In the 1990s, a new genre of fiction emerged in the realm of literature: The New Weird.
The New Weird was considered the next step up from Weird fiction, which often utilized established fantasy tropes in new and unusual ways.
It’s a little difficult to precisely differentiate the New Weird from just Weird, but generally, it involves a mixing of multiple established genres, archetypes, and tropes to create something wholly new.
Urban fantasy is a common New Weird subject, for instance, wherein the mundanity of real life intersects with thestrange and terrifying.
Goodness knows, there have been plenty of video games over the years that fit this paradigm, mildly nebulous as it may be.
10Alan Wake
A Horror Story About Horror Stories
A big component of the New Weird is the deconstruction of existing fiction tropes.
There aren’t many better ways to deconstruct fiction tropes than to make a story about deconstructing fiction tropes.
Alan Wake’s wider narrative, including elements introduced in the sequel, is all about the power fiction has over our world and belief in it.
The Dark Presence that menaces Alan is an ancient evil, but it specifically needs some form of storyteller to “dream” it into existence.
It stands to reason that once an all-powerful entity has a foothold in our nightmares, it’s just one step away from reality.
Nothing Scarier Than Another Day At The Office
A common element you’ll see in many urban fantasy stories is the intersection between the fantastical and mundane daily life.
There are terrifying cosmic forces out there, but when it’s your job to catalog and contain them, it becomes more productive to understand than to fear.
Controlemphasizes this in the eponymous Federal Bureau of Control.
The organization’s job is to contain and study bizarre supernatural phenomena, yet it itself is at the mercy of multiple supernatural entities.
The employees of the FBC, Jesse included, have regular workdays and responsibilities, but they undergo them under near-constant threat of existential terror.
8Pacific Drive
Drive Into The Unknown
Pacific Drive
Within the realm of science fiction, a frequent cause of disastrous supernatural occurrences is the development of experimental technology.
We’re just humans; we’re not really able to know what we are and aren’t supposed to be messing with in the cosmic sense.
As we see in Pacific Drive, we usually don’t realize we’ve messed up until we’re well past the critical threshold and have irrevocably broken something.
The Olympic Exclusion Zone is packed with bizarre happenings that only barely make sense, and your only real recourse for confronting them is driving the heck away as fast as you can.
Be Careful Which Signals You Tune To
It’s one thing when people in stories go tinkering with technologies we don’t quite understand yet.
But what if something unsettling was dwelling just beyond a technology we thought we had a good grasp on?
InOxenfree, Alex’s medium of interaction with the unknown is a simple pocket radio. It’s a straightforward, borderline archaic technology.
Yet, by simply tuning into mysterious frequencies, all manner of terrors from beyond the veil can be unleashed, far more than a few teenagers could reasonably deal with.
6NieR Replicant
A Traditional Fantasy Story Until It Isn’t
NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139…
Your first few hours of playing throughNieR Replicantmay make it seem like a bog-standard fantasy romp.
Find the magic book, kill the shadowy monsters, lift the weird curse from your sister, you know, the usual stuff.
However, the truth of the matter is gradually revealed later in the game, especially during a second playthrough.
The world of NieR is not one governed by magic, as you’re led to believe, at least not primarily.
Every supernatural occurrence has a scientific origin, but it seems supernatural because our protagonist is, in fact, a product of that extensive scientific tinkering.
5The Elder Scrolls Series
Established Tropes With Hidden Depths
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
You might’ve been a little surprised to seeThe Elder Scrollsseries here, as it doesn’t seem particularly weird, New or otherwise.
It’s your typical high fantasy setting, with its elves, orcs, swords, and magic.
In actuality, though, there’s quite a bit of anachronistic weirdness cooking below the surface.
From the legend of Pelinal Whitestrake, who may or may not be some kind of cyborg, to the disease Corpus, which, when treated, makes you effectively immortal.
Don’t even get us started on the mad,world-shaping whims of the Daedric Princes.
A fantasy setting may be more accepting of godlike entities, but that doesn’t make them any less inscrutable.
4Dishonored
A Little Magic In The Right Places
Dishonored
The setting ofDishonoredis mostly of a steampunk design.
While this isn’t a hard rule, steampunk tends to operate its own fantasy niche, since part of the appeal is making futuristic stuff happen with just steam and gears.
However, early in the game, we are introduced to a mysterious individual known as the Outsider.
It is the Outsider that gives Corvo his supernatural abilities, and subtly sticks his nose in throughout the overarching plot.
The Outsider’s true nature is vague, but the implication seems to be that he’s some manner of trickster deity, carefully poking and prodding humanity’s actions toward some unspecified end.
3Psychonauts
Exploring The Cosmic Planes At Summer Camp
Psychonauts
The mind is the last great mystery of medicine, an unfathomably complex living computer capable of producing worlds within itself.
Compared to some other New Weird games,Psychonauts’ approach to its subject matter is a bit more lighthearted, but still crawling with existential implications.
In both the first and second games, we see that Psychonaut operatives must be extensively trained and disciplined.
This is not only because the human mind is teeming with hostile creatures, but because even a small change can fundamentally alter a person’s entire personality.
It’s the kind of thing they maybe shouldn’t be training kids to do at a summer camp, but here we are.
Are You Who You Think You Are?
Have you ever heard that one crack theory about Star Trek? The one where every time someone transports, they’re actually dying and a completely separate being is reconstructed elsewhere?
Well, what if that was a reality you actually had to confront? If the idea unsettles you, you’ve got an idea of what you’re in for in SOMA.
There are no overtly supernatural themes or elements inSOMA; it’s all sci-fi.
However, due to the nature of the mechanical beings in this story,Simon is regularly forced to consider what actually “makes” a personand the ramifications of trying to duplicate that artificially.
1Death Stranding
Changing The Rules Of Life And Death
Death Stranding
Death is a primal fear, the ultimate unknown of the human condition. We like to think we understand it, but that’s only because we literally have no way of knowing with concrete certainty.
InDeath Stranding, the truth of death not only becomes all too clear to the entirety of humanity, but is fundamentally altered from everything we thought we knew prior.
The simple act of dying, something that would normally be tragic if unremarkable, becomes terrifying.
Not because you are going to die, but because someone else dying mayunleash something so, so much worseupon you and everyone you love.
