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Some of the Wii’s Best Horror Games Are Being Remastered for PS4, Xbox One
Remember all those horror games you didn’t play even though they looked great, because they came first, or sometimes even exclusively, to the Wii? Don’t fret, you’re not alone. Lots of horror fans had to deal with this when the demand for Nintendo’s insanely popular console was at its highest, because that was when some publishers came up with the underdeveloped idea of making horror games for it.
To understand why they did it, all you need to do is ignore the Wii’s target demographic — casual gamers, families, kids — and the alarming number of third party games that failed because most Wii owners wanted something with Mario in the title. It took a long time to realize that “Wii owner” and “horror enthusiast” are labels that can rarely be used to describe the same person.
Dooming these mostly fantastic games to a life of neglect and layers upon layers of dust as people forgot they existed because they were too busy playing whatever game Nintendo just released was clearly a mistake. It’s also one that they’re looking to fix with the just-announced Spooky Scary Shooty collection for PS4 and Xbox One.
Referred internally by the codename “Wow, We Done Goofed”, this bundle includes remastered versions of several horror shooters, including Dead Space: Extraction, House of the Dead: Overkill, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles and ZombiU.
A few of these titles would eventually make their way to other platforms only to get overlooked again, but I did overhear a conversation between myself and the roommate of someone who once saw games industry analyst Michael Pachter on TV who claimed to have inside knowledge that it probably won’t happen again.
I decided to ask Ubisoft why ZombiU — a Wii U exclusive — was also included in the bundle, and one of their representatives got to me just as my pinky was hovering above the Publish button. For Ubisoft, the decision to include ZombiU was an easy one to make. “Our decision to publish the game as a Wii U exclusive was super dumb. We hope this will bring our fanboys community one step closer to forgiving us.”
The bundle arrives tomorrow, April 2, for the PS4 and Xbox One.
In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, but it was a cheerful illustrator from England who helped to define the terrifying war-torn imagery that inspired what we now know as Grimdark (a hybrid genre combining horror with sci-fi/fantasy).
Unfortunately for fans of Warhammer 40,000, Trench Crusade and countless other sources of Grimdark thrills, veteran artist John Blanche passed away this week after struggling with health issues for the past few years.
While the artist retired back in 2023, he leaves us with an enormous legacy of iconic artwork that continues to inspire gamers and storytellers around the world to this very day.
The news is especially gloomy as it was only last year that Daniel Lowman and Napoleon Dynamite himself Jon Heder released The Grim & the Dark: The Search for John Blanche, a documentary following Heder’s exploration of the Grimdark genre culminating in a heartwarming encounter with Blanche in his own home.
Below is one of my favorite pieces by Blanche, his highly influential depiction of Warhammer 40k’s God-Emperor of Mankind on his Golden Throne.
We send our deepest condolences to John Blanche’s family, friends, and fans.
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