10 Scariest Horror Video Games You Might Have Missed

To say Rule of Rose was controversial when it first came out would be an understatement. It was a victim of moral panic, where people thought its dark themes were too much for the game to explore. The twisted misinformation did a lot of damage, and the game was banned in the UK. To this day, it remains an ominous mystery and one of the rarest and most expensive games on the Playstation 2. For these reasons, it’s one that not many horror gamers have been able to play.

Jennifer, a young woman in the 1930s, arrives at an orphanage and gets involved with a group of children who call themselves the Red Crayon Aristocrat Club. The group exist solely to torture and humiliate Jennifer, but while the themes of abuse, suicide and murder that got the game banned are implied, they are dealt with much more subtly than was rumoured.

Rule of Rose is considered one of the greatest psychological horrors of all time but, it is often questioned whether that is because of controversy. Without that, some gamers wonder if the game would actually be so fondly remembered. The combat is supposedly terrible, and the narrative is told in a complex way. Still, it’s one we wish we’d been able to play and see for ourselves.