From Ants to Zombies

Spanning 600+ beautifully-illustrated pages, we are proud to launch Bitmap's latest release; From Ants to Zombies: Six Decades of Video Game Horror! This terrifying publication explores the history of horror video games, covering approximately 130 releases.

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Scary games may have entered the mainstream with the likes of Resident Evil and Silent Hill in the PlayStation era but interactive entertainment has always been drawn to its darker side. From Ants to Zombies is a showcase for the remarkable range horror gaming has achieved, across six decades, from the 1970s to the 2020s, and over 70 hardware platforms, from the ZX Spectrum to the Xbox Series X.

More than 130 horror titles are analysed and contextualised across thirteen thematically-divided chapters, covering a variety of genres (from rail shooters to open-world RPGs), settings (from haunted mansions to infested space stations) and shades of fear (from creeping existential dread to stomach-churning outbursts of violence). The discussion is enlivened by exclusive commentary from pioneering horror developers such as Keiichiro Toyama (Silent Hill), Jane Jensen (Gabriel Knight), Ken Levine (System Shock 2), Sandy White (Ant Attack), David Riordan (It Came from the Desert), Paul Norman (Forbidden Forest), Graeme Devine (The 7th Guest), and many more.