Horror games come in a bone-chilling variety of forms. One popular tactic that developers and writers use is the Closed Circle or Isolation trope. This is when the hero is trapped in a single location, such as a home or large building. Both devs and gamers can let their imaginations run wild with all the horrible things that might pop out of the basement or hide in the attic.
Plenty of the best and most infamous horror video games take place in a single location. Some variations might include a family crypt or the unkept back garden. The classic haunted mansion often makes an appearance, but these terrifying adventures can also take place in warehouses, police stations, or ancient castles.
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6 The 7th Guest
Metacritic Score: 68
- Developer: Trilobyte
- Publisher: Virgin Interactive Entertainment
- Genre: Interactive movie, puzzle game
- Release Date: April 28, 1993
One of the early examples of PC games that combined longer, cinematic sequences with gameplay and plot, The 7th Guest was one of the first video games to use the "haunted mansion" motif. It has lurked in its own corner of the horror video game library ever since.
The game begins like a movie. The credits and exposition lead up to the mysterious old toy-maker, Henry Stauf, and his sordid past as a thieving murder hobo. As the game progresses, the player learns that Stauf has made a deal with a devil that involves a certain quota of deaths, preferably of children.
5 Alone In The Dark
Metacritic Score: 64
- Developer(s)
- Pieces Interactive
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
- Publisher(s)
- THQ Nordic
- Released
- March 20, 2024
The 1990s classic Alone In The Dark broke new ground in the realm of survival horror and 3D design. It uses the same basic storyline and setting as the older games that were released starting in 1992, but it's the seventh game to be released under the same IP.
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Edward Carnby, a private investigator, returns to his role as one of the main characters. He's joined by Emily Hartwood, who's looking for her uncle Jeremy, and together they go to the Derceto Manor, where he was last seen. The entire game takes place within the Manor, with some of the explorable area extending into a back garden and a shed.
4 Half-Life
Metacritic Score: 96
The Black Mesa Research Facility is a big place, with some wild mind and matter-altering stuff, but it still counts as a single location. Half-Life starts as another regular workday for protagonist Gordon Freeman, but then a routine experiment goes awry, and he opens a portal to the alien dimension of Xen. He has to fight his way out of the underground facility and reach the surface, where army commandos are waiting to destroy the invading aliens along with the entire facility.
3 Castlevania, Symphony of the Night
Metacritic Score: 96
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
This is the first of the Castlevania games to take place entirely in Dracula's Castle. Previously, it was a matter of fighting across the countryside, which meant forests, villages, and maybe a mountain, before reaching the lair of Dracula. The game takes place four years after the previous one, Rondo of Blood, and the player is the dhampir Alucard, the Count's half-human son.
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Limiting the setting for the game didn't make it less interesting. The interior of the castle had a wide variety of creative settings, with everything from torture chambers to opulent halls lined with stained glass. Along with the soundtrack and design, Symphony of the Night is one of the best examples of the Metroidvania genre.
2 Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
Metacritic Score: 86
Isolation has always been a theme of the Resident Evil franchise, with the games putting the characters in a variety of close quarters that they have to escape. The second game is an example, starting in the police station and moving into Raccoon City eventually. The first game was almost entirely confined to the Spencer Mansion, and the seventh installment takes place on the Baker Plantation. This includes a couple of outlying buildings on the property, but focuses on the main house.
Like its predecessors in the same IP, Resident Evil 7 uses the survival horror-FPS style of gameplay as the main character Ethan Winters explores the estate. He was lured there by a cryptic message from his missing wife, and when he arrives, it seems abandoned. However, Ethan soon discovers that it's still haunted by the infected Baker family.
1 ECHO
Metacritic Score: 71
- Developer: Ultra Ultra
- Publisher: Ultra Ultra
- Genre: Stealth, action
- Release Date: September 2017
ECHO is a complex science-fiction game with a simple premise. The main character is a woman named En, a genetically modified human or "Resourceful" who explores space and colonizes other planets in the future. Her quest is to explore a gigantic structure built by a malfunctioning AI program.
En was put in cryogenic sleep for decades just to reach it. She traveled there following the last clue left behind by another resourceful human: her former colleague Foster, who didn't make it. En nicknames this opulent location "The Palace," and although it encompasses a whole planet, it's still just one building.
The "Echos" are the copies of herself that start to generate and attack as she gets deeper into the Palace, making this one of the few "Isolation" games made in recent years that features AI instead of the undead.
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