Video Game / Haunted Hotel

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Haunted Hotel is a hidden object game series, originally developed by Specialbit Studios and later Elephant Games, and published by Big Fish Games from 2008 to 2021.

The long-running horror game series follows different protagonists as they investigate notorious... well, haunted hotels. Nothing is ever as it seems, though, and if there are other people involved, chances are someone is not going to survive.

The list of games in order

Beginning with the second game, Haunted Hotel is the series name and all of the titles listed here are subtitles.

• Haunted Hotel
• Believe the Lies
• Lonely Dream
• Charles Dexter Ward
• Eclipse
• Ancient Bane
• Death Sentence
• Eternity
• Phoenix
• The X
• The Axiom Butcher
• Silent Waters
• The Thirteenth
• Personal Nightmare
• The Evil Inside
• Lost Dreams
• Beyond the Page
• Room 18
• Lost Time
• A Past Redeemed

For further information on the trope of a similar name, see Hell Hotel.

Not to be confused with The Haunted Hotel or Hotel Hell.

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Haunted Hotel checked in the following examples:

Shared tropes

• Ambiguous Time Period: The first three games from Elephant (Eclipse, Ancient Bane and Death Sentence) appear to have a late Victorian or Edwardian setting, although the opening cinematic of Ancient Bane includes what appears to be some kind of television set. Personal Nightmare is explicitly set in 1958, and Beyond the Page seems to be in the late 90s or early 2000s. Yet all of these games (and others) have James Blackthorne as the player's companion, and he hasn't aged a day.
• Closed Circle: Frequently, for one reason or another, there is a compelling reason why the protagonist is unable to leave the setting and why no one can get in to help them. Usually this is because whatever supernatural entity is causing the problem has trapped them, but sometimes it's because of more mundane reasons, like the deadly blizzard in The Axiom Butcher.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The same unnamed woman is the player character of Eclipse, Ancient Bane, and Death Sentence, the latter two of which reference their predecessors.
  • An unnamed male detective is the player character of Eternity, Phoenix, The X, The Axiom Butcher, and possibly Beyond the Page. These games likewise contain references to one another; The Axiom Butcher also has a reference to Death Sentence.
  • A Past Redeemed is a direct sequel to Lost Time and also includes characters first introduced in The Evil Inside.
• Cosmetic Award: The collector's editions of the later games in the series include a number of unlockable achievements which basically function as this.
• Downer Beginning: The games often start with a tragedy, usually a murder, which kickstarts the plot. Except in rare instances, this tragedy can't be undone, although in the best cases the heroes can prevent any further tragedies from taking place.
• Downer Ending: The games end as happily as they can, but some installments can be regarded this way because of the fate which befell various characters in them. The Evil Inside is one such example — sure, James is able to put the unhappy spirit to rest, but not before the ghost murdered dozens of people over the years.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first four games can come across this way to players who encounter them later, as they were made by a different developer from the rest of the series. Starting with Eclipse, the series is the exclusive property of Elephant Games and most of the games have James Blackthorne as a recurring character.
  • Also, in James's first three appearances, he dresses like a Victorian/Edwardian character and has long hair. Furthermore, these appearances do not give him a surname; in fact, Death Sentence goes to great lengths to avoid giving him more than a last initial, because the murderer in the game has the surname of Blackthorne. It's only starting with the installment Phoenix that he's given a last name and his modern appearance.
  • The earliest games in the series don't have the interactive map which is typical of Elephant Games, which can be frustrating to someone who started with games that do and became accustomed to using the map to fast travel.
• Featureless Protagonist: Starting with Eclipse, unless the player character is James (who appears in cutscenes), the most we usually see of our avatar is their hands. Averted in The Thirteenth and Lost Dreams, each of which has a different protagonist from the rest of the series and who is seen onscreen during gameplay.
• Functional Magic: The supernatural definitely exists in these games, including psychic abilities, magic rituals, time travel, ghosts, and invisibility. It may not always be clear to the player why or how the magic in question works, but it's a real thing.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: Seen in the collector's editions of the later games. There are often puzzle pieces, morphing objects, and/or other collectibles to be found in each scene. The puzzle pieces sometimes form images which can be saved as desktop backgrounds or screensavers, while the collectibles can be viewed on a special screen. There are usually achievements for completing each of these collections.
• Hell Hotel: The main setting of every game, for obvious reasons.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Albeit inconsistently. Beginning with the ninth game, the installments often reflect their numerical order in some way, either with Arabic or Roman numerals. For example, The Axiom Butcher is the eleventh game in the series (Axiom) while Room 18 is the eighteenth.
• Informing the Fourth Wall: The protagonist will comment if the player tries to use an object in any manner other than the one intended by the devs.
• Late to the Tragedy: In most games, whatever horrible incident has led to the current haunting has already taken place by the time the player investigates. Justified in that the protagonists are usually detectives. The games which subvert the trope tend to have the tragedy happening to the protagonist.
• Locked Door: If there's a door and you need to get past it, odds are that it will be locked and you will need to either find the key or find some other method of unlocking it, such as removing the doorknob. And if by chance the door isn't locked, expect it to be blocked in some other way.
• Named After First Installment: Haunted Hotel is the name of both the first game and the entire series.
• No Name Given: Neither the first player character (protagonist of Eclipse, Ancient Bane, and Death Sentence) nor the second (protagonist of Eternity, Phoenix, The X, The Axiom Butcher, and possibly Beyond the Page) are ever given a name. All that's really known about either of them is that the first is a woman and the second is a man.
• Occult Detective: James is shown to be this; his particular expertise is in helping ghosts with their Unfinished Business by solving mysteries related to the locations they haunt. This is also true of some of the non-James protagonists.
• Screaming Woman: One of these can be heard as part of the ambient noise in some games. It happens roughly every ten to fifteen minutes and, depending on how tense the current situation is, can be very unsettling.
• Shared Universe: These games exist in the same universe as several other Elephant Games properties, including Grim Tales, Mystery Trackers, Detectives United, and Paranormal Files. They also are revealed to exist in the same universe as the Mystery Case Files, owing to the fact that Richard Gray (of Grim Tales) once studied at a black magic school run by Alister Dalimar. (Elephant Games was the developer for two of the MCF games.)
• Spell My Name With An S: Once James's surname of Blackthorne is revealed, the games become inconsistent as to whether or not it has an E on the end. It even gets misspelled as "Blackthrone" a couple of times, though this is probably a typo.
• Thematic Series: The series is effectively this, as it has no overarching storyline and only some of the games are connected to one another. Three of the games are completely stand-alone and have absolutely no relationship to any of the others. The only thing they all have in common is that the player character is investigating the events at a haunted hotel.
• Title Drop: Most installments make a mention somewhere of the phrase "haunted hotel," since that's where they all take place.
  • The subtitles of roughly half the games are also dropped. For example, Eternity and Silent Waters are the names of the hotels where their games are set.

Haunted Hotel

• Oddball in the Series: It's the only installment that doesn't have a subtitle, since at the time of its release the developer didn't know they were going to make a series.

Charles Dexter Ward

• Antagonist Title: Charles Dexter Ward is the bad guy. Also a Literary Allusion Title, since it references the story of the same name.
• Foregone Conclusion: Anyone who has read Lovecraft's horror story of the same name knows what will happen to Charles.
• The Game of the Book: This game is based on the H. P. Lovecraft short horror novel of the same name.
• Grand Theft Me: Joseph Curwen successfully took possession of Charles's body at the end of the main game.

Eclipse

• Divine Conflict: More or less drives the plot. The forces of good and evil meet every several hundred years for an epic showdown; unfortunately for them, the player and her friend James are caught in the middle of the latest gathering.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: The Maid that you seen in the beginning is the murderer and the main antagonist.
• Event Title: The game is named after the eclipse which heralds the events.
• Meaningful Name: The game is set in the Final Journey Hotel, and the events are pretty much a matter of life and death for humanity.

Ancient Bane

• Affectionate Nickname: In his opening dialogue at the start of the game, James fondly greets his friend by saying, "Hello, dear." Given some of his other commentary and facial expressions during the game, this could have been intended as some slight Ship Tease which the devs ultimately elected not to pursue.
• Ancient Egypt: The Big Bad is a tortured mummy; also, the Collection Sidequest involves locating various artifacts related to Egyptology.
• Artifact of Hope: The player carries a gift from James — an ancient amulet of light which protects her from the Big Bad.
• Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: In the bonus chapter, James uses his partner's amulet to release the banshee from her torment, and she explodes into a flock of blue butterflies.
• Grumpy Old Man: Abraham Shadowy manages to be both grumpy and creepy. Justified because he's under the influence of the Big Bad; his real personality returns in the bonus chapter, and he's actually quite pleasant and helpful.
• The Lost Lenore: Gender flipped in the bonus chapter — Anabel never got over her lost love Richard, and kidnaps James because he looks just like him.
• Meaningful Name: The owner of the haunted hotel is named Abraham Shadowy.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: The bonus chapter is about an Uptown Girl and the man she loved. Her father had the young man murdered and locked his daughter away to keep her from marrying below her station; after her own death, she became a banshee as a result.
• Supernatural Sealing: The missing guests and, eventually, Shadowy and James are all sealed inside sarcophagi by the Big Bad and have to be released.

Death Sentence

• Asshole Victim: The 'guests' who had committed a crime and avoided punishment end up dead by Lilith's hand.
• Continuity Nod: This is the third game with James as the player's companion, and the opening cinematic contains references to the two previous games where they worked together.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Each of the Asshole Victims whom the Big Bad targeted was killed by one of these, often overlapping with Karmic Death.
  • Isaac Rotenburg drank alcohol tainted with potassium cyanide.
  • Tony Norton suffocated while trapped in a car supposedly owned by Esrael.
  • Gordon Marshall was shot in the head with a bullet from his gun.
  • Veronica Redmond drowned in a bathtub.
  • Casey O'Connor was frightened to death, taking advantage of his superstitious nature.
• Dark and Troubled Past: This game reveals that James has a minor one of these, having once (accidentally) brought about the conviction of an innocent man, and the man committed suicide rather than go to prison. Although he was exonerated of perjury charges, this is enough to make him a target of the game's killer.
• Dead All Along: Esrael Blackthorne has been dead for quite some time when the player discovers his dead body in one of the rooms.
• Dead Man Writing: The game kicks off with the player receiving a message from her pal James, in which he tells her that if she's reading it, he's almost certainly dead. She's relieved to discover that he's alive, but he won't stay that way if they don't solve the mystery.
• Dirty Cop: Casey O'Connor was a police inspector who took bribes from local crime bosses and put innocent people in prison.
• Inheritance Murder: Veronica was the nanny of an orphaned boy who inherited a large fortune from his parents. She conspired with the boy's uncle, Ray, to kill the child and split the inheritance. She was then Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves when Ray double-crossed her and kept the money for himself.
• Ironic Nursery Tune: In the bonus chapter, one of these occasionally plays as background noise; however, it may take a little while before the player understands what they're hearing.
  Hush, little baby, don't say a word
  Auntie's gonna buy you a mockingbird
  And if that mockingbird don't sing
  Auntie's gonna break that birdie's wing
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Veronica and Ray sabotaged a boat to make it appear as if Ray's wealthy nephew drowned by accident.
• Married to the Job: Lilith's marriage to Esrael suffered because he was fixated on his career as the judge. In particular, she wanted to start a family with him, but he was always too busy and as a result they never had children.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: The reason most of the victims didn't get punished was because they had friends in high places. The main exception is James, who made an honest mistake.
• Vigilante Man: Gender flipped. Lilith made it her personal mission to punish wrongdoers who escaped justice in her husband's place.
• Would Hurt a Child: Veronica was willing to help kill a child to get a share of the money his uncle then inherited.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Oddly, Lilith. She's scary to the little girl in the bonus chapter, but she actually loves children and has no desire to harm her.

Eternity

• Addressing the Player: Whatever name you gave when creating your save file is the name that will appear on the contract Reynolds presents to the detective.
• Ambiguous Time Period: Averted for the first time since Elephant took over the series. The contract at the beginning of the game specifies that it takes place on September 8, 1978.
• Badass Bystander: The player character is more or less this. He's a detective hired as extra security for a wealthy man, who turns out to be the target of a revenge plot. The detective has absolutely nothing to do with the plot, and the villain has no reason to drag him into the whole thing. Luckily for him, he's got the skills to survive.
• Big Brother Instinct: The main antagonist's younger brother was a test subject for am experimental vaccine and lost his life to it. Big brother then swore to get revenge on Dr. Reynolds for his role in the project that created the vaccine.
• Crisis Crossover: Seen at the very end; the Mystery Trackers send one of their top agents to rescue the player.
• Double-Meaning Title: Eternity is the name of both the hotel where the game takes place and the project that Professor Reynolds funded, which led to the deaths of all of its test subjects. This is not a coincidence.
• Faux Affably Evil: For a while, the masked man is excessively polite to the detective, asking how he feels and complimenting him on his success as he navigates the puzzles. This eventually tapers off because he has absolutely no qualms about killing the detective, even though he's got nothing to do with the situation.
• Irony: Dr. Reynolds tells Terence in the bonus chapter that if the experimental vaccine is dangerous, then he (Reynolds) deserves to be executed. In the main chapter, which takes place in the present day, Dr. Reynolds is hunted down by the main antagonist for his role in the vaccination project which cost many people their lives, including said antagonist's brother.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: In the bonus chapter, Terence has a cat named Jimmy in his home, to whom he makes a promise that he will be back soon.
• Malevolent Masked Man: The person who takes Professor Reynolds hostage.
• The Place: Most of the game happens inside the Hotel Eternity.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The masked man is ultimately on one of these, although it takes a long time for the details to come to light. It's never explained why he dragged the (completely innocent) detective into it, other than that the detective accepted the contract to protect Reynolds; nor is it explained why the masked man didn't just kill the detective, and instead gave him the long and very bizarre chance to rescue Reynolds and escape.

Phoenix

• Continuity Nod: The previous game ended with the Mystery Trackers telling the detective that he'd be an asset to their agency. This game opens with that same agency faxing him some useful information.
• Crisis Crossover: The Mystery Trackers lend the player their assistance in solving this mystery.
• Heroic Sacrifice: At the very end of the main game, Amanda takes a fatal blow that was meant for Steven, trying to make up for all that he suffered.
• Hypno Trinket: As a psychologist, Amanda often used one of these to hypnotize patients to help them get over their fears. She still uses one to keep Steven in a placid and suggestible state.
• Incendiary Exponent: The Stone Spires Hotel has been the location of a number of fires believed to be the work of a phoenix. Prior to its existence as a hotel, the same property had been Stone Spires University, which was forced to shut down when the chemistry lab exploded and killed a professor.
• Love Triangle: As the story progresses, the detective finds evidence that Steven was in love with Amanda, who was in love with Duke, who was using them both for his own ends. This is actually still true. Steven's not as dead as Amanda would have the player think, and Duke is the Big Bad.
• Oddball in the Series: It's one of the only two Haunted Hotel games in which the main game has no supernatural entity causing problems. Although most people think that a phoenix is responsible for all the fires, the true explanation is much more mundane.
• One-Word Title: Well, subtitle.
• Suddenly Voiced: The detective's inner monologue is sometimes spoken out loud in this installment.
• Time Skip: The beginning of the game states that it takes place in November 1979, a little over a year since the previous adventure.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Amanda tells the player that her friend Steven suffered from terrible pyrophobia.

The X

• Death by Woman Scorned: Factors into the backstory.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: What brings the player character to the Lexington Hotel. His sister Samantha disappeared while investigating the premises, and he's there to find her at any cost.

The Axiom Butcher

• Antagonist Title: The Axiom Butcher is Dead to Begin With, having killed himself in a police standoff several years earlier after he murdered everyone in the hotel. There's a rumor going around that his ghost still haunts the place, however, and when bodies start dropping again, people believe he's responsible.
• Asshole Victim: Almost all of the murder victims are eventually revealed to have unsavory pasts. The pianist was charged with sexual assault; he pinned it on someone else, who was sent to prison for the crime. The hotel owners committed tax fraud, and the husband is also guilty of sexually harassing his employees, and possibly murdering one; and the maid was sleeping with her married boss in hopes of supplanting his wife and becoming rich. The only exception is the fortune teller, who — like James and the player — was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Bloodier and Gorier: This is unquestionably the single bloodiest installment in the series.
• Continuity Nod: While searching his car for useful items, the detective finds three newspapers with headlines related to the plots of The X, Eternity, and Death Sentence. (It's implied that the player character is the same one as in The X and Eternity.)
• Copycat Killer: The real Axiom Butcher is dead, but either someone is pretending to be him or his ghost has come back for more blood.
• Creepy Child: Joanna's son, in the bonus chapter, becomes this when he's possessed by the ghost of the boy Jerome.
• Due to the Dead: The new owner of the hotel in the bonus chapter has a memorial portrait of the previous owner hanging in the lobby.
• Dwindling Party: Throughout the game, the number of stranded guests gets reduced one by one.
• Enfante Terrible: Jerome, the child ghost in the bonus chapter, was this in life, leading his father and a priest to kill him and bury him in the family chapel.
• Frame-Up: The murderer takes advantage of the player character's presence by framing him for the murders. And since the killer is a cop, it's easy for him to place the protagonist under arrest for them.
  • The murderer is eventually revealed to have been the victim of this trope himself. The pianist, Richard, sexually assaulted the killer's girlfriend Sarah, and when she tried to bring charges, he somehow managed to pin the crime on the her boyfriend, who went to prison for it. By the time he got out, Sarah had been killed.
• Innocent Bystander: James, the player, and the fortune teller. None of them were part of the killer's targeted list for revenge; they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and figured out the truth.
• The Lost Lenore: Sarah, the killer's murdered girlfriend.
• Meaningful Name: The fortune teller's name is Cassandra. In Greek mythology, Cassandra was a seer whose predictions were always accurate, but never believed. Sure enough, everything mentioned in this Cassandra's tarot reading turns out to be true.
• Oddball in the Series: It's one of the only two Haunted Hotel games in which the main game has no supernatural entity causing problems. The ghost of the Axiom Butcher is only a rumor. (There is a real ghost in the bonus chapter, however.)
• Offing the Offspring: In the bonus chapter, the detective finds the diary of Alfred Maxwell, who owned the hotel when it was his family's mansion. He felt like he had no choice but to do this to his youngest son, Jerome, because the boy kept trying to kill others. In the present day, Jerome's ghost is back for vengeance, and doesn't realize that his father has been dead for a long time.
• Playing Drunk: James is working undercover to investigate the rumors of the Axiom Butcher's return, and pretends to be The Alcoholic to explain why he spends so much time either in the bar or locked in his room.
• Red Herring: James and the detective find clues which point to the fortune teller being the guilty party. Nope. She's the only one in the hotel apart from the two of them who is, as far as we know, completely innocent of anything. The evidence they find is because she's been trying to help them with their investigation.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The killer's entire motive.
• Scenery Gorn: Due to that whole bloodier and gorier thing.
• Sigil Spam: A strange symbol is found drawn in blood beside each of the bodies, and in other locations throughout the hotel. It makes the whole thing look like a ritual murder; it's really just a Red Herring planted by the killer.
• Vigilante Man: The Big Bad is seeking vengeance against everyone who ever hurt his murdered girlfriend. Unfortunately for them, there are three people in the hotel who aren't part of that plan — but he can't afford to leave witnesses.
• Weather Report Opening: The game begins with the detective driving, and a weather report being given over the radio about the crippling blizzard.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The fortune teller has a cat. What becomes of the cat after the end of the game is unknown. This is also true of the hotel's guard dog.

Silent Waters

• Bittersweet Ending: At the end of the bonus chapter, Jim is still dead; but thanks to his efforts, Sarah is rescued, and his killers are brought to justice.
• Downer Beginning: Jim is killed in beginning of the bonus chapter.
• Dreaming of Times Gone By: The player character gets involved in the situation at the Silent Waters Hotel because he has an unexpected psychic vision of the fatal quarrel between Lucien and Maurice, many years earlier.
• Featureless Protagonist: Played straight in the main game, but averted in the bonus chapter.
• First-Name Basis: The player character's name isn't mentioned at all in the main game; in the bonus chapter, he identifies himself as Jim, but his last name is never revealed.
• Hostage for MacGuffin: Maurice's ghost offers to return Maggie if Clark will bring him someone to possess.
• The Lost Lenore: Gender flipped in the bonus chapter. Sarah calls Jim her guardian angel, says that he has taught her what real love is, and promises that she will never forget him. Knowing that she's safe enables him to Go into the Light.
• Not Too Dead to Save the Day: Lucien's ghost provides Jim with what he needs to defeat Maurice.
  • In the bonus chapter, being murdered won't stop Jim from protecting his girlfriend Sarah.
• Parental Favoritism: The owner of the Silent Waters hotel had two sons, and when he grew ill, he decided to bequeath ownership to his son Lucien, who was a harder worker and had a lot of good ideas, though his will stated that his other son Maurice could continue to work there if he chose. Maurice interpreted this as their father favoring Lucien and tried to kill his brother in a jealous rage, only to fall to his death in the process. His ghost has been killing people at the hotel ruins ever since.
• The Place: Silent Waters is the name of the haunted hotel in question.
• Standalone Episode: It's one of the three installments in the series which have absolutely no connection to any other installment. It has no characters or locations in common with the rest of the games, and it neither contains any references to other games nor is referenced by any of the others.
• Two Guys and a Girl: Maggie, Clark, and Bobby, the three students whose mishap starts the plot. Maggie and Clark are a couple; Bobby is their friend. (Unlike many examples of the trope, this is not a source of conflict between them.)
• You Wake Up in a Room: As noted above, Jim ends up embroiled in the conflict at the Silent Waters Hotel because he has a vision of the two brothers fighting. Unfortunately, he happens to be driving at the time, and crashes his car as a result. Someone, or something, drags him into the hotel, where this trope kicks in as gameplay begins.

The Thirteenth

• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: The only reason Matt isn't murdered at the same moment as his father is because the Sons of Dusk believe he knows the location of the Necronix, since the Sons of Dawn traditionally entrusted that knowledge to their youngest member. What the kidnappers don't know is that until all this happened, neither Matt nor his father had ever been told anything about the book, the Sons of Dawn, or what really became of the other Barlows.
• Cool Old Guy: The strange old man in the hotel is the only one capable of interacting with Dave's ghost; Dave is wary about trusting him, but feels like he has no choice. It turns out that this is his grandfather, Christopher Barlow, and he's going to save his grandson and great-grandson no matter what the cost.
• Dead to Begin With/Death by Origin Story: The game begins with the protagonist, Dave Barlow, being murdered and his son Matt being kidnapped. Dave then spends the rest of the main game as a ghost, trying desperately to save Matt. Fortunately, he is Not Too Dead to Save the Day.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Ultimately, the knowledge contained in the Necronix enables Dave to return to life.
• Double-Meaning Title: The Thirteenth is, as can be easily observed, the thirteenth game in this series. It's also eventually revealed to be a reference to Matt Barlow — the Sons of Dusk have murdered twelve other descendants of the Sons of Dawn, including Dave and both of his parents, and Matt is expected to be the thirteenth and final victim.
• Featureless Protagonist: Averted. Both Dave in the main game and Matt in the bonus chapter are seen onscreen.
• Missing Mom: Matt's mother is never seen or mentioned in the entire game. Dave is presumably either divorced or a widower, but it's never stated for sure.
• Papa Wolf: Even death itself isn't enough to stop Dave Barlow from protecting his son. It's clearly In the Blood, since Grandpa Christopher is the same way.
• Past Experience Nightmare: In the bonus chapter, Matt is concerned because Dave is still having these twenty years later. Admittedly, it's probably kind of hard to get over being murdered.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: It eventually gets revealed that the Sons of Dusk massacred Dave's entire family (except his grandfather) as one of these.
• Standalone Episode: It's one of the three installments in the series which have absolutely no connection to any other installment. It has no characters or locations in common with the rest of the games, and it neither contains any references to other games nor is referenced by any of the others.
• Time Skip: The bonus chapter takes place twenty years after the main game.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Necronix, which is why the Sons of Dawn and the Sons of Dusk had a falling out over what to do with it.
• Would Hurt a Child: Matt is maybe seven years old when he's kidnapped, and his kidnappers fully intend to murder him once they're done with him.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The Sons of Dawn fatally battled with the Sons of Dusk; however, one of the Sons of Dusk had a son who was only a baby, and the Sons of Dawn elected to spare him. The baby grew up to be Derek, the leader of the new incarnation of the Sons of Dusk, and he's the one out for revenge.

Personal Nightmare

• Call-Back: James's entire nightmare is one of these. He's chained to his memories, and is tormented by three of the Big Bads from previous installments (Lilith Blackthorne from Death Sentence, Ray Turner from The Axiom Butcher, and Duke from Phoenix). Stephen has to quiet all three ghosts in order to free him.
• Commonality Connection: To judge by the scene where they meet, Stephen and James have already been friends for some time when the game takes place, but they're in the Freedom Hotel for effectively the same reason. Stephen is there because his mother reached out to him for help, while James came running at a similar distress call from his cousin Mary. They vow to work together to save their relatives.
• Disappeared Dad: Stephen Blake's father George died when he was young. The bonus chapter reveals that, in the past, he partnered up with the Big Bad of the main game to hunt for the Viking artifact in the hopes of helping Kate with her illness. Unfortunately, the Big Bad became tempted by the power of the artifact, which eventually led to George's death.
• Featureless Protagonist: Averted. Stephen is seen onscreen several times.
• Healthcare Motivation: Stephen's little sister, Kate, was ill, and no doctor could help her. This is why their mother took Kate to the Freedom Hotel, reluctantly submitting to one of their contracts in an effort to cure her daughter.
• Ill Girl: Exactly what disease Kate had as a little girl is never stated, only that medical science could not help her and her father died trying to acquire a magical artifact that might have succeeded. Bringing her to the Freedom Hotel seems to have done the trick, but at a terrible cost.
• Ironic Name: The setting of the game is called the Freedom Hotel. Once you're there and sign a contract, you can never leave unless you fulfill its terms — which are almost impossible.
• Meaningful Name: Thomas Coldwell, the Big Bad, became a very cold and heartless individual when he fell under the influence of the One Amulet.
• Memento MacGuffin: The note from Stephen's mother begging him for help has her locket taped to it as proof that it really came from her. It contains pictures of him and Kate as children.
• Missing Mom: The plot was kicked off twenty years before the events of the game, when Stephen's mother took his little sister to be treated for her illness. He never saw either of them again.
• Parental Marriage Veto: The reason why Frank is at the hotel. Mary's father refuses to let her marry Frank, and he hopes that if he passes the test at the hotel, he will be allowed to marry her.
• Right Under Their Noses: It takes a long time for him to realize it, but Stephen's sister is the hotel concierge who checks him in at the start of the game.
• Start of Darkness: The bonus chapter is a prequel which shows how the Big Bad was once a good man who became corrupted by his obsession with a Viking artifact called the One Amulet.

The Evil Inside

• Dead Man Writing: James finds messages of this type from some of the members of Rachel's crew, saying that they know they won't make it out alive and whoever finds the message should please help the others. One even contains a Dying Declaration of Love for another crew member, who sadly is also dead.
• Disappeared Dad: Paul, the Ghost Seekers' lighting technician, leaves behind at least two children. We know this because the note James finds from him asks that someone please "tell my children I love them."
• Fun with Acronyms: Helping the player this time is P.A.T.R.I.C.K., a hand-held device designed to recognize ghost activity. The acronym stands for Paranormal Activity TRacker and Interactive Computing Kernel.
• Happily Married: Alexander and Bella were this when they were alive.
• Human Popsicle: The cameraman of Rachel's crew turns into one of these when he gets locked in the supernaturally frigid billiard room and freezes to death.
• I Will Find You: James makes this promise to Rachel when he arrives and discovers she's in trouble. Luckily for her, he's a Determinator.
• Inside a Wall: Where James finds another of the crew.
• Karma Houdini: There's nothing to indicate that the person or people responsible for Bella Valentine's murder were ever brought to justice.
• Kill It with Fire: Valentine's final request for James is that he will burn the mansion to the ground.
• Like Brother and Sister: The relationship between James and Rachel seems to be more like that of siblings than cousins. In the bonus chapter, she even has a framed picture on her nightstand of the two of them hugging.
• The Lost Lenore: Part of the reason Alexander Valentine's spirit awakens when Rachel's team arrives is because Rachel looks exactly like his murdered wife, Bella.
• Meaningful Name: James finds considerable evidence throughout the game that in life, Alexander Valentine was an extremely romantic man who completely adored his wife. Her death utterly destroyed him, leading him to Death by Despair; James ultimately discovers his corpse in the wine cellar, where he wasted away from heartbreak.
• Paranormal Investigation: It's implied that this is In the Blood. Not only is James a paranormal researcher in his own right, but his cousin Rachel Collins is a member of the Ghost Seekers team, which investigates haunted locations on television. Like James, Rachel is something of a natural medium, as shown in the bonus chapter.
• Past Experience Nightmare: The bonus chapter shows that Rachel is still traumatized by the events of the main game, and suffers from bad dreams about her time in the Hotel Valentine. She calls on James to help her free the spirits of her friends, who are still trapped in the ruins of the mansion.
• Previous Player-Character Cameo: James is the player character in the main game. He gets this in the bonus chapter, accompanying Rachel back to the Valentine estate but then being absent for much of the action.
• Seeking the Missing, Finding the Dead: James arrives at the old Valentine mansion in search of his cousin Rachel and her ghost-hunting friends. He finds them all, but he doesn't find them all alive. By the end, only Rachel and James himself escape.
• Start of Darkness: Alexander had his when his beloved wife was murdered. In life he was a perfectly nice, normal guy who had no desire to harm anyone; he just wanted to live a quiet life in his family mansion with the woman he passionately adored. Unfortunately, he went off the deep end when Bella was taken from him, and after he himself died, his spirit transformed into a vengeful ghost.
• Together in Death: The main game ends with James reuniting the spirits of Alexander and Bella Valentine.

Lost Dreams

• Doting Parent: Whatever else can be said about John Schneider, he truly loves his children.
• Featureless Protagonist: Averted. Mark, the player character, is seen onscreen a few times.
• Happily Married: Mark and Jane; the Schneiders were also this prior to the events of the game.
• Heroic Sacrifice: At the end of the main game, Dr. Schneider sacrifices himself to save the lives of Mark, Jane, Alice, and Tony.
• Killed Off for Real: In the bonus chapter, Mark discovers a Mystery Trackers badge belonging to Agent Black. Tony had called on the agency for help, but the unfortunate agent died while trying to save the boy.
• The Lost Lenore: Dr. Schneider's wife didn't survive the accident that left their children in a mysterious coma. The way he speaks about her to Mark makes it clear that he has never gotten over her loss.
• Plagued by Nightmares: In the bonus chapter, which takes place a few months later, the Stuarts visit Alice and Tony and learn that Alice has been suffering from strange dreams in which her father warns her of impending doom. Tony promised to look into the issue... and then disappeared.
• Standalone Episode: It's one of the three installments in the series which have absolutely no connection to any other installment. It has no characters or locations in common with the rest of the series, and it neither contains any references to other games nor is referenced by any of the other Haunted Hotel installments.^note (However, Schneider's Hotel does return as a location in Detectives United: The Darkest Shrine.)
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Dr. John Schneider is hell-bent on reviving his comatose children, Alice and Tony. He's willing to do just about anything, even crash a train and kidnap any survivors.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Mark and Jane are the only crash survivors who were taken by Dr. Schneider... so what happened to everyone else on the train? Were Mark and Jane the only ones who didn't die, or were they just the only ones Schneider kidnapped?
• You Wake Up in a Room: Mark and Jane are on a train heading for their vacation when the train suddenly crashes. When Mark regains consciousness, he's in an unfamiliar room; he has no idea where he is, how he got there, or what happened to his wife.

Beyond the Page

• Deal with the Devil: The author makes one of these with an Eldritch Abomination from another world, letting it use his hotel to enter our world and torment people in exchange for endless inspiration for his novels.
• Previous Player-Character Cameo: James Blackthorne returns as the player's companion once again.
• Shout-Out: One line of dialogue from James makes a very obvious shout-out to the Harry Potter books, with James mentioning "the soul artifacts in those wizard boy books you showed me."

Room 18

• Alliterative Family: The player character is John, James Blackthorne's brother.
• Due to the Dead: Seen at the end of the main game. Uncle Samuel creates a memorial stone for his dead friends.
• Family Disunion: A variant. The Blackthorne brothers are lured to the hotel with a fake invitation to a family reunion. They're actually looking forward to the gathering — James comments that he can't wait to see one particular aunt, because "she always has the best stories!" — but instead it's just them (and, in the bonus chapter their uncle Samuel), dealing with a mass haunting.
• Game Within a Game: There's a video game machine in the hotel's garden shed where John plays a Frogger clone to acquire a needed item.
• Imaginary Love Triangle/Mistaken for Romance: The hotel owner, Leonard, was in love with Caroline; but when she gently rejected him, he mistakenly believed it was because she was in love with Samuel. She wasn't, nor was Samuel interested in her. She actually just wanted Samuel to get Leonard to leave her alone.
• Incendiary Exponent: The hotel burned once, and to purge it of its ghosts, the Blackthornes must burn it again.
• Misplaced Retribution:
  • The concierge blames Caroline for the fire that killed everyone in the hotel. This is despite the fact that Caroline was just as much a victim as she was, and it was Leonard who set the fire that killed them — all because he wouldn't accept the fact that Caroline wasn't interested in him.
  • Leonard's ghost drags John and James into the situation, planning to get revenge on Samuel's entire family for the supposed betrayal, even though John and James hadn't even been born at the time of Leonard's ill-fated love for Caroline.
• Stalker with a Crush: Caroline didn't return Leonard's affections, but she did like him so she didn't outright reject him. However, he became obsessed with her and began stalking her everywhere, which terrified her and she begged Samuel for help.
• Strong Family Resemblance: In one puzzle, John finds a picture of Uncle Samuel as a young man, shaking hands with Leonard. Young Samuel looked a lot like James.

Lost Time

• Inexplicably Identical Individuals: All of the maids in the hotel look almost exactly alike; this is helped by the fact that their uniform includes a sort of wimple which completely hides their hair.
• Perilous Marriage Proposal: By the end of the game, time has gone so completely haywire in the hotel that both James and Jessica are physically about 90 years old and on the verge of death. He proposes anyway and she accepts, which thankfully is what's needed to undo the curse on the hotel and bring them back to their proper forms.
• Prequel: The bonus chapter is this to the main game, showing how the hotel came to be haunted in the specific way that it is.
• Unseen No More: This is the first appearance of James's girlfriend Jessica. She had never been mentioned in any of the previous Haunted Hotel games, but players of both series might remember her being brought up in the bonus chapter of Detectives United: Origins.
• With This Ring: James intends to propose to his girlfriend Jessica while they're on vacation at the resort, and the ring is in his inventory for nearly the entire game.

A Past Redeemed

• Bilingual Bonus: Overlapping with Exactly What It Says on the Tin. The game takes place at a location called the Hotel del Pasado. In Spanish, this literally means "the last hotel" — and as the bonus chapter shows, this is indeed the last haunted hotel that James investigates.
• Continuity Nod: James's cousin Rachel and the ghost of Alexander Valentine, both of whom appeared in The Evil Inside, return for this storyline. There's also an ominous eclipse on the day of the events, as a nod to James's debut appearance in Eclipse.
• Go into the Light: James is needed to help several earthbound spirits do this. In the bonus chapter, one of them was somehow left behind, and becomes the player character; he has to find James and figure out a way to ask for his help.
• Happily Married: The bonus chapter shows that the newlyweds have settled down in California and are quite content.
• Previous Player-Character Cameo: James's cousin Rachel was the player character for the bonus chapter of The Evil Inside. She returns here as the bride's maid of honor, but is absent for much of the game, making her this trope.
• Series Finale: This is the final Haunted Hotel game.
• Strangely Specific Horoscope: An extremely (and oddly) detailed palm reading is the catalyst for the events of the game.
• Time Skip: It's explicitly stated to be taking place six months after the previous game.
• Wedding Finale: This is the final game in the series, and it centers around James and Jessica's wedding.

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