The 13 Most Haunting Ghost Stories In Video Game History

"In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill." So reads the letter James receives from someone claiming to be his late wife Mary, urging him to go to their "special place" in the town of Silent Hill. While James is reluctant to believe a ghost wrote him a letter, the chance to see his beloved again is too great to pass up so he returns to the now-decrepid town. 

From the moment James gets out of his car everything he encounters is a physical manifestation of his troubled headspace. The game's monsters are equal parts hypersexual and body horror (symbolic of the sexual frustration James felt while he watched his wife waste away) and the main demon seems hell-bent on punishing James for the way he handled Mary's sickness. While this is all pretty unsettling, the most disturbing vision is arguably Maria, who resembles a loose, club-ready version of James's late wife. 

Over and over again, James fails to save Maria from meeting a grim end. However, after each tragic demise she returns to James with little explanation, only to be taken once again in an equally disturbing manner. The game's ending changes based on how the player receives Maria.

If James chooses to get closer to Maria, he can move past the loss of Mary and leave town with his new flame (though in the game's final moments, she appears to be falling ill.) On the other hand, if James stays loyal to Mary, a distorted version of Maria can become the game's final boss. 

Up until her untimely passing, the notoriously kind Lady Comstock was First Lady of Columbia and the alleged mother of Bioshock Infinite hero Elizabeth. While the government of Columbia officially claims Lady Comstock met her end at the hand of rebel Vox Populi leader Daisy Fitzroy, Booker and Elizabeth eventually uncover a much darker truth. 

Prior to Elizabeth's birth, Father Comstock firmly believed he needed an heir to take control of Columbia after he passed on. Unfortunately, his participation in a series of universe-bending experiments left him sterile, forcing him to seek out an offspring through non-traditional means. Father Comstock had his scientists fetch baby Elizabeth from a parallel universe wherein he's able to have children, and her sudden appearance was understandably upsetting to his wife. 

At first, Lady Comstock suspected one of her husband's top scientists - Rosalind Lutece - had secretly carried Elizabeth to term. However, when Lady Comstock confronted Lutece the scientist explained what really happened, though her story was difficult to believe. 

In a fit of anger, Lady Comstock decided to try and make the story of Elizabeth's unnatural origin public, so Father Comstock had her secretly executed. When Booker and Elizabeth find her tomb later in the game, her restless spirit still haunts the area looking for vengence, and she isn't happy to see her illegitamte heir. While the heros must take down the accursed Lady Comstock, Elizabeth still feels for her mother's situation and empathizes with the entity in a brief moment of compassion. 

Sephiroth's execution of Aeris is perhaps the most talked-about video game death of all time. The moment has spawned countless movies, memes, and fan fiction, but the strangest part of the story comes a little later in the game when Cloud revists the Sector 5 Church where the two heroes first met. 

Upon reentering the church, Cloud sees Aeris standing in a field of flowers. As he comes closer her body starts to flicker, then disappears permanently. If the player treads carefully, Cloud can actually go up to Aeris without her vanishing; she won't speak, but two nearby children will say something slightly different when she's on-screen. 

The moment is never explained by the narrative (or by Square Enix after the fact), leading many to believe the happening is actually an unsettling glitch. 

The fate of Agnes Dowd is one of the many mysteries that haunt the vast frontier of Red Dead Redemption 2. If Arthur chooses to sit around the main camp's fire at the right moment, Reverend Swanson tells a chilling tale of Dowd's spirit drifting across the marshes of Lemoyne swamp, but even the good Father doesn't seem to know exactly how her immortal essence got there. 

Reverend Swanson's tale is enough to scare away the average ranch hand (though the characters manage to laugh it off), but devout ghost hunters can head towards the Bluewater Marsh section of the map to put the story to the test. Set up camp near Lemoy swamp and Dowd's ghost should appear between 9:00 pm and 3:00 am. At first, Dowd makes her prescence known by howling hysterically, and if you follow her ravings you'll catch sight of her ghostly form hovering about the marshes.

According to some sources, you can only encounter Dowd's ghost 16 times - and she babbles about something different each time - though this may be nothing more than a 21st century video game urban legend. 

At several points throughout Batman: Arkham Asylum, the villainous Scarecrow uses neurotoxins to make Batman hallucinate his worst fears. After this happens a couple times, it gets easier to pick up on the signs things are taking a turn for the surreal, but the first time Scarecrow strikes it's totally unexpected. 

While venturing through Arkham Asylum's morgue, it quickly becomes clear something is amiss. Officers and villains alike appear to be losing it, and the astute player will notice Batman's eyes are glowing eerily. This is easy enough to shrug off - the entire asylum is running amok so of course some people are acting unhinged - but when Batman discovers the lifeless corpse of Comissioner Gordon, the game's main objective pivots to have the caped crusader investigate the scene. 

Batman calls Oracle to break the bad news about her father, but he's met with a generic "the number you dialed isn't available" message. The camera starts to rock, and suddenly the walls are swarming with beetles. When Batman enters the room where bodies are kept, he finds two sealed bodybags prominently placed in the center of the room. Upon opening these bags, Batman discovers the reanimated corpses of his late parents, both of whom have come back to tell him how he failed to protect them. 

Thankfully, Batman is soon able to stop Scarcrow's madness, but the ghosts seem all too real and have a noticable effect on the Dark Knight's psyche. 

While Lordaeron Keep was once the capital city of the Kingdom of Lordaeron, the place fell to ruin - and to the Scourge - after its final leader met an untimely end. 

The story of Lordaeron's downfall begins with a mysterious plague sweeping the Northern end of the kingdom. Many begged King Terenas to make Lordaeron Keep a place of sanctuary, but he turned a deaf ear, preferring to look after the needs of the people inside the keep. A few weeks later, Terenas learned his son - Prince Arthas - had been acting strangely while on a mission to the North; Arthas destroyed one of the largest cities in the kingdom and had been exploring Scourge territory. However, when Arthas returned - claiming to have conquered the evils of the North - he was welcomed back with open arms, thus signaling the beginning of the end. 

The kingdom held a massive festival to commemorate Arthas's return, but as the prince knelt before his father his thoughts were corrupted by a dark voice. Without warning, Arthas rose up and stabbed King Terenas using a sword imbued with dark magic. This ended Terenas's 50-year reign and brought ruin upon the settlement as a whole. 

Flash foward in the timeline to World of Warcraft and Lordaeron Keep is little more than a desolate wasteland. Rumor has it you can still hear people whispering in the throne room, saying things like. "This kingdom shall fall, and from the ashes shall arise a new order that will shake the very foundations of the world." On top of that, if your character can detect invisibility, you'll find the ruined courtyard is filled with the ghosts of Lordaeron's citizens eagerly awaiting the return of their accursed prince.