5 Horror Games Inspired by Real Events

The horror genre has always thrived on fear, suspense, and the unknown. While most games rely on fictional monsters, ghouls, or ghosts to terrify players, some titles go a step further — grounding their horror in real-life incidents. This makes the experience far more chilling, as the storylines draw from events and figures that actually existed.

Below are five of the best horror games inspired by real-life horrors, each blending fact with terrifying fiction.

5. Outlast – Inspired by Project MKUltra

The CIA’s infamous Project MKUltra tested drugs and psychological techniques aimed at brainwashing and mind control. Outlast takes this dark piece of history and amplifies it.

You play as a journalist investigating an asylum where patients were subjected to MKUltra-like experiments. The results are catastrophic — the inmates are violent, deranged, and determined to kill you. With corpses scattered throughout the asylum, you must uncover the truth while avoiding certain death.

4. Neverending Nightmares – A Developer’s Inner Struggles

Not all horror stories come from external events. Neverending Nightmares is deeply personal, born from lead designer Matt Gilgenbach’s struggles with depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The game traps you in an endless cycle of waking from nightmares — only to realize you’re still inside one. Symbolic monsters and eerie environments reflect the protagonist’s (and the creator’s) mental battles. The result is a disturbing yet raw exploration of the horrors of the human mind.

3. Silent Hill – Inspired by Centralia, Pennsylvania

The unsettling ghost town of Silent Hill was directly inspired by Centralia, Pennsylvania, a once-thriving mining town abandoned after a coal mine fire ignited in 1962.

The fire still burns underground to this day, leaving Centralia empty, smoky, and uninhabitable. Developers used this haunting imagery to create Silent Hill’s fog-filled streets, eerie emptiness, and ominous atmosphere — cementing it as one of the most disturbing game worlds ever created.

2. Resident Evil Village – Inspired by Elizabeth Bathory

Lady Dimitrescu, the towering villainess of Resident Evil Village, may be a fictional character, but her inspiration is terrifyingly real.

The developers drew from the legend of Elizabeth Bathory, a 16th-century Hungarian noblewoman accused of torturing and murdering hundreds of young women. Folklore claims she bathed in her victims’ blood and even wore clawed gloves to punish servants — traits mirrored in Lady Dimitrescu’s design and her three vampiric daughters.

1. Five Nights at Freddy’s – Inspired by a Real Murder Case

The creepy animatronics of Five Nights at Freddy’s bear a chilling resemblance to those at Chuck E. Cheese restaurants — and that’s no coincidence.

In 1993, a tragic real-life incident occurred in Aurora, Colorado, when a former employee entered a Chuck E. Cheese after closing and shot five workers, killing four. While the animatronics in the game don’t kill anyone in real life, the unsettling connection between children’s entertainment and the Aurora murders inspired the game’s dark premise.

As a night security guard, you must survive against animatronics that come alive with murderous intent — a fictional exaggeration rooted in very real tragedy.