If nautical nonsense is something ye wish, the last six months of ghostly games have likely sent your timbers a-shiverin’.
Sorry if that lede was a little confusing. That’s pirate speak for: wow, a lot of games with haunted ships have come out lately! Earlier this year, after seeing it near the top of a few 2018 GOTY lists, I picked up The Return of the Obra Dinn, a lo-fi black-and-white detective game that casts the player as an insurance adjuster uncovering the fates of the 60 people missing from a ship that drifts, empty, into harbor.
Then, last month, I reviewed Close to the Sun and Layers of Fear 2, a pair of first-person narrative games that take place on ocean liners beset by paranormal weirdness. If we count spaceships as ships (and I’m open to the idea, just not for this list), Void Bastards — the System Shock 2-inspired roguelite with a comic book aesthetic from Blue Manchu— also tasks players with venturing onto drifting vessels where deranged aliens haunt the halls.
And, later in 2019, the creators of Until Dawn — that excellent ‘90s-horror-movie-meets-Telltale-game from Supermassive Games — are launching their Dark Pictures Anthology series with the choice-driven, ghost ship-set Man of Medan.
In short, we’re in the midst of a Flying Dutchmenaissance.
So, I set sail through gaming history with plenty of rum and restless spirits to spare in search of the best virtual ghost ships to ever haunt the seven seas. And, in my travels, I met weary wanderers, white-haired monster hunters, dead stowaways and a dude named LeChuck.
Note: Throughout this list, my definition of “ghost ship” includes any seafaring vessel inhabited by a paranormal spirit, being or creature.
7. Wrecked Ship, Resident Evil VII
While not necessarily bad, this section — which moves the player from the terrifying Baker manor to an abandoned boat, and abandons inventory management in favor of guns-a-blazin’ zombie slaying — is a weak point in an otherwise stellar game.
6. LeChuck’s Ghost Ship, The Secret of Monkey Island
Mortal Guybrush Threepwood becomes invisible when he boards the dead pirate captain LeChuck’s ghost ship. Ghostly in inky blue, the undead crew dance to a lively violin jig on the deck, while LeChuck broods in his cabin. It’s a well-realized, if underutilized, setting. Bonus points for ghost pigs.
5. The Ocean Liner, Layers of Fear 2
The first Layers of Fear tasked the player with exploring a spooky house whose walls shifted around you. Bloober Team’s first-person horror sequel retains the transient level design but moves the action to an ocean liner haunted by a shimmering monster and a horde of mannequins. While the constantly changing environment makes for effective horror, it results in a less impactful setting. The cruise ship is compelling to explore — until, that is, you realize that you’ll never actually be free to explore it.
4. HMS Prince, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
One of five legendary ships the player has the option to confront in Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, the HMS Prince flies black sails and conceals itself within a ghostly fog. I say, “conceals itself” because the ship has no visible crew, a fact which spooks the crew of the Jackdaw. The legendary ship battles are one of the high points of this fan favorite Assassin’s Creed game; roving, raucous boss fights that push the player to use the full extent of the naval weaponry at their disposal. This one is just as exciting as the other four — with its hide-and-seek amid the fog and smoke and raining mortar — and helps to encapsulate the eerie mystery of the sea during the Golden Age of Pirates.
3. The Maw, Little Nightmares
While Little Nightmare’s little-kid-in-a-scary-world aesthetic earned it unfavorable comparisons to Playdead’s Inside, Tarsier’s puzzle-platformer differentiated itself with its dark, creaking setting: The Maw, a haunted, hulking ocean liner. As Six, a tiny child in a yellow rain poncho, you sneak past cannibalistic chefs, gluttonous guests and a janitor with arms like Mr. Fantastic, but if Mr. Fantastic was a mummified Freddy Krueger. A trilogy of DLC expansions fleshed out the setting further, giving glimpses of a cavernous boiler room and more.
2. The Obra Dinn, The Return of the Obra Dinn
After completing The Return of the Obra Dinn you will know its titular abandoned ship like the back of your one-bit hands. Each curve and crevice hides a secret that the protagonist — an insurance adjuster investigating the ship to discover what happened to its 60 dead or missing crew members on its mysterious voyage — must suss out using a magical compass and an ordinary notebook. The Return of the Obra Dinn eschews obscure video game logic and asks the player to use their powers of observation to solve its puzzles. And, ahoy me hearties, it is satisfying to hear the telltale ding when you lock a trio of identities into place.
1. The Last Wish, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The Witcher games existing in the same timeline as Andrzej Sapkowski’s books have rarely paid off as well as it does in this climactic side quest from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
*SPOILERS FOR THE WITCHER 3 (AND “THE LAST WISH” SHORT STORY) BELOW*
The titular story in the first book of the Witcher saga, The Last Wish, tells the story of when Geralt met Yennefer while combating a djinn. After a combative start to their relationship, Geralt made a wish that forever bound the two together. In the story’s namesake quest, Yennefer asks Geralt to help her track down a different genie that was released after the man who tamed it disappeared. The witcher obliges, and the two soon find the man’s boat at the bottom of a nearby harbor — but half the ship is missing. Yennefer says that the crater surrounding the boat suggests that the other half was teleported elsewhere. In the wreckage, you find a seal, cracked in two. Yennefer uses the seal to summon a portal to the other half. Geralt and Yen soon find themselves on a snowy mountaintop, where the other half of the ship has come to rest. Geralt asks Yennefer why she’s intent on finding this djinn, and she responds that she wants to reverse Geralt’s wish; she needs to know if “magic” exists between them with the spell removed. The pair enter the ship, locate the other half of the seal and dispatch the djinn. Yen makes her wish.
The quest culminates with the pair sitting on the side of the ship, perched high in the mountains. With the spell removed, Yen asks Geralt if he still has feelings for her. As the player, you get to choose to break things off with Yennefer here or let her know that you love her.
It’s an incredibly important moment that, if you fancy Yennefer, serves as the culmination of one of the game’s most potent narrative threads. While haunted ships are frequently used to isolate the player at sea, this spooky boat brought two characters together. It marks the spot where Geralt and Yennefer finally commit to each other after a years-long on again, off again relationship (or, you know, don’t, if you prefer Triss).
I dub it the Best Video Game Ghost Ship.
Did I miss anything? Mad that the winner is romantic instead of spooky? Peeved that I included skeletons, creepy mannequins and a janitor on this list? Let me know in the comments below.
