Editorials
The 10 Scariest Rats in Video Games
Rats are everywhere—in alleyways, in basements, in yards, in history, in literature, in cinema, and in video games. Sometimes they are cute, other times they a gross, and usually, they are oddly menacing and scary, even. But, in popular media and at certain points in history (The Black Plague, mainly), rats have been known and portrayed as highways for carrying disease, and that makes them scary in an all-too-real sense. Rats can also be fantastical! Look at any modern RPG and there is a 75% chance that your low-level combat encounters will be with mid-to-giant sized rats. Hell, they can even act as boss-level encounters and sometimes, I’m looking at you Warhammer, humanoid rats are a race all their own. Some media engages with this while other media chooses to play up the fun, gross, and/or scare-factor of fictional rats. Here, we are acutely concerned with the scare-factor of rats, and that is why we have trudged into dangerous territory and come away with the 10 scariest rats in all of video games.
10. Splinter’s Voice from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Splinter Speaks (Handheld)
Splinter, the humanoid rat sensei, is a staple in the fictional world that the Ninja Turtles inhabit. He is both a father figure and a coach, dispelling sage wisdom and kung fu moves in equal measure. Yet, there is something so unsettling about his brief portrayal in TMNT 2: Splinter Speaks. You don’t ever see him, but we all know what Splinter looks like: an old rat man who has lived in the sewer for far too long and is somewhat of a down-on-his-luck Obi-Wan Kenobi. But just hearing Splinter’s words of wisdom through a rickety little speaker in a crummy handheld console affords him an unknowability that is downright terrifying, and the poor audio highlights the fact that maybe the spirit of some dark-side possessed version of Splinter resides within the handheld system, itself. Talking rats, turns out they’re scary!
9. The Neeks from Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest
Oh, the Neeks. These filthy little rat-like creatures are the first annoyance Diddy runs into during the opening stages in Donkey Kong Country 2, and they can be a true pain if one does not know how to properly deal with them. The player must jump on them or roll into them in order to kill (hurt?) them. But what is so scary about them is not the danger they pose because there are far worse enemies in Donkey Kong Country 2—I’m looking at you, Metallic Bees. In fact, what sends shivers up my spine whenever I think of the Neeks is the duality of their nature. At face value they are cute little rats that look squeaky clean, and the noises they make are neither menacing or annoying. Yet, they’ll end poor Diddy or Dixie’s life if given the opportunity. There is nothing scarier than a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Et tu, Neek?
8. Twitch from League of Legends
Twitch is a character in League of Legends that is, quite literally, a giant crossbow-wielding rat. Sounds scary, right? Well, it only gets worse from here. His weapon does toxic damage and his ability to spread disease and wreak havoc on an enemy team has to be seen to be believed—especially if he is left unchecked. Furthermore, his character design is genuinely creepy for a video game that has usually cartoonish designs. He is still cartoonish and his proportions are wonky, but his eyes are…horrifying. Just imagining seeing his beady eyes illuminated in a dark alleyway is a thought that will keep me up at night. Plus, he has the ability to turn invisible.
7. Everything from Bad Rats: the Rat’s Revenge
Bad Rats: the Rat’s Revenge is one of the most infamously bad games to ever grace the Steam storefront, and that is truly saying something. Yes, part of the fear of the rats from Bad Rats stems from how impossible it is to enjoy playing Bad Rats, but also, the weird and poorly animated rats are just scary. Plus, their whole goal is to enact revenge on the cats of the world, and nobody wants that! Seeing a cheap-cartoon-from-the-late-1990s-like rat attempt to bash in an equally wonky looking cat’s skull with a baseball bat is a nightmarish fever dream that nobody should ever have to lay their eyes upon.
6. Larry from Rampage (Atari Lynx Version Only)
Larry is a rat that could go one-on-one with Godzilla. What is not scary about that? Well, Larry—like all of the monsters in Rampage—was once a man. Larry was a cashier who ate some tainted creamed spinach on a dare, and then he grew a tail. One thing follows another, and Larry became a giant rat kaiju who happens to have a keen hankering for cheese. Larry is a big bipedal rat and, while the arcade graphics do little to highlight his ferocity and scare-factor, seeing what he can do to the city in Rampage is scary on a level that is rarely equated to rats. He levels buildings, destroys anything in his path, and kills A LOT of civilians (this is never stated or shown because, well, videogames just did not show that at the time). Furthermore, he fights off an entire army in and around the city. Such unbridled power and colossal ferocity in rat form is something that must be feared, and Larry’s actions earn that fear many times over.
5. The Rat Guards from Ghost of a Tale
Ghost of a Tale is an odd little videogame that pulls as much influence from Kate DiCamillo’s book The Tale of Despereaux as it does from grounded and grimdark fantasy. In Ghost of a Tale, the player controls a cute little mouse whose sole intent is to escape from the evil rats that have infested the lands. These rats are big, they wear armor, and they will kill anyone unlike them at the drop of a hat. The stealth-focused gameplay heightens the sheer scare-factor of these rat guards, and their tenacity and violent intent just seals the deal. Their AI design adds to their menace, as they are smart and inquisitive. The fact that they are both bloodthirsty, crafty, and self-aware is a horror unto itself. And to make things worse, there are rat guards who are nothing more than reanimated skeletons who shamble and kill with an all-too-alive ferocity.
4. All Types of Rats from Dark Souls Series
In the Dark Souls series, there are rats of various sizes and lethality—from small sewer-dwelling annoyances to larger mini-boss-like rats that take both wit and determination to fell. There is one thing that binds all of the rats in Dark Souls together; they are gross, they make terrifying sounds, and their warped nature is deeply unsettling. Yet, the most disturbing rendition of rat-like creatures in the Dark Souls series has to be the Royal Rat Vanguard from the first entry. Located in The Gutter, the Royal Rat Vanguard are a different form of scary because, rather than one isolated rat, they are multiple larger-than-reality rats that act and attack as an inconsolable swarm. Their dark and matted mass ebbs and flows with murderous intent, as various gaping maws chitter and snap with deadly intent. These rats take the rat-swarms of the Dark Ages, and animates them with both size, sentience, and deadly intent. They can easily swarm, poison, and kill the player if one is not careful enough, and treading with care seems all but impossible as endless swarms of the Royal Rat Vanguard see the player as their nexus of pointed ferocity. While they may not seem scary when one of these rats is corned and alone, they are ferociously nightmarish when confronted as a group.
3. The Rats from Dishonored
The rats from the first Dishonored video game are both a familiar and unfamiliar foe, from the lens of realism. On the one hand, the rat plague they carry is analogous to that of the bubonic plague—except for the whole zombie schtick. But on the other hand, the rats in Dishonored are carnivorous creatures that are quite simply a land-dwelling version of the piranha fish. Flesh is their desire and flesh they shall get. They move in swarms and their black mass floats from corpse to corpse stripping flesh and sinew from decaying and broken bones. The terror that comes with watching these little monsters in action is second only to the macabre thrill of harnessing their deadly ways for one’s own intent. Yes, they are scary but they can also be weaponized. The player can use dead bodies to lure rats to live enemies and players can even conjure up a swarm of rats when using the aptly named “Devouring Swarm” power. It is grisly, over-the-top, and devilishly satisfying. Despite the ability to control swarms of these deadly rats, there is still an unwieldy madness and fear that is inspired by every sound and move the rat swarms make.
2. The Skaven from Warhammer: Vermintide 2
The Skaven are a famous fictional race from the worlds of Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer: Age of Sigmar—they are humanoid rats who worship the Horned Rat. They are sometimes called the Children of the Horned Rat which brings to mind the fantastic classic PC game Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat. The Skaven vary in size from human-sized fighters to larger than life monsters, and they have eclectic weaponry to boot. The Warhammer world is a hellish and grimdark place where life is constant misery, and the Skaven really highlight this. They love to kill, ransack, and bring instability wherever they go, but a lot of videogames have never really let the player get up close to the Skaven. Enter the Vermintide series—developed by Fat Shark, the Vermintide series is a Left 4 Dead horde-style videogame where players have to fight wave after wave of ever-hardening Skaven enemies. They are portrayed as disgusting, feral, and fiendish beasts that skitter and move with an unsettling unpredictability. Furthermore, they will kill the player at the drop of a hat, and their designs are disgusting. When traveling in a horde, the chorus of hellish sounds that they make is enough to frighten even the most hardened horde-based videogame player. Plus, Warhammer: Vermintide 2 is incredibly gory, as Skaven hack and rip through flesh with boundless ferocity, and the player matches them blow for blow. Skaven heads will roll.
1. The Rat Hordes from A Plague Tale: Innocence
The year is 1348. The bubonic plague is in full swing, and The Inquisition’s reign of terror is still spreading. Enter two children. That, in the vaguest of nutshells, is A Plague Tale: Innocence. This video game is a journey of survival and confronting horror(s) that just so happen to be seen through the eyes of two children. Grounded in a magical reality that chooses to embellish the truth rather than stick to the facts, the plague rats in the videogame are, in turn, bombastic and over-the-top in their swarm-like portrayal. Yet, the somewhat realistic grounding and the fact that the player views this world through the eyes of a largely helpless teen makes the rats in A Plague Tale: Innocence all the more terrifying. These rats move in voracious swarms and burst from sewers and aqueducts, and they also move across battlefields that are littered with leaking, rotting, and bloated corpses—the rats must eat, after all. They spread their disease and in turn inspire fear, and the human threat of The Inquisition preys on that fear. The rats are horrifying, but they act as a stepping stone for the most dangerous and scary beasts of all—human beings.
After fifty years of continuous writing, Stephen King has become a genre unto himself.
The unrivaled Master of Horror made a splash in 1974 with his debut novel Carrie and has been terrifying readers ever since. Two years later, Brian De Palma brought this shocking story to the screen with an equally electrifying horror film that remains a genre classic and a prototypical example of “Good For Her” horror. This dual debut seemed to open the floodgates, unleashing endless waves of Stephen King films.
From the highs of Misery, Cujo, and The Shawshank Redemption to the schlocky fun of Cat’s Eye, Creepshow, and Children of the Corn, the last five decades have seen just about every notable horror creator take a stab at the author’s massive collection.
In recent years, this singular subgenre has begun to burst at the seams, expanding to include Stephen King-esque fare. In 2016, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer debuted Stranger Things, a sci-fi series heavily inspired by two of King’s most famous books. The Netflix series remixes Firestarter and It by following a little girl with psychic powers and an intrepid group of kids on bikes who must battle an otherworldly foe and a sinister government agency. With its clever blend of modern effects and comforting nostalgia, this gateway horror series paved the way for Andy Muschietti’s It adaptation which remains the highest grossing horror film of all time.
Four years later, Mike Flanagan would create Midnight Mass, a spiritual adaptation of King’s second novel Salem’s Lot. Published in 1975, the book sees a tiny New England town torn apart by a centuries-old vampire. Though Flanagan’s story is perhaps more tender, both iterations of the classic horror tale follow close-knit communities shaken to their core by the presence of an ancient evil.
In addition to these recent hits, 2025 was a banner year for the Master of Horror. Audiences delighted in six mainstream adaptations, including the massively popular It: Welcome to Derry which chronicles earlier cycles of the titular clown’s reign. With this boost to King’s cultural cache, it’s no surprise that we’ve begun to see more unofficial adaptations of the author’s work and horror creators who build their own unique castles in King’s creative sandbox.
So what defines a Stephen King-esque story?
For the past fifty years, the prolific author has dipped his toes in nearly every subgenre from supernatural stories and grisly gore to western fantasy and science fiction. Including his vast catalogue of short fiction, King has tackled ghosts, demons, werewolves, zombies, aliens, mutants, and self-driving cars, not to mention bizarre monsters of his own creation. But what truly unites this vast array of horror is King’s focus on relatable characters. In his 2000 memoir/instructional text On Writing, the prolific author describes the amusement he finds in writing disparate characters, placing them in horrific scenarios, then exploring the ways they try to survive.
An unofficial Stephen King adaptation may take place in the author’s native New England — bonus points if it’s set in Maine — and reference his well-known heroes and villains. But what makes the King connection unbreakable is a character-driven story about average people who band together in the face of abject terror.
Weapons Captures Small Town Stephen King
Following his 2022 shocker Barbarian, Zach Cregger returned with Weapons, a sprawling story that begins in a doomed elementary school. On an otherwise ordinary day, Justine (Julia Garner) arrives at her desk to find that all but one of her students have disappeared. As the mystery grows increasingly violent, Justine and Archer (Josh Brolin), the father of a missing boy, find their way to the home of Alex (Cary Christopher), the class’ only surviving student. In some ways reminiscent of Salem’s Lot, Weapons swings wildly through the unfortunate town, introducing us to its flawed inhabitants as we watch their lives fall apart.
Cregger’s setup nods to a pair of King short stories. Both “Suffer the Little Children” and “Here There Be Tygers” tackle monstrous presences in elementary schools, but as Weapons reaches its final act, Constant Readers may remember another Stephen King tale. Featured in his 1985 collection Skeleton Crew, “Gramma” introduces us to George, a little boy tormented by an aging witch. On an afternoon alone with his sickly grandmother, the frightened child gradually realizes that the imposing old woman has been waiting for an opportunity to cast a spell that will extend her own life by possessing his body.
Alex finds himself similarly tortured by his aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan), a garish witch who orchestrates a desperate plot to sustain her own strength. Transforming humans into mindless weapons, Gladys has taken over Alex’s family home and lured his classmates to the basement. Holding them in a comatose state, she syphons off their energy to extend her own supernatural life.
Vastly different in many ways, both “Gramma” and Weapons hinge on a sinister witch who uses horrific magical spells to sacrifice the bodies of her vulnerable prey.
Hokum Echoes The Shining and 1408
It’s nearly impossible to watch a film about a haunted hotel without thinking of King’s third novel, The Shining. This icy story follows Jack Torrance, an angry writer struggling with his sobriety and a shameful incident haunting his past. Accompanied by his wife and young son, Jack has taken a job as the winter caretaker for the Overlook, a haunted hotel situated high in the Rocky Mountains. Snowed in, Jack finds himself tormented by dangerous ghosts who amplify his greatest fears.
Damian McCarthy’s Hokum follows a similarly troubled figure. Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) is a surly writer who travels to the Bilberry Woods Hotel in rural Ireland to spread his parents’ ashes. Haunted by his own tragic past, Ohm finds himself trapped in the honeymoon suite, a decaying room that’s been permanently closed to protect visitors from a dangerous witch trapped within its walls. Visual nods to King’s text abound with woodcut figurines and an animated clock, mirroring ominous descriptions found in King’s text.
Another terrifying sequence sees Ohm staring with horror at a closed door, the only thing separating him from the approaching witch. As the door knob slowly turns, Constant Readers remember Jack’s narrow escape from the ghostly woman in room 217. And Ohm’s popular Conquistador books directly reference King’s long-running fantasy series The Dark Tower which follows a gunslinger named Roland Deschain tasked with protecting the nexus of the universe.
In addition to these thematic comparisons, Hokum bears striking resemblance to King’s terrifying short story “1408.” Collected in 2002’s Everything’s Eventual, the terrifying story follows Mike Enslin, a dejected writer who’s risen to fame penning essays about his adventures in haunted locations. Mike arrives at the Hotel Dolphin and bullies his way into the titular room, despite the manager’s dire warnings. McCarthy nods to this story with an ominously misplaced hotel room door, reminiscent of King’s entry to 1408, an unsuspecting portal that appears to move each time Mike looks away.
However, McCarthy’s most direct reference lies in a minicorder Ohm uses to capture notes. Trapped inside the dreaded honeymoon suite, this device offers well-timed messages while sitting next to a decomposing corpse. Mike records his time in 1408 with his own trusty minicorder. Described for the reader, his tape has captured the man’s slow descent into madness as the room prepares to swallow him whole. With conclusions that differ wildly in tone, both Ohm and Mike find their lives irrevocably changed by encounters with the supernatural realm.
Widow’s Bay Builds Its Own Version of Castle Rock
Katie Dippold’s Widow’s Bay has taken the idea of an unofficial King adaptation and turned it into an art form. The Apple TV series sees the residents of the titular island plagued by a curse that dates back centuries. Not only does the picturesque hamlet not accommodate wifi connections, those born on the island face certain death should they ever try to leave. Desperate to modernize the tiny town, Mayor Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) draws in waves of tourists just as a new cycle of terror begins.
Blending horror with deft comedy, Dippold makes cheeky references to King’s body of work. Tom warns that, “there’s something in the fog,” reminding readers of King’s 1980 novella The Mist. And Loftis’ own stay in the town’s haunted hotel sees him tormented by the ghost of a murderous clown. We even spy a vintage King hardback peeking out of a local book trade box.
In many ways Widow’s Bay feels like a new iteration of the author’s Little Tall Island, a tiny village off the coast of Maine. In addition to the 1992 novel Dolores Claiborne and a handful of harrowing short stories, this quaint fishing village is also the setting for King’s 1999 teleplay Storm of the Century. Premiering on ABC primetime, this tragic tale follows a terrified group of islanders who batten down the hatches for a dangerous Nor’easter only to find a more sinister threat lurking within.
Constant Readers may also be reminded of Castle Rock, the author’s favorite fictional town.
First introduced in the 1981 novel Cujo, the charming village becomes the star of Needful Things, King’s satire about consumerism. After several Castle Rock stories, we’re reintroduced to its residents as they gossip about the arrival of Leland Gaunt and the grand opening of his curio shop. Anything their hearts desire can be found in his varied inventory, so long as they’re willing to pay the price. Pitting cantankerous neighbors against each other, Gaunt ignites a wave of grisly violence by exploiting long-held resentments and feuds.
The town’s only defense against this supernatural threat is beleaguered sheriff Alan Pangborn. Still grieving the deaths of his wife and younger son, Alan struggles to connect with his older child and pick up the pieces of his shattered life. Also a widower, Loftis struggles to raise his own restless son and explain the strange details of his wife’s tragic death. Attempting to unravel the island’s dark secrets, Tom is aided by quirky residents including a surly fisherman named Wyck (Stephen Root) and Patricia (Kate O’Flynn), an earnest Town Hall employee. King’s own novels feature many of these proactive alliances with disparate characters combining their strengths to overcome insurmountable odds.
With Widow’s Bay renewed for a second season and Mike Flanagan’s Carrie series on the horizon, the future seems bright for new King adaptations, both spiritual and directly pulled from his catalogue. The prolific author also shows no signs of slowing down with two publications nearing release. His upcoming novel, Other Worlds Than These, is the long-awaited third Talisman book which teases direct ties to his Dark Tower world. Holly Forever will be a new installment of his crime series, offering a different kind of genre fare.
This embarrassment of riches spawning multiple worlds seems ripe for spiritual adaptation and will likely inspire horror creators for decades to come.
Kate O’Flynn, Stephen Root and Matthew Rhys in “Widow’s Bay,” now streaming on Apple TV.
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