Transformation is a fun concept to play around with. In some media, it’s a bright, hope-inspiring, heroic thing, where the protagonist has become something different and more powerful than their foes can imagine. It’s Goku turning Super Saiyan, Sonic becoming Super Sonic, or a Pokémon evolving into a stronger, more versatile form.
Yet not all transformations are the same. One could become weaker and frailer, or bloodier and more gruesome. Instead of being an exhilarating, liberating process, it can be painful and upsetting, turning the figure into an indescribable abomination. Many games have played around with the horror of transformation, with these games being some of the best examples.
8Discover My Body
Biological Horror Edutainment
There are plenty of big-name games for players to draw on for transformation and body horror. But if they go off the beaten path, they can find some particularly gruesome gems, like the works of Yames. He made his name creating creepy computer games with grisly transformative themes, likeGrowing My GrandpaandFather Turned Me into Trees and Rivers.
Discover My Bodyis one of his more straightforward games. It follows a medical student who, in the hopes of uniting humanity via science, infects himself with a strain of fungus. The players have to scan and examine themselves as the fungus spreads and learn how it affects the human body. It produces happiness and a sense of unity, but at a high price.
7Water Womb World
The Fall of Man Goes Below Sea Level
Discover My Bodyhas a religious theme, as its medical researcher is seeking a secular alternative to the sense of community religion brought before its people lost faith in it.Water Womb Worldcontinues that, as its Catholic researcher looks for proof of the Garden of Eden, believing it to exist on the ocean floor. To do that, players have to catch fish and sift through the seabed to find objects to study.
Though what he finds is anything but divine, as each discovery is more abominable than the last. Yet the researcher finds each one fascinating, growing blind to his own gradual transformation as he becomes as gruesome as his fishy friends. It won’t take players long either as, likeDiscover My Body, it’sa fairly short gamethat doesn’t take long to get grisly.
As Yames' games suggest, the brain is just as vulnerable to being distorted in one way or another as the rest of the body. Once it’s under control by an otherworldly being or biological horror, the rest of the figure will follow. It turns up inResident Evil 7: Biohazardtoo, as lead character Ethan finds his long-lost wife Mia, who can turn from her usual self to being as violent and psychotic as the Baker Family on a dime.
They seemingly can’t be killed, as they come back from lethal wounds multiple times. As Ethan presses on, he discovers their inhuman endurance and psychotic fits are the result of a mold infection, where they’re being controlled by another figure hiding in the background. If Ethan can’t figure out a way to overcome the mold, he could lose Mia for good.
Aside from being grisly, one of the big fear factors behind body horror is that there’s no escape from it. People can’t run away from their own bodies being distorted one way or the other. Like inParasite Eve, where the titular Eve can manipulate anyone at the cellular level. She could make whole crowds burst into flames, or melt them into a giant, orange pile of slime.
The result of a genetic experiment gone wrong, Eve aims to wipe out humanity to replace them with her child, the “Ultimate Being”. The only hope of beating her lies in one rookie cop, Aya Brea, who has more in common with Eve than she thinks. Players could find out how they’re linked through the game, or by readingthe originalParasite Evenovel, which goes further into Eve’s creation and mitochondrial manipulations.
As grim asRE7gets, theREgames have offered grimmer transformations.RE4, though diluted by its action movie yucks, churns the stomach with its eerie credits sequence depicting the Ganados' transformation. TheRE1remake improved the classic game by adding some transformation horror via the Crimson Heads and Lisa Trevor, a young girl turned into a malformed monster by Umbrella. But the first game in the series to really dive into transformation horror wasResident Evil 2.
One of its main villains, William Birkin, is gradually mutated by the G-Virus until whatever was recognizable about him gets subsumed by the mass of flesh, claws, and eyes. Eventually, he doesn’t even look like any natural lifeform on earth. Yet it’s suggested he still has some form of his old senses, as he still recognizes his daughter Sherry. Which isn’t a good thing, as Claire and Leon have to keep her safe from whatever Birkin’s become.
Bloodborneis practically all about the horrors of transformation. The School of Mensis sought to transcend humanity by taking a substance called the Old Blood, and the Healing Church shared it among the citizens of Yharnam to cure all ailments. It kind of worked in that, over time, it cures people and turns them into the monstrous beasts the player’s Hunter has to fight.
The game goes into the lore behind the Old Blood, and the eldritch Great Ones they’re connected to. Though it also goes into the horror of its transformations, showing how the likes of Vicar Amelia are doomed to turn into lethal monstrosities because of the Old Blood and their faith. Depending on what choices the player makes, the Hunter can achieve the School’s goal and become something inhuman themselves.
It’s hard to imagine many works of transformation and body horror being a thing without movies likeAlien, norAlienbeing a thing withoutthe work of H.R Giger. The late Swiss artist became the go-to figure for body horror and sickly transformations. Developers Ebb Software took note of his work and combined it with the work of another macabre artist to createScorn, a first-person survival horror game where its leads are trapped in some unearthly realm.
Its techno-organic abominations, flesh-repurposing Assembly, and fates of its silent protagonists are reminiscent of Giger. Though its broken figures, misty monochrome world, and oppressive structuresresemble works by Zdzisław Beksiński, who was no stranger to body horror himself. They add an extra layer of unease, sucking out whatever hope players might’ve found before they discover how grimScorngets.
Creepy religious cults aren’t just for gothic horror. EA Redwood Shores managed to find room for one inDead Space, where adherents of ‘Unitology’ worship artifacts called ‘Markers’, believing they’ll usher in a new world via the “Convergence” (i.e. the end of humanity). Though they’re more than just MacGuffins, as they’re also responsible forcreating the Necromorphs.
They’re undead creatures driven by a hive mind to kill off all forms of life in their vicinity. While formed from dead bodies and disembodied bodyparts, they can mutate in different, horrific ways to attack their prey. Some produce extra limbs to slice people apart, others grab them with stretching tendrils, or chuck their own disembodied heads at them, which will then rip the victim’s own head off, and hijack their decapitated bodies.
