Editorials
5 Recent Horror Comics That Would Make Great Video Games
It’s been a decade since Telltale’s The Walking Dead set the game world on fire. Despite the fact that there was a popular version of the story on television at the time, the game pulled from the comic series instead for the sad and depressing world it presented. Comics have been taking over the movie and TV world, but it would be nice to see more comics get big, Walking Dead-quality video games projects.
Here are five recent horror comics that would make great adaptations.
DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH
Writer James Tynion has been on a roll with a series of spooky creator-owned comics, and his hit Image title Department of Truth is the one that’s best suited for the medium of video games. Set in the world of shadowy government agencies and conspiracy theories, the book follows the agents of the titular department as they learn the ways in which belief can shape reality. The breadth of topics covered in the series, ranging from UFOs to cryptozoology, make it perfect for an adaptation.
One mission could have you trying to save someone lost in the woods while being stalked by Bigfoot, and another could see you investigating a case of Satanic Ritual Abuse. To emphasize the impact the player has on the world, things would change based on how well you cover things up afterwards. Don’t clean up the evidence of reptilians? Belief in them increases and they show up more in the future. The theme ties so perfectly into a dynamic game narrative, and it would be satisfying to see play out.
HOME SICK PILOTS
Haunted houses and giant robots are two things that don’t normally get mentioned in the same breath, but Home Sick Pilots, by Dan Watters and Caspar Wijngaard, finds a way to combine them. After a punk rock show at the Old James House, high schooler Ami has been bound to it, cursed to help hunt down haunted items that have been taken from the ghosts within. Oh, and the house sometimes gets up and walks like a person. Add in some teen counterculture spice to that already interesting blend and you’ve got one of the most unique horror books on the stands.
I could see two different modes of gameplay working well for this: haunted house investigations where you’re searching through strange areas for the lost items, followed by giant mecha battles that play out like a fighting game. The power and abilities of your haunted house mech could be tied to what items you find, giving the player an extra reason to scour the spooky environments to press their luck for the chance of improving their abilities. Horror games thrive when they can figure out how to alternate feelings of being helpless with cathartic scenes of power, and Home Sick Pilots would give you a perfect opportunity for both.
SNOW ANGELS
Survival and horror go hand in hand, and the world presented in Jeff Lemire and Jock’s Snow Angels is one in which survival is as challenging as it gets. The world has been frozen over, and all humans, that you know of at least, have been relegated to a seemingly endless trench dug into the snow and ice. To make matters worse, the two sibling main characters are being stalked by the mysterious and deadly Snowman, a mythic unstoppable killer. The bleak and scratchy drawings of Jock bring the world of Snow Angels to life in painstaking detail, with desperation bleeding into every panel.
I imagine this setup being perfect for an Alien: Isolation-like stalker enemy that would unpredictably attack you as you explore the wasteland scrounging for resources and trying to figure out what’s going on in this cold and desperate world. If you wanted to add another layer of uniqueness to the game, you could make it a mandatory co-op game, a la A Way Out or It Takes Two, and force each player to be one of the siblings working together to make it out of the horrifying situation.
FARMHAND
Not all horror titles have to be gloom and doom. Farmhand focuses on a goofier side of the genre, with a little body horror mixed in. The title, written and drawn by Rob Guillory, features a small town where the Jenkins Family Farm grows a strange crop: replacement human organs. Obviously growing human organs isn’t a natural thing, so there are sinister mysteries afoot that adds tension to a small-scale family drama that’s at the heart of the action.
This setting seems like fertile ground (pun intended) for a bizarre little business sim where you have to manage your odd crops while dealing with everything from corporate espionage to brainwashed cults. Imagine trying to maintain your crops of replacement ears while being sure to allocate enough resources to security to keep rivals from coming in and stealing your seeds. I’m all for adding horror twists to genres that don’t usually have them, and this seems like a perfect opportunity.
NOCTERRA
Scott Snyder became a household name with his runs on Batman and Justice League, but his comics career has deep roots in the horror genre. He’s responsible for such titles as American Vampire and Wytches, but it’s one of his more recent books, with art by Tony Daniel, that would make for a perfect game setting. Nocterra combines elements of Pitch Black and Mad Max, set in a world where the sun has vanished and the dark mutates people and animals into horrific creatures. To traverse the everlasting night, drivers known as ferrymen transport people between outposts in eighteen-wheelers lit up like Christmas trees.
It would be great to use this setup for a vehicular action game that had a heavy emphasis on survivor horror-style resource management. Driving down a stretch of road fighting off horrible beasts in the dark, only to have to pull over to scavenge for batteries at an abandoned station before the next wave of monsters comes down on you would make for a thrilling scenario. Having a rotating cast of passengers would give you a wide variety of stories to help fill in the world and add depth to the mystery of the disaster that led to it. Daniels’ art provides a perfect template for a gorgeous world that will be absolutely terrifying to explore.
Are you reading any comics you think would make for a great horror game? Sound off in the comments below!
“Elevated Horror.” Of all the combinations in the English language, that one is the most insufferable.
It represents almost a decade of scary movies that, for the most part, took themselves too seriously. Horror responds to the moment, so its “why so serious” lean makes sense as we scuttle through the “worst of times” equation of Charles Dickens’ famous opening lines. But there’s still an opening and a need for a lighter approach; one that not only has fun with its audience but takes the piss out of a genre that is seemingly letting its newfound “respectability” go to its head.
Wes Craven believed devotees see horror films to let out their fears one primal scream at a time. At their core, these movies are roller coasters; they bring us as close to the edge as possible before pulling us back into a safety net of reality. The need for a bigger and badder coaster increases during times when the size of that net decreases.
There’s a thrill that comes from imagining being in a foot race with a madman, or outthinking the hordes of zombies on the other side of the door, plus the scavenger humans coming behind them. There’s even a rush that comes from imagining how one might deal with possession to see good triumph over evil in the end. It’s all about building tension and releasing it through catharsis. That cathartic release usually sounds like screams followed by laughter, which signals relief. Genre heavy hitters over the past 10 years offered very little of that respite when the credits rolled. Films like Hereditary, The Witch, Talk to Me, and even Smile (pick one) keep that tension going after the screen fades to black.
Hereditary
As the genre became obsessed with creating trauma metaphors, that lack of release made sense. Anyone with even a small sample size of traumatic experiences knows those emotions don’t magically resolve themselves in an allotted run time. But how much trauma can one take? Especially when there’s a mess going on outside that few of us can escape from. Movies offer that off-ramp, no matter how short.
Everything can’t be, nor should it be, “elevated.” Audiences need thoughtful explorations of life’s ills via monsters as much as they need murdering masked maniacs with kitchen knives. And no, it doesn’t have to go any deeper than that. Sometimes, a knife is just a knife, and it’s still worth our time and respect. As weird as it sounds, that simplicity is comforting not in spite of the trauma but because of it.
The worst of times should manifest more than just anguish. People need to laugh just as much as they need to think seriously about this moment in time. Even the Scream franchise forgot the meta rock upon which it built its church when the latest foray sacrificed the subtle comedy for serious drama. Scary Movie returned at the perfect moment. It provides the necessary laughs, but it’s not a cure-all.
This isn’t a call for Scary Movie imitators but a return to a mainstream landscape where Killer Klowns from Outer Space sat with The Serpent and the Rainbow, nestled neatly with the latest Nightmare on Elm Street, which took nothing away from The Vanishing.
They Live
Even They Live, John Carpenter’s horror sci-fi satire sandwich, kept its tongue firmly in cheek while discussing serious ideas still relevant in 2026. Yes, a film about aliens taking over the world through subliminal messaging only visible through coded sunglasses is, in fact, a tad silly. Carpenter understood that mainstream horror can’t become so self-important that it never looks itself in the mirror and laughs at that inherent silliness.
The thing is, horror historically excels at poking fun at itself. Most of the Scream franchise, The Cabin in the Woods, or The Blackening show adoration without kowtowing. They recognize tropes and trappings but invert them for an audience already in on the joke, but one that also finds solace in said conventions. This keeps the genre on its toes; once something gets parodied, it’s usually time to evolve. That breeds new ideas and fresh filmmakers, which not only strengthen the genre’s collective voice but also amplify it.
Get Out, as “elevated” as some critics want us to believe it is, is a cathartic, populist scary movie that spoke to an untapped audience rather than speaking down to them. Backrooms is one of the biggest horror hits in years, partially because it’s fine-tuned for modern-day teenagers instead of their parents. Movies like these tell everyone the genre is open for business; open for innovation and, yeah, open for new ways in which people can lovingly poke fun at with a wink and a nudge.
Horror needs dread as much as it needs laughter.
Catharsis is just as important as tension, and pulpy populism has the same merit as more high-brow material. Respectability shouldn’t come at the expense of an experience akin to walking through a haunted house. At a time when joy seems in short supply, horror should look to its past to map out its future, and make things just a tad brighter for audiences.
Backrooms
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