Many horror games borrow from real events to heighten dread and plausibility. Below are five titles that weave documented incidents, locations or collected testimonies into their narratives, turning unsettling reality into interactive fear.
Kholat — inspired by the Dyatlov Pass incident
- Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Kholat takes its premise from the 1959 Dyatlov Pass case in the Soviet Union, when nine university students died during a ski expedition in the Ural Mountains.
The victims’ bodies were found under baffling circumstances—some were scantily clad, others reportedly showed severe injuries and traces associated with radiation—details that remain unexplained and have spawned many theories, from avalanches to unknown forces.
In the game, the player assumes the role of an investigator exploring the frozen landscape to uncover what happened, encountering hostile phenomena and creatures while navigating the harsh environment.
Chernobylite — set amid the Chernobyl disaster’s Exclusion Zone
- Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Chernobylite is a first-person shooter with survival-horror elements that uses the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the real Exclusion Zone as its backdrop.
The playable protagonist is an ex-physicist who returns to the deserted, radiated zone surrounding the plant. While the setting reflects the real abandoned area, the game’s storyline and characters are fictional.
Gameplay mixes combat against human foes and supernatural “Shadows” with resource management, traps and base-building mechanics as players search for answers within the hazardous landscape.
Fears to Fathom — episodes built from user submissions
- Platforms: Steam
Fears to Fathom is a first-person psychological horror anthology developed by Mukul Negi that bases each chapter on real scary accounts submitted by Steam users.
The game emphasizes exploration, interaction and stealth, delivering short, varied scenarios set in locations such as houses, forests and hotels, each drawing directly from the contributed testimonies that inspired them.
The Town of Light — rooted in a real psychiatric hospital
- Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
The Town of Light uses the real Ospedale Psichiatrico di Volterra, a psychiatric hospital in Volterra, Tuscany that operated between the 19th and 20th centuries and is known for abusive treatments, as the foundation for its narrative.
The game places the player in the perspective of Renée, a fictional former patient who was committed in the 1940s and later revisits the now-abandoned facility to confront memories and uncover the truth about her past. Developers take artistic liberties but base the setting and institutional history on the real hospital.
Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me — echoing H. H. Holmes’ Murder Castle
- Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
The Devil in Me, part of the Dark Pictures Anthology, draws on the historical figure H. H. Holmes and his so-called “Murder Castle,” a Chicago building from the 1890s reportedly designed with locked rooms, secret passages and traps used to kill victims.
In this third-person interactive horror entry, five protagonists become trapped inside a replica of the Murder Castle and must solve puzzles, evade deadly mechanisms and make choices that affect survival. The game frames its fictional cast and scenarios around the infamous real-world structure and its association with one of America’s early documented serial killers.
