The House of the Dead | 1996

"The House of the Dead" is a horror-themed light gun shooting arcade game developed by Sega AM1 and released by Sega in 1997. It is the first game in the House of the Dead series, where players take on the roles of agents Thomas Logan and "G," fighting against undead test subjects created by the mad scientist Dr. Curien.

The game was developed for over a year on Sega Model 2 arcade hardware, targeting an adult audience with a story and atmosphere inspired by Western horror films. AM1 planned detailed environments, non-linear level design, and a brutal aesthetic, but faced challenges and limitations due to Model 2 hardware and other factors.

House of the Dead received positive reviews from critics, contributing to the popularization of zombie video games alongside Resident Evil and reigniting interest in zombie films from the late 1990s to the 2000s.

In April 2022, a remake developed by MegaPixel Studio and published by Forever Entertainment was released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Stadia, Windows, and Xbox One, with releases for Xbox Series X/S in September 2022 and PlayStation 5 in January 2023.

House of the Dead is a rail shooter light gun game. Players use a light gun (or mouse in the PC version) to aim and shoot approaching zombies. The character's handgun uses a magazine that can hold six rounds, and players must reload by shooting off-screen. Players lose one point of health if they take damage or shoot civilians. If all health is depleted, a continue screen appears, and if continues are exhausted, the game ends. Throughout the game, players can find first aid kits to recover health, some of which can be obtained from rescued hostages, while others are hidden in destructible objects. Players can find hidden items for extra points.

During gameplay, players face various situations that affect the direction of gameplay based on their actions (or inactions). This is well illustrated in the first stage when a hostage is in danger of falling from a bridge. If the player saves the hostage, they enter the house through the front door; if not, the character takes a detour through the underground sewer.

Players can shoot enemies in the head or rescue hostages to gain extra points by finding hidden items.

Dr. Roy Curien, a renowned biochemist and geneticist in Europe, becomes obsessed with discovering the nature of life and death. With support from DBR Corporation and his team of scientists, Curien's behavior becomes increasingly unstable, and his experiments take inhumane and horrific directions. Curien Mansion serves as both his home and laboratory, becoming the origin of the undead zombies.

On December 18, 1998, AMS agent Thomas Logan receives an urgent call from his fiancée, Sophie Richard, from Curien Mansion. Logan and his partner "G" fly to Europe and arrive at the mansion, only to find it filled with undead creatures. A severely injured scientist gives them a journal containing information about Curien's creations and their weaknesses, urging them to rescue any survivors still inside.

Logan and G search for Sophie but witness her being kidnapped by a flying monster called the Hangman. The two enter the house and later find Sophie, but she is attacked during the battle. Sophie warns them that they must stop Curien before collapsing from her injuries. Enraged, Logan and G venture deeper into the mansion, encountering the Hangman on the roof. In the ensuing battle, Logan and G narrowly escape death but manage to shoot the Hangman down. As they delve deeper into the mansion's laboratory, they discover Curien, who is protected by a giant spider-like creature called Hermit. After defeating Hermit, Logan and G continue their pursuit.

The two pass through several laboratories in the mountainous cave system beneath the mansion, arriving at a large laboratory where Curien releases his masterpiece, the Wizard. However, the Wizard refuses to serve any master and kills its creator. To prevent their escape, Logan and G fight the Wizard, which explodes after being defeated, leaving a warning that "you haven't seen anything yet." After Curien and the Wizard are dead, the agents leave the mansion.

There are three different endings, determined by the player's score. The ending referred to by developers as the "normal ending" shows Sophie being resurrected as a zombie. The "true ending" can only be seen if the player achieves the highest score, where Sophie overcomes her injuries and survives. The third ending shows a distant view of the mansion, with Sophie absent, leaving her fate unknown.

Development began in December 1995 and took 1 year and 3 months. The development team, unable to speak English, chose the name "The House of the Dead" by selecting the most visually appealing translation of various horror-themed phrases from Japanese. The team targeted people in their 20s and 30s, hoping the game would primarily be experienced as a two-player game.

House of the Dead was built on the Virtua Cop game engine. The developers wanted a more complex branching path system but ultimately realized that these ideas were too ambitious to realize within the given time.

Enemy design was quickly drafted, moving directly from ideas to design drawings. Anticipating that violence would need to be reduced in foreign markets, particularly Germany, they included an option to change the color of blood, offering green, purple, and blue in addition to traditional red. Additionally, due to the game's nature of encouraging players to shoot zombies, they removed a female zombie that resembled an elderly woman. Chario was animated using motion capture of an actor wielding a broom, while other enemies were all animated manually, with motion capture used only for reference.

Sega AM4 designed the game cabinet using screenshots and illustrations provided by AM1. House of the Dead was offered in two cabinet formats, both featuring vertical 50-inch and 29-inch monitors.

By the end of 1997, Sega confirmed that work on a port to the Sega Saturn had begun, with an early version delivered. The port was handled by Tantalus Interactive and released in 1998, with a Windows (PC-CD) port released the same year by Sega. Both ports included additional game modes with selectable characters and different weapons.

Both the Sega Saturn and PC versions feature slightly remixed soundtracks. In Chapter 2, the phrase "Challenger, go at throttle up" is heard three times, spoken by Richard O. Covey in the mission control room just before an explosion. This phrase does not appear in the arcade version, which instead features a sinister laugh. In the PC port, the title and boss themes are reversed.

In Japan, a mobile phone version was released, aiming to replicate the gameplay and location of the arcade version. In February 2005, a pre-installed demo including the first chapter of the game was released for the Vodafone V603SH, using the phone's accelerometer to control the camera.