It is the goal of these games to scare us to death that they use found footage methods as much as possible.
With found footage, viewers see everything as if it were happening in real life, but through the lens of a camera. The footage is meant to show real events that were caught on camera by someone there. The footage is finally found, and fans can see it from the point of view of the people who were in the film.
From this point of view, you feel closer to the story and the people than in most horror movies, where you stay away from them. We are scared by found footage because it seems real and lets us see something that was lost before. There aren’t many horror games that use found footage, and the ones that do are all different in how they use it.
The Final Take
This is a found footage game called The Final Take. You use restored films to learn about the lives of three different people. At first, the stories may seem unrelated, but you soon learn that they are all linked in a bad way.
Each movie is a throwback to the 1980s, with colors and effects that look like VHS tapes from that time. You go through each scenario yourself, so you get the full, scary experience before you find out the truth.
Feeding_Log_01172013
Feeding_Log_01172013 was made in 2022 for the Ludum Dare Game Jam. The main character finds a secret tape that shows someone feeding animals in cages in a hidden area. Play, stop, and fast-forward the tape. You have to do these things in the right order for the story to make sense.
Spaced sound effects in Feeding_Log make the scary parts stronger, so we suggest you use headphones to get the full effect. Pay close attention and move slowly to get to the end of the tape!
FeedVid Live
After the Covid lockdowns, a new type of found footage horror has emerged: computers that have had their Zoom meeting feeds taken over by people who are not supposed to be there. On top of that, it uses Twitch’s fame to make the scares stronger and bring you into the dark world.
You are now in a live stream after getting a membership from an unknown person. As the game goes on, you take on the role of director of a snuff film, and the number of people who watch it depends on the choices you make.
Lifeline
In 2003, Konami put out Lifeline for the PlayStation 2. You are at a space party when aliens attack. At the end of it all, only you and a hotel worker are left alive.
You help an employee figure out puzzles and fight aliens by using the hotel’s surveillance and contact system. It’s really cool that you can play this game just by talking to it. Voice recognition can record over 100,000 different words.
September 1999
September 1999 is a scary game that you can play for free and in just five minutes and thirty seconds. This game doesn’t need much more to tell its story, even though it’s one of the simplest horror games.
The story is told in the first person in a VHS-style. You shouldn’t know anything about this game before you play it, so I suggest you go into it blind. September 1999 can be downloaded for free right now on Steam or itch.io.
Michigan: Report From Hell
Michigan: Report From Hell came out on PlayStation 2 in 2004 from Grasshopper Manufacture. There is a strange fog in Chicago (the name of the game comes from Lake Michigan, which is next to Chicago).
Three people from the ZaKa TV news team go to the scene of the crime to find out where the fog is coming from. You play the part of a new cameraman and see things from the camera’s point of view. You can tag interesting things, creatures, or other things through the lens so that the other people on your team can look into them.
The Survey
Rober Gammon made the open source game The Survey. You play as Marcus Walker, who wakes up in a house that is empty. As you look around, you notice that it’s a bit too quiet. Then you find a phone with a note on it that says someone or something is watching.
As you play the game, audio tapes and journal writings will help you figure out what’s going on. Puzzles, exploring, and the setting of The Survey all work together to make the game scary without using jump scares.
Amanda The Adventurer
Amanda The Adventurer turns a popular kids’ TV show on its head, which is naturally scary. You will never look at kids’ TV characters the same way again! The story starts when you clean your house and find some old VHS tapes that are dirty.
Even though you don’t remember watching Amanda the Adventurer, you decide to do it anyway because it makes you feel good. Over the course of three episodes, Amanda and her friend’s cute and innocent show slowly turns creepy, and you finally find out what Amanda really looks like.
Slender: The Arrival
Before long, everyone was crazy about Slender Man after Eric Knudson shared it as a creepypasta in 2009. The original video game based on Slender Man is called Slender: The Arrival. To make something really scary, Blue Isle Publishing worked with Eric “Victor Surge” Knudson, who made Slender Man, and Mark Hadley.
The creators see this as a re-imagining or an expansion of Slender: The Eight Pages, and they think it will take about two hours to play through on average. The mood of Slender: The Arrival is carefully thought out, and the jump scares are very well done.
Simulacra
The found footage horror genre comes to your phone in the form of Simulacra, a game that has won awards. It’s called the spiritual sequel to Sara Is Missing, and it’s the same scary FMV experience.
You find a woman named Anna’s lost phone and want to find out what happened to her by looking through her apps and data. After you finish this game, if you can’t get enough of it, you should also play Simulacra 2.
Outlast
Survival horror game Outlast puts you in the shoes of reporter Miles Upshur as he looks into crimes. After getting a tip from someone else, you break into Mount Massive Asylum, an abandoned mental health center.
This asylum is in the middle of nowhere in Colorado, and the Murkoff Corporation uses it for “research and charity.” In Outlast, you not only find footage but also make footage that you will find later in Snow Rider 3D. This is one of the more unique takes on the found footage genre.
Her Story
Sam Barlow made Her Story. He also made Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and Aisle. In this full-motion found footage game, you watch videos that recorded and saved by the cops.
With these clips, you can learn about the story based on talks with a woman whose husband went missing. The story of Her Story won 23 awards in 2015 and 2016 for Best Narrative, Best Performance, and Best Mobile Game on a number of different platforms.
Resident Evil 7 Biohazard
Four VHS tapes are used in the gameplay of Resident Evil 7 Biohazard to add found footage parts. It’s different from the other games on this list because it lets you play out the scene from the found footage, so you can actually go through it instead of just watching it.
That is, on the first VHS tape you find, you play a cameraman on a documentary-style ghost hunter show. Each VHS tape has popular movies and TV shows from found footage. There is tension in one tape through buildup and mood, and there is tension in another tape because of a killer chasing you.