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“You don’t got no ID?” a Border Patrol agent in a baseball cap, sunglasses, and neck gaiter asks a kid on a bike. The officer and three others had just stopped the two young men on their bikes during the day in what a video documenting the incident says is Chicago. One of the boys is filming the encounter on his phone. He says in the video he was born here, meaning he would be an American citizen.
When the boy says he doesn’t have ID on him, the Border Patrol officer has an alternative. He calls over to one of the other officers, “can you do facial?” The second officer then approaches the boy, gets him to turn around to face the sun, and points his own phone camera directly at him, hovering it over the boy’s face for a couple seconds. The officer then looks at his phone’s screen and asks for the boy to verify his name. The video stops.

Even compared against a game industry that generally makes it incredibly hard to experience the classics, it’s exceedingly difficult to play many of the most interesting horror games ever made. A very significant percentage were never re-released on modern systems or on PC, with the only legal way to play being to buy exorbitantly expensive physical copies and old-school original hardware.
The PlayStation and PS2 eras, in particular, gave us a wide range of games that were derided as “Silent Hill or Resident Evil clones” that went on to gain cult followings that outlived their initial negative reactions, and a whole bunch of these that would benefit from coming to modern platforms.
With that in mind, we’ve created a list of five games we would love to see re-released for modern systems. However, the keyword is re-released, not remade: while a light remaster is fine, horror is very much a genre where even the smallest tweak can have a massive effect on tone and atmosphere, as indicated by a particular case of a remaster so bad that we still need a remaster of the remaster. In an ideal world, these would be served up in emulators, Virtual Console-style.
We’ve decided to leave off some of the most obvious picks from several of the most well-known series for the purposes of this list, as most of these actually have a decent likelihood to return in some form. For starters, the first four Silent Hill games badly need a re-release, especially considering that the 2012 remaster was a disaster. The first three Fatal Frame games warrant a remaster collection, as well. Siren and its sequel should be more accessible. And lastly, PT should also be officially re-released in some capacity, as there is no longer an official way to download it.
With that table setting out of the way, let’s get into five horror games that deserve to see the light of day.

Despite the fact that it never got a release outside of Japan, it’s not an exaggeration to describe Sweet Home as seminal to video game horror: this is the game that directly inspired many of the original Resident Evil’s survival horror elements. Specifically, Resident Evil was originally envisioned as a remake of Sweet Home, with Capcom eventually pivoting because they lost the rights to the property.
Loosely based on a film of the same name, Sweet Home was released in Japan in 1989. It’s an RPG where you play as five characters, navigating them through an intricate, interconnected mansion. Along the way, you find bespoke items, like weird keys, that let you progress in areas you previously couldn’t navigate (does that sound familiar?). It told its story through a combination of in-game notes and cutscenes, something relatively uncommon at the time. While it’s possible that it may not hold up quite as well as some of the entries on the list, it’s somewhat absurd that one of the fundamental building blocks of contemporary horror games has never been released worldwide. Maybe, Capcom will eventually jump through the complicated legal hoops to make that happen.

Parasite Eve is another influential game that is quite difficult to play these days. It features a unique combination of turn-based and real-time gameplay, alongside a cinematic presentation that was quite ahead of its time. The story follows Aya Brea, a New York City Cop trying to stop the end of the world—more specifically, she’s trying to stop a floating mutant woman from causing all of humanity to spontaneously combust. Between its beloved soundtrack, unique style of gameplay, and atmosphere, this is one that seems like it would be relatively well-received by a modern audience.
A major problem, though, is that like Sweet Home, it’s also tied to an outside series—in this case, a book—which would likely make it more difficult to get the rights to re-release it. Considering the clamor you still hear about that game decades later, that may just be worth it for Square.

Con Edison, the energy company that serves New York City, refuses to say whether ICE or other federal agencies require a search warrant or court order to access its customers’ sensitive data. Con Edison’s refusal to answer questions comes after 404 Media reviewed court records showing Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a division of ICE, has previously obtained such data, and the FBI performing what the records call ‘searches’ of Con Edison data.
The records and Con Edison’s stonewalling raise questions about how exactly law enforcement agencies are able to access the utility provider’s user data, whether that access is limited in any way, and whether ICE still has access during its ongoing mass deportation effort.
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