Is Gone Home Actually A Horror Game?

Gone Home may have a rich atmosphere but does it qualify as a horror game? Horror titles that take place from a first-person perspective have risen in popularity in recent years. The best example is probably P.T., which was really a demo for Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro’s ultimately cancelled Silent Hills. P.T. saw players working around a constantly looping hallway whilst being pursued by a terrifying ghost, and while it’s only a teaser, it’s still considered one of the most influential horror games of all time.

Alien: Isolation also arrived in 2014 and is a direct sequel to the 1979 film, where Ripley’s daughter Amanda investigates her disappearance while being stalked by a prowling, relentless Xenomorph. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard gave the franchise a much needed, back to basics survival horror approach, but with a first-person viewpoint. Other notable titles include Layers Of Fear and the Outlast games.

One of the most talked-about games of the 2010s is Gone Home, which was first released in 2013. The game’s setup is simple; a girl named Katie returns to visit her family in their new home after a long trip away, only to find it empty. Katie has to walk around the eeriely deserted house during a rainy, stormy night and piece together clues, while her sister Sam narrates various notes and diary pages.

Gone Home was praised for its storytelling and immersive atmosphere, with the game taking players on a slow-burn emotional story. Of course, a title that starts with players exploring a large, empty house on their own envokes any number of horror tropes. It’s also set in 1995, so the house is full of nostalgic throwbacks and nods to shows like The X-Files. It builds up a feeling of quiet dread and suspense as Katie forms a picture of what happened to her family, but it’s ultimately revealed there are no ghosts or escaped serial killers hiding in the dark. Instead, the story reveals Sam fell in love with a classmate Lonnie, came out to her parents – who refused to accept it – and she eventually ran away with her girlfriend.

While Gone Home succeeds in building a creepy atmosphere, it can’t really be called a horror game either. Instead, it’s more of an interactive drama and came to exemplify a genre some have derisively called a “walking simulator.” Gone Home features no action or even other characters to interact with, with Katie instead rifling through drawers and boxes to uncover the next clue. This led to some players decrying it as a non-game, but many found it a moving experience. It later inspired other so-called walking simulators including Firewatch and even more overt horror games like Layers Of Fear, and has been ported to consoles like the PlayStation 4 and the Switch.

About The Author

Padraig Cotter
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It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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