Stephen King may be to horror as Jay-Z is to hip-hop, but though he’s conquered both the book world and Hollywood – with his latest adaptation being the new Showcase series Haven, a spooky small-town FBI series based on King's paperback mystery The Colorado Kid – he's had almost no presence in gaming, aside from Discordia, an online flash game set in the world of his Dark Tower series.
But it's not like King's spooky presence isn't felt; scary videogames have taken off in recent years and many seem to be written by King fans.
Alan Wake (Xbox 360)
Perhaps the most indebted of all games, this psychological horror from Swedish developer Remedy (of Max Payne fame) borrowed liberally from King’s oeuvre – The Dark Half in particular – as the titular author retreats to a small town to deal with his writers' block, only find his own words (from a manuscript he doesn't remember writing) are coming to deadly life. Its Pacific Northwest setting is a hat tip to Twin Peaks and The X-Files, but this game is ultimately about the creative process and being scared of the dark, two of King's biggest preoccupations.
Heavy Rain (PS3)
Some have questioned whether this is even a game at all, given its revolutionary context-based control scheme and novelistic aspirations. But nobody's arguing that this serial killer saga knows how to ramp up the tension. In a move right out of the King playbook, the game draws its initial fright from an everyday situation – in this case losing a child in a shopping mall, as you frantically follow a floating red balloon, hoping against hope that your boy is still holding it. Then the freakiness unfolds. King's influence could also be felt in game creators Quantic Dream's earlier effort Indigo Prophecy, a private-eye yarn about a supernatural killing spree.
BioShock (Xbox 360, PS3)
It begins with a plane crash in the North Atlantic. You make your way to a mysterious lighthouse with a bathysphere going down. From there you descend into an Ayn Rand-inspired Objectivist nightmare where philosophical absolutism has resulted in genetic freaks, monstrous drill-bearing Big Daddies and disquieting vampiric Little Sisters. Then creator Ken Levine adds that Stephen King-like moral dilemma: do you save the morbid little misses, or harvest them to save yourself? BioShock is actually a "spiritual sequel" to System Shock 2, a sci-fi cult classic considered amongst the scariest games ever made.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (GameCube)
Created by controversial Canadian studio Silicon Knights, Eternal Darkness was a shock to GameCube owners used to the cartoonish creativity of Nintendo titles. Inspired by cult icon HP Lovecraft, the fourth wall-breaking game centers around the discovery of The Tome of Eternal Darkness, a book bound in skin and bone, and jumps around in time battling the Ancients as the player discovers new chapters scattered around a mysterious mansion. What made the game a cult classic, though, is the "sanity meter," which uses visual and aural effects (children screaming, voices whispering, chains rattling, blades sharpening, walls bleeding, monsters disappearing) to simulate the character going increasingly insane.
The Path (PC)
This self-published indie title from Dutch developer Tale of Tales is considered an "art game," but that doesn't mean it's not as disturbing as all get out. Inspired by Little Red Riding Hood, but boasting a modern-day setting, the game is essentially about going to visit grandma without being eaten. And yet it's so much more. With almost no gameplay requirements, The Path refuses to punish players for deviating, but it will scare them when they wander off. With a world populated by six little Goth girls, abandoned playgrounds, scary cemeteries, empty movie theatres and a freaky forest – not to mention, y'know, wolves – this metaphorical, experimental game about the frightening journey to womanhood is right in Stephen King's wheelhouse.