There's another Haunted PS1 Demo Disc for 2021 and it's 147 percent as haunted

A bleeding skull in a hat
(Image credit: Haunted PS1)

I don't know if you've heard but game demos are back, baby. Last year, the indie scene of developers making spooky games with PlayStation-era graphics put together a free anthology of 17 ominous oddities called the Haunted PS1 Demo Disc. Its creators are returning from the land of wobbling textures and giant polygons with a sequel, the Haunted PS1 Demo Disc 2021, which will contain 25 demos for upcoming retro games with low-fi art.

As with last year, it won't be a real, physical disc, but instead a bundle of Windows executables accessed via a launcher with a UI reminiscent of the olden times. Among this year's inclusions are Agony of a Dying MMO, "a narrative horror game that takes place in the final hours of a massively multiplayer online game before its servers shut down for good", The Lunar Effect, a fixed-camera horror game in the Resident Evil/Silent Hill/Alone in the Dark style in which you have to solve puzzles to escape a mansion, and tmOD, a "Cursed love letter/demake on classic gmod and the hl2 modding scene".

The skeleton who I assume is in charge of things isn't too strict about definitions, as the FAQ explains, saying that "not every game has to be 3D or have the particular visual quirks of any specific hardware. In a similar way we do not require the games to have a strict horror theme, instead they can be atmospheric, have a slight unnerving twist or even just feel so of the era that we can't resist loving them and wanting them in the collection."

Though planned for release on March 24, the Haunted PS1 Demo Disc 2021 has been held back for a day "for the sake of our developers wellbeing".

It will include playable demos of these 25 games:

  • [ECHOSTASIS], by ENIGMA
  • Agony of a Dying MMO, by Salem Hughes
  • An Outcry, by Quinn K.
  • Apolysis, by From Dusk Till Dawn
  • Chasing Static, by Headware Games
  • Fiend's Isle, by Ian Williams
  • Ghastly Goodies, by Cyreides
  • JANITOR BLEEDS, by Korpus
  • Lorn's Lure, by Rubeki
  • Loveland, by DevHour Games
  • Mummy Sandbox, by z_bill
  • Pathogen-X, by sodaraptor
  • Peeb Adventures, by Johnny
  • Protagoras Bleeds, by Bryce Bucher
  • Risu, by Ryan Trawick
  • Still Ridge, by Justen "Jaybee" Brown
  • That Which Gave Chase, by Aslak Karlsen Hauglid
  • The Chameleon, by Antonio Freyre
  • The Drowning Machine, by Aidan Cushing
  • The Heilwald Loophole, by Jan Malitschek
  • The Lunar Effect, by Negative Entities
  • The Salt Order, by Khamelot
  • tmOD, by Tobias Mihura
  • Toree 3D, by SIACTRO
  • 散歩 – Walk, by Kazumi Games
Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

Read more
A man with ragged hair and beard faces upward to the sky. His eyes are missing and the sockets are dripping blood.
Forbidden Solitaire is an upcoming horror game about a cursed CD-ROM from the spookily distant year of 1995
A female astronaut suffers from a horrible alien growth on her face in Directive 8020
Directive 8020: A Dark Pictures Game launches John Carpenter's the Thing into space this October
Total Chaos map with two enemies standing in the dark, ready to attack
Total Chaos, the full-fat remake of one of Doom's best mods, is a getting a demo 'very shortly'
desiccated faces with columns protruding from their heads gaze forward toward the camera through an orange haze
The best horror games on PC
A person wiping steam off a mirror to see their reflection
Horror movie adaptation of horror movie-style horror game Until Dawn goes the time-loop route, so it's basically Groundhog Day with monsters
A goalkeeper in a plague mask wields an axe
Silent Hill gets a soccer league in FEAR FA 98, and you can play the demo now
Latest in Games
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Blue Protocol players dancing minutes before the game closes forever
What will we do at the end of the world? If MMOs are any indication: mostly what we already do, plus a lot of dancing
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Latest in News
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway