story, this game was a PC treat; the console release was sadly Japan-only.
Alone in the Dark finished off its original trilogy in 1995, with this installment taking P.I. Edward Carnby tothe Wild West-inspired desert town of Slaughter Gulch. Here, Carnby must look for his old partner Emily Hartwood, who helped his investigation into her uncle’s death in Derceto Manor in the original game.
Slaughter Gulch unleashes new supernatural forces upon Carnby tied to an ancient curse brought on by the Indigenous burial grounds that the town was built on (in a similar respect to Stephen King’s Pet Sematary). It’s a new area, new zombie outlaw enemies, new puzzles, and a new main antagonist – Slaughter Gulch’s founder, Jed Stone.
3D
With its one-letter title alone, D is probably one of the most unique horror games ever made. The setup is almost like The Evil Within. You have protagonist Laura Harris entering a hospital that’s the site of a mass murder carried out by none other than her father, Dr. Richter Harris. Except, shortly after her arrival, the hospitaltransforms into an ominous castle setting.
As she traverses the terrifying castle environment, Laura will learn the dark truth about how her dad could commit such a gruesome act, as well as unearth stunning revelations about her family. It has all the early workings of a truly suspenseful and scary video game, utilizing puzzles, first-person, and computer-generated FMV scenes.
Another literary classic turned video game, here you have an early psychological horror game, I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream, that comes from the short story of the same name written by Harlan Ellison. It’s about a brutal dystopian future where an evil AI supercomputer villain known as AM has killed off the entire human population except for five remaining victims it plans to torture.
Through point-and-click gameplay, you will be playing through the different environments each character is transported to while being psychologically manipulated by AM. The music and score used in the game are fromthe future Oscar-winning X-Men film franchise composer John Ottman, and the voice of AM is author Harlan Ellison himself.
While you’re able to now play a more updated version via 2024’s Clock Tower: Rewind, the original Clock Tower launched in 1995, and it was one of the most important horror games next to Alone in the Dark for ushering in a new era of survival horror. It also introduced the iconic Scissorman villain of the Barrows Family, contributing to a trend in horror gameswhere you evade a singular enemy.
You can definitely feel how this game was a predecessor to future survival horror games with its setting, atmosphere, gameplay, and story elements. The game is also heavily inspired by Dario Argento’s 1985 film Phenomena, the main protagonist here being named Jennifer Simpson as an homage to Jennifer Connelly’s Jennifer Corvino. This series would even eventually get one final installment from Capcom in 2002, Clock Tower 3.
