5 best horror games based on European myths and traditions

Horror games have a trademark unlike any other medium, and video games frequently push the genre to levels players never dream of. Being traumatized by something that people felt was genuine in the past, before the introduction of technology or electric lighting, has a strange sense of morbidity to it.

Europe is a continent of strange and old customs, anchored not just in religion but also in pagan ceremonies and stories.

There are numerous places with intriguing backgrounds to explore, ranging from the brutal territories of Northern Europe and the complicated Viking mythology, to the West with intense Spanish celebrations, and farther East, with the spirits and shamanism of ancient Russia.

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5 horror games that are based on European myths: Heidelberg, Black Book, Apsulov End of Gods and others

5) Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice

Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows

Publishers: Ninja Theory, Xbox Game Studios, 505 Games

Hellblade is one of the action-horror games developed by Ninja Theory set in a dark fantasy Norway filled with Norse folklore, murder, and death. With strange woodlands, cursed shrines, and piles of dead bodies around, the mood is gloomy and dramatic. The protagonist's adventures will take her from a remote island to the renowned underworld of Viking mythology, Helheim.

With sword combat and evasion, as well as a death dance between the heroine, Senua, and a variety of hellish warriors, the gameplay is particularly action-oriented. Even while the fighting system is enjoyable, it exists solely to serve the storyline, as Hellblade is mostly a story-driven game.

In this horrifying and repressive universe, the bleak and dark Viking age is brilliantly depicted, and stories are explored and applied through collectibles. Some legendary characters, such as gods and animals, emerge, resulting in one of the more bizarre horror games.

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4) Black Book

Platforms: PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, macOS, Nintendo Switch, Macintosh operating systems

Publisher: HypeTrain Digital

The game's graphic design is unique and highly personal, creating a vibrant fantasy world that steadily moves into darker territory. The protagonist of the story, a witch, will go through woodlands, lonely villages, and haunting mills on randomly created roads, encountering difficulties and making decisions along the way.

Black Book is an odd blend of genres, including roguelikes, RPGs, card decks, and the horror games. Throughout the game, players will go through randomly generated routes, confronting moral decisions and demons while engaging in turn-based fights that has different cards linked to rituals and black magic.

When players reach the major regions, the game will convert to a more point-and-click style of play, with puzzle solving thrown in for good measure. All the parts work nicely together, resulting in a complicated yet enjoyable game that will greatly expand as new elements are added.

Black Book is one of the most useful games for learning more about Slavic mythology. The game was created in collaboration with anthropologists and has an in-game encyclopaedia that catalogues all of the information gathered.

This feature is not only fun for the player since it allows them to learn new things, but it also adds value to the game.

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3) Depths of Fear Knossos

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, macOS

Publisher: Digital Tribe

Players will take on the role of a hero cast into the labyrinth with the task of fighting the Minotaur. However, given the presence of eight legendary animals in the dungeon, this will be a challenging endeavor.

The game isn't the finest in the genre, but it does do something different with such overused source material, resulting in one of the few Greek horror games available.

The gameplay is reminicist of the traditional first-person horror games with its stealth focus; however, since the labyrinth changes with each play, the game is also a rogue-like. The easiest method to survive is to hide in the darkness, especially early on, while gathering gold, as this will help players purchase better weapons, allowing them to fight the creatures inside the labyrinth.

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2) Heidelberg 1693

Platform: Microsoft Windows

Publishers: Andrade Games

Heidelberg is an adventure game with a lot of gore and horror. The game is a throwback to the genre's origins, with strong echoes of the original Castlevania, but it also offers a more contemporary experience.

The monster diversity is likewise impressive, ranging from nasty zombies to incredibly scary entities that most likely escaped from Hieronymus Bosch's demented paintings. Given the severe and immensely rewarding fighting system, killing the animals is also extremely fulfilling.

Heidelberg also incorporates and portrays authentic German sites. Despite the fact that the game is set in a fictitious version of 17th century Europe, it makes efforts to be historically accurate, unlike many horror games.

The beautiful world map depicting Heidelberg and the surrounding countryside while broken in pieces by a cruel demonic battle, for example, gives players a sense of the value of these elements.

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1) Apsulov End of Gods

Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5

Publishers: Angry Demon Studio, Digerati, Perpetual Entertainment

The game takes place in a massive subterranean station with a tangle of steamy hallways and serpentine wires. Naturally, something went horribly wrong there, and the station is now a cemetery of dead bodies and deranged naked individuals wailing while wearing a skull mask.

Apsulov is among the many stealth horror games. In this title, the greatest chance of surviving the adversaries being hiding in the shadows while waiting for the ideal moment to move.

However, the formula is always subject to change, especially when the enemy is a massive ice giant, and avoiding its view-cone as rapidly as possible is the only way to survive.

Apsulov is a fantastic attempt in merging traditional sci-fi horror games with old stories and folklore, resulting in a unique universe where everything gets twisted together in a fascinating equation.

The station might be thought of as a massive SCP facility dedicated to finding items linked to the Viking Gods. Gods such as Odin and Thor, as well as monsters and realms from the Viking mythology, exist in this far-off and scary future.