Big Boo's Haunt

Who ya gonna call?
^{Clockwise from top left}Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, Medievil, Spyro 2: Season of Flame, Rayman 2: The Great Escape, Terraria and Super Mario Galaxy 2

"This is Creepy Steeple. Seeing it in the moonlight gives me the willies... It looks like a ghost could pop out at any minute. No way I'm going in there."

— Goombella, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

The place where the dead come back to annoy you. This is the haunted area in the game with unconventional, undead enemies that can only be defeated through certain means. With ghosts, they might not be beatable at all. With zombies and vampires, it might require exposure to reflective sunlight or casting healing spells or special spells in RPGs. It may be set in Überwald, or in a Haunted House. It'll probably always be nighttime in this level. The background ambience will often make generous use of Spooky Animal Sounds, such as hooting owls and howling wolves.

The Big Boo's Haunt is a very versatile setting. This area will frequently cross with another location, like a mansion, cemetery, temple, forest, volcanic wasteland, or an underground mine — there's no quicker way to make an area creepier than to make it haunted. Often it also has inconsistent lighting.

Let's face it — a good scare is always nice.

Named after the stage from Super Mario 64. It may overlap with Unholy Ground and Mordor. Its sister trope is the Bleak Level, a suddenly gloomy and depressing stage in an otherwise upbeat game. For spooky levels set in a haunted vessel (whether naval or in outer space), see Ghost Ship. For spooky levels involving skulls and other skeletal structures, see Beware the Skull Base.

---

Examples:

Action Adventure

• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: The graveyard in the northwestern part of Hyrule has a stark white-and-grey color palette and is full of ghostly Ghini monsters that emerge from gravestones. The nearby dungeon (the Dragon, labeled in-game as Level 6) features a foreboding yellow palette instead of the more welcoming blue and green ones from all prior dungeons except the fourth (which also uses yellow), and is filled to the brim with powerful magicians called Wizzrobes.
  • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link: The graveyards located southwest of Death Mountain, southeast of West Hyrule and next to the Valley of Death in East Hyrule have a high concentration of enemies, including flaming ghosts called Moas. These areas also have a grim purple skybox that contrasts the cheery blue one from most areas in the overworld. There's also the fourth dungeon, Maze Island Palace, which has a foreboding purple tileset and is filled with Wizzrobes led by their King Mook Carock. Lastly, the original town of Kasuto became a Ghost Town filled with invisible Moas after it was ravaged by monsters, and the only living person left is an Old Man who teaches Link the most powerful spell in the game (Thunder).
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past: The Dark World has the Skull Woods, which combines this with a forest element. There's a prevalence of skulls, Stalfos, Gibdos and Wall Masters, though it's all even more prominent in A Link Between Worlds. The latter game also applies this to the Dark Palace with its large number of Poes and Ghinis, plus the scarcity of light in the rooms.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: The Bottom of the Well (child era, Mini-Dungeon) and Shadow Temple (adult era, proper dungeon, meeting at the intersection of Gusty Glade due to the active fans in one of the final corridors of the dungeon) play this trope straight in regards of their settings and enemies (both are also Underground Levels), while the fourth dungeon, the Forest Temple (adult era, combined with The Lost Woods), plays it more subtly with the hazy, haunted atmosphere of its rooms. The overworld is infested with Stalchildren (child, only at night) or Poes in normal and big sizes (adult), and Hyrule Castle Town as Adult Link is filled with zombie-like ReDeads.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: The entire eastern region comprises the poisonous lifeless kingdom of Ikana. The portion near Termina Field is closer to Shifting Sand Land, being a desolate canyon with sparse plant growth, but the graveyard has bands of Stalchildren milling around at night, and the village itself is positively crawling with undead.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games:
    • Oracle of Ages has the Spirit's Grave and the Ancient Tomb, the first and eighth dungeons, respectively, and ironically, both dungeons are located in the same spot in Labrynna: the former in the Yoll Graveyard in the Present and the latter in the Sea of No Return in the Past, as well as their main items being Power Bracelets in the former dungeon and the upgraded Power Gloves in the latter, both of which grant Link super-strength. The Spirit's Grave is home to a giant Ghini and Pumpkin Head, which guards the first Essence of Time, the Eternal Spirit. The Ancient Tomb, which serves as the final dungeon of the game, is combined with some Under the Sea (due to its location on a remote island littered with currents and whirlpools that could pull Link into a watery grave), Slippy-Slidey Ice World and Lethal Lava Land touches located in certain corners of the second basement, and is home to a Blue Stalfos, whose magical abilities can turn Link into a baby for a short time, and Ramrock, who guards the final Essence of Time, the Falling Star.
    • Oracle of Seasons' has the Explorer's Crypt, the seventh dungeon located in the graveyard on the southwest corner of Holodrum, which is home to two Poe Sisters and a Gleeok, as well as the seventh Essence of Nature, the Seed of Life. The dungeon features dark areas where Link has to light all torches in order to lift curses cast by the Poe Sisters in other rooms.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker:
    • The Earth Temple is a Hailfire Peaks hybrid between this setting and Underground Level. For one thing, it's where the ReDeads and Poes first show up, and there are also huge hallways filled with mist that renders you unable to use weapons, typically filled with Floormasters.
    • The Ghost Ship, a one time mini-dungeon, where Link needs to find one of the Triforce Charts^note GameCube version/Shards^note Wii U version (after determining its location through its own chart found on Diamond Steppe Island) is a Hailfire Peaks hybrid of this and Gangplank Galleon. The ship is inhabited by two Poes and a Wizzrobe that can summon ReDeads and Stalfos. After all the enemies are defeated, Link can get the Chart/Shard. Afterwards, the ship vanishes, never to be seen again.
    • The Creepy Basement of the Private Oasis, where Link has to find one of the Triforce Charts, which is filled with ReDeads and Rats.
    • The Earth Temple corridor in Ganon's Tower, which requires Link to fight Jalhalla in a black-and-white rematch to open the tower.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: The Royal Valley is a haunted location north of Trilby Highlands, consisting of a purple-colored cursed forest shrouded in darkness where the use of the Flame Lantern is recommended for improved visibility. There's also an illusory maze in the style of The Lost Woods that can only be traversed properly by following the directions of the signposts. At the north lies a graveyard guarded by Dampé, where the Royal Crypt housing the soul of the late King Gustaf can be found. There are also plenty of Stalfos and the hated Floor/Wallmasters in the Fortress of Winds.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess:
    • The Arbiter's Grounds combine this with Shifting Sand Land. They're the ruins of an ancient desert prison complex, and are haunted by the remains of their long-dead inmates in the form of hordes of skeletons, flying skulls, mummified warriors, ghosts, and spectral rats, with a miniboss battle against a sword-wielding specter and culminating in a boss fight against a huge draconic skeleton.
    • The Palace of Twilight is located in the Twilight Realm and is infested by Shadow Beasts and other Twilight-based enemies, as well as dark fog made of Shadow Crystal particles that turn Link into a wolf and can only be removed by the light of the Sol Spheres or the enhanced Master Sword.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: The Ancient Cistern is a mix between Down the Drain and this. Its basement floor is not only much darker than the cheery above-ground level, it's also filled with poison water and Cursed Bokoblins.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes: World 7 takes place in The Ruins. Besides being Ruins for Ruins' Sake, it is full of undead spirits.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Any non-village area can turn into this at night, just like in Ocarina of Time. But a more pervasive if subtler example would be the opening area, the Great Plateau. The dilapidated ruins of the birthplace of the Kingdom of Hyrule is where Link first wakes up in the Shrine of Resurrection after a century. The smaller locations on the Plateau also have time and death themes; there are the Temple of Time, the River of the Dead, and the Forest of Spirits. Lastly, the mysterious "Old Man" who gives you various tasks to acclimate Link to the world and get him started on his quest to defeat Ganon turns out to be King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule, who has been waiting as a ghost for a century for Link to wake up.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: The Depths can have "Stal" enemies emerge from the ground regardless of the time of day. Also, the Temple bosses that you defeat will be brought Back from the Dead for you to refight at various arenas. Though there are also non-hostile spirits down there; you can collect Poes (depicted here as passive item pickups rather than aggressive enemies as in previous games) and have the Bargainer statues send them on to the afterlife, and the ghosts of Hylian soldiers offer weapons that are uncorrupted by Gloom.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures: Level 5, "Nightmare on Ed Street", takes place in a Haunted House which the Eds must navigate to find items, and while there are no actual ghosts, the atmosphere is still dark and spooky.
• MediEvil: The first few levels play with the trope, as the hero is a reanimated skeleton. After the fifth level, the game branches out into other stage types. The game's first level is made into a playable stage in Playstation All Stars Battle Royale. The first level in question, The Graveyard, is a Creepy Cemetary where Dan's crypt is located. There is also the Pools of the Ancient Dead, a swamp haunted by the spirits of long-dead soldiers slain in an ancient battle (like the Dead Marshes from The Lord of the Rings).
• Monster Hunter (PC) has several levels where the monsters are all (or at least mostly) ghosts. One of them even throws in a Ghostbusters reference, being titled, "Who you gonna call?"
• Nobody Saves the World: Damptonia is constantly dark and rainy, the music is spooky and moody, the denizens are mostly mages and wizards, their primary crop is pumpkins, the nearby graveyard seems to have a zombie infestation, and there's even a few friendly monsterfolk like a Wolf Man suffering from allergies and a vampire that lives off of grape juice. Just about the only thing missing are actual ghosts aside from the unrelated Ghost form, that Nobody can unlock.
• Ōkami: The game has a Mini-Dungeon like this on a sunken ship, where the ghosts of those who perished want to harm you. You can only kill them with the priestess on your back, who accompanies you on that mission and uses dispelling slips of paper to attack. Also features a scary bit where the ghost of the spider boss (whose face looks like a dead girl) dive-bombs the actual TV screen and shrieks at you. It doesn't help that the ghosts can move while you use the Celestial Brush, which very few enemies ever do. This makes them even more unsettling, since it's kind of an Interface Screw.
• Shantae:
  • Shantae has the Cackle Mound, found in the middle of a swamp in the middle of The Lost Woods. It's a dimly-lit, cob-web covered place littered with shambling skeletons, ghost summoning dark mages, and whip-wielding succubi. In addition, the surrounding area is filled to the brim with ghosts and zombies. There is a caravan of travelling zombies near here too, but as they explain, there are wild zombies like the ones you fought and tamed zombies like them.
  • Shantae: Risky's Revenge has the Hypno Tower, which features spiders, druids, and hard-hitting, hard-to-kill, resurrecting, bone-throwing skeletons. A lich named the Hypno Baron resides in this place and serves as its boss.
  • Shantae and the Pirate's Curse has the Cackle Tower, a creepy Genius Loci found on Spiderweb Island. Spiderweb Island itself is populated with zombies, ghosts, and hands reaching out from the grave, while the Cackle Tower contains different kinds of skeletons, bat transforming succubi, and a Giant Spider.
  • Shantae: Half-Genie Hero has Hypno Baron's Castle, a spooky castle where Hypno Baron resides. The first part of the stage has you contend with Slime Girls, bats, ghost girls, succubi and a very confusing maze that will make you lost. The second part takes you outside in a storm where you'll have to go through some intense Platform Hell.
• Luigi's Mansion (Series): Much of the series takes place in a haunted setting, especially the first game, but the sequels play with it:
  • Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon: Unlike the first game, which took place inside a single mansion, this game has multiple haunted buildings for Luigi to explore. The first one is a typical haunted house, but the rest of them combine this trope with other Video Game Settings such as Shifting Sand Land and Slippy-Slidey Ice World.
  • Luigi's Mansion 3: The game takes place in a haunted hotel which has several themed floors (of which the fifth one, which is actually the first that is playable, showcases the trope in a straight form), once more allowing crossovers into other tropes, even including Gang Plank Galleon and Build Like an Egyptian.
• The Mausoleum of the Giants in La-Mulana features respawning ghosts which slowly drift across the screen. However, they die in one hit and don't fire projectiles, which doesn't quite put them among the most annoying enemies in the game.
• An Untitled Story features the Curtain and the UnderTomb, which feature ghosts as enemies (completely different ones from those playing part in the plot). The latter has entire flocks of them.
• Stage 3, the Pirate Fortress in Goof Troop. Goofy and Max explore a creepy castle inhabited by pirates, ghosts, and animate suits of armor. Quite a few rooms have Blackout Basement elements. Awaiting the player at the end are two animate skeleton baddies who fight as a Dual Boss.
• The Monster Manor from the eponymous Streetpass game is a 50-floor monstrosity filled to the brim with mean ghosts.
• The Binding of Isaac:
  • A lot of the locales utilize this in some shape or form, but the most straight example is The Depths (plus its alternate forms), where ghosts and various undead enemies/bosses pop up much more frequently. There's also Sheol and Dark Room, featuring Satan and a demonic skeleton called The Lamb respectively.
  • Antibirth and Repentance feature another alternate Depths known as the Mausoleum, which plays up the haunted house imagery a lot more than anything else in the game, complete with an alternate fight with Mom and Mom's Heart that leads to an alternate Womb level, Corpse.
  • Repentance has the Ashpit, an alternative form of the Mines that is littered with not only ashes, but also a handful of unique ghostly and/or skeletal enemies. Most notably, this is home to Clutch, a mischievous ghost who spends a lot of his time possessing any dead skeleton he can find.
• Legacy of the Wizard: Certain sections of the vast subterranean dungeon have ghosts or wizard-like enemies which will mercilessly follow you around and can pass through walls.

Action Games

• The third area of MadWorld is a medieval castle that was shipped over brick-by-brick from Zombiekistan. However, with those bricks came Zombiekistan's chief export: ZOMBIES!
• The mummy-infested Egyptian tomb levels in the Metal Slug games, and Plane Crash in the third game. There's also mission four in the fourth game which, depending on the route you take, either takes you through more Egyptian ruins or a haunted mansion filled with mummies and zombies respectively.
• The Carnival Table in Mario Pinball Land features a Haunted House attraction where King Boo is the Table's boss.
• The third level of the Tawfret planet in Jet Force Gemini takes place within a dark, decrepit castle plagued by Drones; it's guarded by a huge insectoid monster (Fet Bubb) at the end.

Arcade Games

• The first area of Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, which is a poisoned city full of zombies.
• The Simpsons' graveyard level.
• Pokémon Pinball on the Gameboy Color has Gengar's bonus screen. Its Gameboy Advance sequel Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire has Dusclops' bonus screen.

Fighting Games

• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Super Smash Bros. Brawl: On top of the unlockable Luigi's Mansion stage, The Subspace Emissary has several areas with ghost-esque enemies such as the Shaydas and the Floow.
  • Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Dracula's Castle, which represents Castlevania and serves as the Home Stage for Simon and Richter Belmont. A Boss-Only Level version of it serves as the battlefield for Dracula himself in Classic Mode and World of Light (the latter also having a map based on it within the Dark World).

First-Person Shooter

• Ravenholm in Half-Life 2, a town massacred by the Combine's headcrab artillery. Dark environments, creepy soundtrack, lots of gore everywhere, universally scary-sounding zombies as the only enemies, little ammo forcing a slowdown in pace, and the only human presence is the town's priest, who has gone quite nuts.
• The TimeSplitters series also has numerous examples of this trope.
  • The second game first has the Siberia level, which starts out very espionage-ish but soon introduces zombies that the bad guys are apparently experimenting with in their laboratories. The later cathedral level features more gothic-ish supernatural zombies from the sewers and dried out monk zombies.
  • The third game features the zombie-infested stages "Mansion of Madness" and "What Lies Below" (the 5th and 6th levels respectively) which look like something straight out of House of the Dead or Resident Evil, complete with unusually giant tentacle monster of death and a secret underground laboratory. (Ghosts are introduced later on, and they're incidentally completely unrelated to the science-induced zombies.) Both also feature the massive naked mole rat-looking thing referred to as "Princess".
• Turok 2: The River of Souls, with its soulgates and zombie-filled graveyards. Also a Temple of Doom.
• First Encounter Assault Recon: The Old Underground Metro Area in Perseus Mandate, the only location in the series where you are attacked exclusively by paranormal beings. Until you find your way back up to the subway, you won't be met with a single human enemy.
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has lab X-16 in Shadow of Chernobyl. Unlike the other labs that are just old and dusty, mostly empty and either somewhat well-lit or completely dark, this one sports dozens of corpses, bloodstains all over the place, and a distribution of malfunctioning lights give off an eerie chiaroscuro effect. It's also packed to the brim and over it with zombified stalkers.

Hack and Slash

• No More Heroes:
  • No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle: The Rank 24 stage is set in an abandoned cemetery, while the boss (an undead creature called Matt Helms) is fought inside a decrepit house.
  • No More Heroes III has the Rank 5 stage. Travis goes to an old, decrepit school with bloodstains and other debris in the halls; many classrooms have headless mannequins standing in for students (though some of them are actually living enemies in disguise). The boss is Midori Midorikawa, who appears to be a psychotic schoolgirl, but is actually not evil (after the boss battle, she's revealed to be the girlfriend of Kamui Uehara, a young friend Travis met in Travis Strikes Again) so she's spared.

MMORPGs

• EverQuest has plenty. Befallen, Lower Guk, Kithicor Forest at nighttime, Estate of Unrest, Najena, Castle Mistmoore, The Hole, Kurn's Tower, Kaesora, City of Mist, and that's just the first 2 expansion packs. There are currently 16.
• This is a particularly universal trope in MMORPGs. In fact, it seems there's a federal law requiring them in every MMO. City of Heroes has Croatoa and Dark Astoria, World of Warcraft has Duskwood, even Star Wars: Galaxies has Dathomir. No MMORPG is immune from having to have the spooky Halloween zone.
• About a fourth of World of Warcraft is made of this trope. Besides Duskwood, there is Silverpine Forest, Tirisfal Glades, The Undercity, Deadwind Pass, Karazhan (probably the most traditional example, being very Castlevania-like, right down to the music), Western Plaguelands, Eastern Plaguelands, Stratholme, Scholomance, Naxxramas, Zul'Drak, Icecrown, Auchindoun, Shadowmoon Burial Grounds, Black Rook Hold, Maw of Souls, Tomb of Sargeras, Drustvar, and Waycrest Manor.
• Niflheim in the MMORPG Ragnarok Online
• Kingdom of Loathing has a number of these:
  • Spookyraven Manor, which started as the Haunted Pantry in Seaside Town but was extended to an entire haunted house, with a number of side-quests.
  • The Misspelled Cematary, which is infested with badly-spelled undead (or possibly undaed) such as zobmies and ghuols.
  • The Defiled Cyrpt, which opens up as part of a quest from the Council of Loathing and contains even-stronger undead like gaunt ghuols, slick lihcs, and the dreaded Bonerdagon.
  • The Haunted Sorority House was a special clan dungeon available for Halloween 2011, a haunted house set up by orc sorority girls who all wound up Becoming the Costume thanks to the sinister "Nec-bro-mancer".
  • Dreadsylvania, a clan dungeon intended for high-level "aftercore" players (the suggested minimum level is somewhere in the high teens, when most players finish the last in-game quest at level thirteen) which features bugbears, werewolves, zombies, ghosts, skeletons, and vampires in all five of the elements found in the kingdom that inflict a variety of debilitating buffs on players.
• Mabinogi has Peaca dungeon, as well as Metus.
• Haunted areas in Champions Online include Burial Butte, Hoarfrost Hills and Lynx's Fold in Canada, the literal Ghost Town of Burnside in the desert, Rastrinfhar's Abyss in Lemuria and most of Vibora Bay.
• Final Fantasy XIV has Haukke Manor, a sprawling manor house infested with ghosts, skeletons and shapes under the rug. For added fun, it refurbishes itself every year as a literal haunted house, but where the enemies are just there to annoy you.
• For Dungeons & Dragons Online, we have quests taking place in The Catacombs, Delera's Tomb and the Necropolis. Also, around Halloween, the whole of Delera's Graveyard becomes this during the Mabar Festival event.
• Pirates of the Caribbean Online has Raven's Cove, an island desolate of all living creatures except for one insane person. However, nobody said that the enemies that you fought here were living...
• The Secret World has a lot of different places where the spooks and scares come out. The one closest to this trope, though, is a very slightly haunted house out in the middle of nowhere, where the spooks are all out in force — but the owner of the house, Mrs. Eleanor Franklin, just thinks they're all a bunch of big sillies. She's not wrong, but because of the kind of game this is, there's something else behind it all.
• RuneScape has the entire country of Morytania, which is infested with all kinds of undead.
  • Mort Myre Swamp is haunted by invisible undead creatures called ghasts, which are the spirits of people that died of starvation in the swamp.
  • The ruined city of Mort'ton is affected by a curse that causes the living to turn into zombie-like beings and makes the dead rise as shades.
  • The city of Port Phasmatys is populated almost entirely by ghosts since an evil priest tricked the population into turning themselves into ghosts to protect themselves from the Vampyres that rule Morytania.
  • The Barrows are home to a powerful form of undead warriors called wights.
  • There is also a haunted mine infested with undead and connected to it is a secret temple infested with even more undead.
  • The slayer tower includes several kinds of strange monsters including Banshees and Aberrant Specters, which are ghosts that smell really bad.

Party Games

• M&M's Blast has the Haunted House board, which takes place in a graveyard, and later inside the titular haunted house.
• Mario Party:
  • Mario Party 2 and Mario Party Superstars: Horror Land is a spooky forest where all the characters dress up as wizards. The main gimmick of the board is the shift from day to night, which triggers the appearance of more Boos and the powerful Big Boo (King Boo in Superstars), and also closes off certain junctions.
  • Mario Party 4: Boo's Haunted Bash features a Red Boo who controls certain walkways and vanishes and reappears as players walk past it, as well as another appearance by Big Boo.
  • Mario Party 6:
    • The board Faire Square is, by Mario standards, a unique portrayal of this trope. Instead of relying on classical spooky elements like Boos or other form of Defanged Horrors, Faire Square is a relatively mundane rural town built in the skies with subtle Halloween motifs (think of a seemingly-peaceful town in a movie that hides a dark secret). Some of the houses in the board (and all of those in the distant background) have ceilings whose tops make them look like witch hats; and landing onto an Event Space in front of a lone hut will make a broom appear to take the player onto a random location. Entering into either Event Space in front of a library at the top right will force the player to get in... and somehow end up reappearing at the start of the board. There are also gambling-related activities, whose outcomes change depending on whether it's day or night. Most intriguingly, the Star is always put for sale in the plaza at the center, and you can buy more than one (up to five, in fact) if you have enough money to do so. The catch? While the price for each Star is 20 coins during day (the seller is Brighton), it can change between up to four possible prices (5, 10, 30 or 40) during night, due to Twila being the seller during those hours and deciding the price with a Dice Block.
    • Several minigames take place in a more traditional haunted setting, namely a spooky forest with trees that have glowing eyes; and in most such minigames the players move within an outdoors hall with candles and other objects, so it's strongly hinted that this forest and the associated halls and plazas are located close to the implicitly-spooky Faire Square. Logically, all these minigames are exclusive to nighttime turns in Party Mode.
  • Mario Party 7: The minigame Ghost In The Hall places all four players inside a tenebrous mansion whose halls have limited visibility (thus requiring them to carry lamps) and have a maze-like layout. They have to run forward while choosing the right paths to proceed, as picking the wrong ones will either have doors that open themselves suddenly and hit the player, or be scared by a large Pink Boo. Whoever reaches the mansion's exit first wins. Funnily enough, since Boo is a playable character, he can still be scared by a Pink Boo.
  • Mario Party 8: King Boo's Haunted Hideaway is a board that takes place inside a haunted mansion. The overarching gimmick is twofold: It is a randomly-generated mansion where the goal is to find King Boo's location and buy a Star from him (10 Coins), which then kicks everyone out and reshuffles the mansion. Also, due to the limited visibility, each character can only see a few tiles ahead of them, even when looking at the board's map.
  • Mario Party DS: Kamek's Library. It's a haunted location with several book stacks, which make up for some of the board's playable paths, as well as a crystal ball Kamek can use to bring misfortune to whoever lands onto one of its nearby Event Spaced. There's also an astral sphere in which a character can draw a constellation to win a random prize (30 Coins, a Star Pipe, or a Star). Like in Neon Heights from Mario Party 7, the Star is hidden in one of the three winged vases that hover in specific parts of the board, while the other vases have either five coins or a spell that sends the player back to the start (the price for opening any vase is the same: 10 Coins). In Story Mode, a Koopa Troopa asks the gang to defeat Kamek (who is The Dragon to Bowser in the game) in order to free his grandfather, who is held captive inside a book.
  • Mario Party 9: Boo's Horror Castle is a tour through a large castle on a flying carpet or bed, and the characters must avoid getting caught by Boos that want to steal their Mini-Stars. The bosses of the board are Dry Bones and King Boo.
  • Mario Party: Island Tour: Kamek's Carpet Ride. True to its name, the board is played as characters ride magical carpets to move through the spaces, instead of walking. The first part takes place above a small forest village (inhabited by Whittles and Wigglers) next to a lake during night, and then forks between two haunted mansions (one being a library, and the other being an alchemy lab). The objective is to land on certain spaces (Just-Right Spaces) by using numbered cards; because of this, winning a minigame will allow the player to choose a card out of a selection, giving them the chance to grab the best (whereas the ones second, third and fourth in said minigame will have them choose among the remaining cards. Landing on a house's Just-Right Space will send all character to its interior, and then whoever lands onto the next Just-Right Space will be the winner.
  • Mario Party 10:
    • Haunted Trail is a forested board which goes through a town, a graveyard, and a poisonous swamp. Mega Sledge Bro and King Boo serve as bosses, and Boos will hop on and haunt players by steal their Mini-Stars until they're passed onto a different player at certain spaces.
    • Peepa Panic is a minigame located in the haunted hallways of a ghost house, where the players must avoid getting caught by the ghostly Peepas.
    • The Luigi board in amiibo party is designed to bring to mind the Luigi's Mansion series, resembling a dark forest with models of Boos surrounding, and a giant Poltergust that can be used to steal Coins and Stars from other players.
  • Mario Party: Star Rush:
    • The World 2 boards in Toad Scramble take place inside a dark haunted mansion illuminated by candlelight. These boards are inhabited by ghostly Peepas that take on the appearance of ally characters, and haunt any players unlucky enough to recruit them.
    • Haunted Hallways challenges players to navigate the maze-like halls of a haunted mansion and locate the goal before anyone else. The layout of the mansion is random every time the minigame is played, as is the location of the room containing the goal. Players must also take care to avoid Boos, as they will take them back to start if they get caught.
  • Mario Party Superstars: The board Horror Land from the series' second game makes a return. Like before, it's a spooky village with many branching paths where the flow of time is taken into account, shifting from night to day (or vice versa) every two turns. The main difference from its original version is that Big Boo (who is capable of stealing coins ans Stars from all rival players) has been replaced by King Boo.

Platformers

• Mad Monster Mansion from Banjo-Kazooie. The level is set within a decrepit residence owned (and implied to be formerly inhabited) by Gruntilda. It's overrun by undead mooks both inside and in the surroundings.
• Bat Boy: Cliff Manor is a mansion that’s home to all sorts of ghosts, it’s also where you’ll find Basketeer.
• In Bug Too!, the first world, "Weevil Dead 2", takes place on the set of the titular horror film, which includes such enemies as Zombie Beetles, Ghosts, and "Frogenstein's" Monsters.
• Conker's Bad Fur Day: The Spooky chapter. There's a large mansion where Count Batula, an ancestor of Conker, has lived for centuries. It's frequently invaded by villagers who want to kill Batula, as well as bats and zombies.
• Donkey Kong:
  • Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest: Gloomy Gulch crossbreeds this area with The Lost Woods. One of the levels takes place inside a haunted house where Diddy and Dixie have to flee from skeletal ghosts (Kackles) through a Minecart Madness segment. To this end, they must keep the timer above zero to avoid being caught (the green plus barrels add seconds and must be grabbed, while the red minus barrels substract seconds and must be avoided).
  • Donkey Kong 64: The game has Creepy Castle and the night-time version of Fungi Forest. The former is a decrepit location where the Kongs explore haunted rooms and halls, as well as hazy dark caves; the latter retains the forest aesthetic seen during daytime but gives it a much creepier atmosphere when night falls, which is also reflected in the music. In both levels, the Kongs can find Kremlings disguised as ghosts, though they're easy to defeat.
  • Ship of Souls from DK: King of Swing and Ghost Island from DK: Jungle Climber.
• In A Hat in Time, Queen Vanessa's Manor is an old house haunted by Vanessa alone, but she does more than enough to make the place scary and dangerous.
• One level in MacBat 64: Journey of a Nice Chap has Macbat searching though a haunted house.
• Songs for a Hero: The DLC "A Lenda dos Mortos" features the Hero having to fight zombies and skeletons through sinister cemeteries and mansions.
• Spyro the Dragon:
  • Lost Fleet in Spyro: Year of the Dragon is a shipwreck haunted by Bedsheet Ghosts.
  • Spyro 2: Season of Flame: Haunted Hills is a dark, gloomy stage inhabited by friendly ghosts. The enemies include witches on broomsticks, and one of the side-objectives is to light jack-o-lanterns.
• Super Kiwi 64: The third and final level of the Doomsday campaign takes place within a haunted dimension whose passageway is decorated with blue candles, spooky fences that provide a view of outer space, and skeletons. Along the way are swinging axes and shaking plant branches that have to be avoided.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Super Mario Bros. 3 includes ghosts and Dry Bones in its fortresses, most prominently that of Desert Hill (in World 2).
  • Super Mario World: This game set the tradition in itself and subsequent 2D games in the series to feature the Ghost Houses. In addition to their spooky enemies and layout, they're also known for their maze-like nature, requiring the player to think outside the box to reach the exits (the majority of them has two, with one of them being secret).
  • Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island has Bigger Boo's Fort, which introduces several ghost enemies including the typical Boos, and itself has a King Mook Boo as its boss.
  • Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins: The Pumpkin Zone expands the Ghost House concept into a full world, and has its share of undead creepers as well, many of them with what appeared to be knives still stuck in their heads. The levels take part in different parts of the large haunted mansion, and is guarded by a Wicked Witch who guards one of the golden coins.
  • Super Mario 64 has the Trope Namer, Big Boo's Haunt. It is, at heart, a Ghost House in 3D form, and features Boos (both small and big), big eyes that have to be defeated by fazing them, and a sentient piano. In the Nintendo DS remake, it's possible to access an extra level there, where the objective is to retrieve a key that will free Luigi, who was captured by King Boo.
  • Super Mario Sunshine: Sirena Beach, and Hotel Delfino in particular, becomes this during the first episodes due to the invasion of a ghostly Manta Ray and Boos (led by King Boo who hides in the casino). Afterwards, the level becomes a safe hotel.
  • New Super Mario Bros.: The subseries not only features Ghost Houses, but also occasionally has map areas themed around spooky landscapes. In the first New Super Mario Bros., the first half of World 8 is set in an eerie, desolate biome whose levels are infested with Crowbers (crows) and Scuttlebugs (spiders). New Super Mario Bros. U and New Super Luigi U have the shrouded toxic portion of Soda Jungle, whose levels can only be properly completed through the secret exits (as the normal ones lead to useless loops).
  • Super Mario Galaxy features the Ghostly Galaxy, as well as the smaller Boo's Boneyard Galaxy. The former is where Luigi is captured, and in addition to regular Boos there are also Bomb Boos (explosive black-colored variations).
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2 has the Haunty Halls Galaxy, the Boo Moon Galaxy and the Flash Black Galaxy. The former two are traditional spooky levels with haunted planetoids and corridors. The latter is a more unique approach where it rains and the clouds in the sky make sight a lot more difficult; the lightnings briefly illuminate the level.
  • Super Mario 3D Land: Ghost House levels make an appearance as can be expected, this time with a level design inspired by the style of Super Mario Galaxy 2 and the 2D games. World 4-4 is the first one, followed by World 6-3, World 8-4, Special World 4-2, Special World 5-5, and Special 6-5.
  • Super Mario 3D World: A number of levels appear in this archetype, usually denoted by their world map diorama being a Ghost House. The first of such is Shifty Boo Mansion in World 3, which even takes place in front of a graveyard. Later levels include Captain Toad Plays Peek-a-Boo (where Captain Toad has to avoid the ghostly Peepas and a Big Boo), Spooky Seasick Wreck (which overlaps with Ghost Ship) and A Beam in the Dark (where the characters can use a Light Box to defeat Peepas and Boos). The Captain Toad level subsequently inspired the ghost-themed riddles in Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.
  • Super Mario Maker and Super Mario Maker 2: One of the themes that can be used to make a level is a Ghost House. The theme also applies to the sets whose original games didn't have Ghost Houses (Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3). In Maker 2, in Night mode, the whole level is pitch black except for the characters' immediate surroundings and some luminous items and enemies (grabbing a Super Star will temporarily illuminate much of the screen).
  • Super Mario Odyssey: The game has Bonneton in the Cap Kingdom, a rare instance where the ghosts are completely non-threatening. The ghostly, hat-like Bonneters' foggy homeland is in shambles after Bowser swept through, destroyed most of their airships, and kidnapped Tiara. Bonneton also has the distinction of being the first area in the game, and though it is largely limited to a tutorial level during the first visit, it can be visited after acquiring the Odyssey for more goodies.
  • Super Mario Bros. Wonder: Light-Switch Mansion is the only Ghost House in the game (though the setting is also implicitly present in the level's host world, the swamp-themed Fungi Mines). It revolves around Mario and his friends using switches to temporarily turn the lights on in the rooms, which allows them to dispel the Boos approaching them. When the level's Wonder Flower is touched, King Boo appears with a gigantic size to harass them.
  • Super Princess Peach: Shriek Mansion is a large haunted house (so large it takes up an entire world) inhabited primarily by Boos and other undead like Dry Bones and Fishin' Boos. Fangs also take up residence here. King Boo awaits Peach as the boss.
  • Hotel Mario: Ludwig's Thump Castle Hotel is a haunted castle that's filled with Dry Bones and Boos.
  • Yoshi's Island:
    • The third level of page six of Yoshi's Story is Ghost Castle.
    • Yoshi's Island DS has Hector the Reflector's Haunted House. It is overrun by Boo Guys and two new ghostly enemies: The Polterpiranha (an undead Piranha Plant with wings and no stem) and the Invisighoul (invisible ghosts that take flower pots and furniture to throw them at Yoshi). Related to the latter one, Hector the Reflector is their King Mook.
    • Yoshi's Woolly World has stage 6-5 entitled "Yoshi, the Terror of All Boos".
    • Yoshi's Crafted World has Haunted Maker Mansion. Enemies in this stage include Zombie Shy Guys, Chompagobblers, and Shy Guy Reapers.
• Kirby:
  • Castle Lololo, from the original Kirby's Dream Land.
  • Ripple Star's second stage, from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards contains no ghosts, but could qualify merely on its creepy atmosphere (courtesy of Dark Matter). Ironically, there is a haunted stage (or at least stage segment) earlier in the game, but it lacks the hallmark ghoulish atmosphere.
  • Moonlight Mansion from Kirby & the Amazing Mirror is a haunted stronghold set at night. King Golem and his Golem minions make their residence here.
  • Kirby Mass Attack: A number of stages in Volcano Valley take place in spooky graveyards and haunted mansions where Kirby and his nine other selves have to deal with a multitude of undead and/or macabre enemies.
  • Kirby: Triple Deluxe features several stages of this sort. Among other things, they contain hallways where you're briefly stripped of whatever Copy Ability you currently have and you have to use mirrors in the back that reveal things that are either invisible on your side or aren't real. There are also Chest Monsters pretending to be platforms that will disappear when stepped on and doors that will attack you if you try to enter them.
• Drawn to Life: SpongeBob SquarePants Edition features a couple of stages that take place on the Flying Dutchman's pirate ship.
• Rayman:
  • Rayman 2: The Great Escape featured The Cave of Bad Dreams and The Tomb of the Ancients.
  • Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc features The Land of the Livid Dead.
  • Rayman Origins features the return of the Land of the Livid Dead, this time as a Brutal Bonus Level.
• Many Sonic the Hedgehog games have at least one level with unbeatable ghostly enemies.
  • The second act of Sandopolis Zone in Sonic & Knuckles.
  • Sonic Adventure does this with the second half of Red Mountain, which has prison cells in the walls with ghostly-looking prisoners inside.
  • There are five levels in part based of this in Sonic Adventure 2 - Pumpkin Hill, Aquatic Mine, Egg Quarters, Pyramid Cave, and Death Chamber.
  • The Hang Castle/Mystic Mansion level in Sonic Heroes has unbeatable pumpkin-headed ghost enemies that pop up in places where you're moving forward fast.
  • Cryptic Castle from Shadow the Hedgehog is a stronghold filled with jack-o-lanterns and giant lanterns. A giant skeletal spider even shows up near the end of a neutral run.
  • Haunted Ship from Sonic Rush Adventure... isn't really haunted, but looks like it is. The "ghosts" are beatable, and metal bits come out of them if you do. Marine really shouldn't be scared of these phonies...
  • Sonic Rivals 2 has Mystic Haunt Zone. Sonic and Tails also encounter ghostly versions of themselves in there.
  • For Sonic Lost World, there's Sky Road Zone 4 for the Wii U version which is haunted by boos who serve as invincible objects.
• Mega Man (Classic)
  • Shade Man's level in Mega Man 7. Naturally, being a Capcom game, it contains a Shout-Out to Ghosts 'n Goblins.
  • The fangame Mega Man Super Fighting Robot has Trash Man's level, which plays up its macabre robot theme, being a gloomy junkyard in the rain, with bubble bat enemies, skull robots, and graves strewn about in the level of abandoned robot masters.
• Metroid:
  • Super Metroid: The Wrecked Ship is a Ghost Ship version, filled with spectral creatures known as Coverns. The boss is the aptly-named Phantoon.
  • Metroid Prime 2: Echoes: The caverns at the beginning, where dead GF troopers are possessed by the Ing, forcing you to kill the very people Samus came to save.
• Wario series:
  • Wario Land:
    • Uncanny Mansion in Wario Land II
    • Castle of Illusions and Forest of Fear in Wario Land 3
    • Wario Land 4 has the entire Sapphire Passage and all levels within except for Fiery Cavern
    • Bad Manor and Boogie Mansion in Wario Land: Shake It!.
  • Horror Manor from Wario World.
  • Blowhole Castle from Wario: Master of Disguise. The ghosts are harmless initially, but they become hostile when the spirit switches are turned on.
• Given the subject matter, everywhere in the Castlevania series.
• The 'invulnerable ghosts' variant appears in the native ruins in Captain Comic 2.
• Gex 1's Cemetary stage, filled with ghosts and zombies. And the boss is a ghost girl who turns into a zombie creature that attacks by puking at you. And later, Gex 2 came out with Scream TV, which parodies several well-known horror films, even with a crazed doll trying to stab you. And its name is Hucky.
• Pizza Tower have the Gabaghoul enemies, they can be found only in Wasteyard and Pizzascare.
• Tomba!: A haunted Mansion in the first game and the Dongolin Forest in the sequel.
• Food Fright from Rocket: Robot on Wheels. Also an example of Level Ate.
• Temple Graveyard and Bone Mountain in Demon Sword. The latter is also a Death Mountain.
• Tiny Toon Adventures games:
  • The first NES game has the third level of World 1. It's a dark laboratory where Dr. Gene Splicer is fought at the end.
  • Buster Busts Loose! for the SNES has "Spook Mansion" as the third level. The level begins with Buster seeking shelter from the rain in a haunted mansion. The enemies consist of various monsters who appeared in the show, and the boss is Babs' friend, Melvin the Monster from the episode, "Hare-Raising Night", brainwashed by Dr. Gene Splicer.
  • The pirate ship level from Buster's Hidden Treasure for the Sega Genesis has some haunted elements in it as well, notably the music and some of the enemies, which include ghosts, bats, and knights.
  • Babs' Big Break for the Game Boy has a haunted forest as the third level. Fifi is captured by the forest ghost, and after you rescue her, you go inside the castle, where the boss is a knight.
  • The Monster Movie level from Montana's Movie Madness, also for the Game Boy, takes place in a haunted mansion. The boss is Montana Max and Roderick Rat stacked on top of each other dressed like Frankenstein.
• Capcom loves to put these levels in their Disney games. A few examples include:
  • Transylvania from DuckTales.
  • Scotland from DuckTales 2.
  • The Haunted Warehouse from Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers 2.
  • The Haunted Mansion from Adventures In The Magic Kingdom.
  • The Haunted House, the third stage of The Great Circus Mystery.
• "Boo! Haunted House" from The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures. The sequel ASSimilation has the world "Monster Madness". The first half is set in a black & white 1920's monster film and the latter half is a Shout-Out to the game Ghosts 'n Goblins.
• Count Slobula's Castle from Garfield: Caught in the Act takes place in a cemetery. The boss is Count Slobula, a vampire that resembles Odie.
• Donald Duck games:
  • Transylvania from Quackshot plays this trope in spades. Enemies include bats, Pete clones, ghosts, and skeletons. In addition to them, there's a water-filled temple (which thankfully, you can't drown in), a wall that closes in on you, and blocks you must break with exploding bubble gum. The boss is a duck version of Dracula.
  • In The Lucky Dime Caper, the seventh and final level takes place in Magica De Spell's castle, where Magica is in possession of Scrooge McDuck's #1 Dime. Enemies include ghosts, skeletons, knights, and paintings of Magica. The Final Boss is Magica herself.
  • The third level of Donald Duck: Goin' Qu@ckers takes place in Magica De Spell's manor, filled with creaky floors and spooky ghosts. Magica herself appears as the boss of the level.
• In The Adventures of Lomax, the second world is a sort of a haunted forest with zombies, vampires, werewolves and such, with occasional levels near water and on haunted shipwrecks thrown in.
• In The Cat in the Hat, the final level is a haunted attic, complete with creepy toys and thrashing mounted animal heads on the walls.
• The Lich Yard from Shovel Knight is a place full of undead (and electric frogs), including Spectre Knight who is The Grim Reaper for all intents and purposes. Later in the game is the Hall of Champions, which is haunted by ghosts and it's up to Shovel Knight to exorcise them.
• Zone 4, The Dark Jungle in Amagon. If it's creepy music and dark colors didn't give off enough of a vibe, it has weird ghost things, spooky owls, ghostly flames, and disembodied heads jumping about. The boss is a skeleton monster.
• Mysteria in Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure mixes this with Bubblegloop Swamp and Jungle Japes.
• In the level "Get a Clue" in The Fairly OddParents: Shadow Showdown, you're exploring Oberon and Titania's mansion, which is crawling with ghosts.
• Prince of Persia 2 has two. The caverns have skeletons that come back to life even after you defeat them, and the ruined castle has ghost heads that try to bite you. These actually take up about half of the game or more.
• Looney Tunes games:
  • In Bugs Bunny: Rabbit Rampage, Level 13 takes place in a haunted house, with black cats, storm clouds, falling horses, cats who saw holes in floors, and Sylvester driving a train serving as enemies.
  • Taz in Escape from Mars has the Haunted Castle, which serves the fifth world of the game. Like Mexico, this world deviates from the game's Space Zone theme. The bosses of the level are The Mad Scientist and Gossamer.
  • In Daffy Duck in Hollywood, the second world, "The Duxorcist", takes place on the stage of a horror film.
  • Speedy Gonzales: Los Gatos Bandidos has the Ancient Keep, which serves as the fourth world of the game.
  • Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday has The Castle, which serves as the sixth and final level. This castle is inhabited by a vampire Daffy Duck, who serves as the game's final boss.
  • Bugs Bunny in Double Trouble has the first three stages of the "Haunted Hare" level, which include ghosts, vampire bats, and even Witch Hazel disguising herself as a female bunny.
  • Bugs Bunny & Taz: Time Busters: The entire final quarter of the game, the Transylvanian Era. This is the final destination of the game, ruled by Count Bloodcount, a bloodthirsty vampire and the Knight of Cerebus of the game. The enemies range from mischievous skeletons to demonic apes to scarier, meaner versions of the Monstars. Most of the action is set in the Ghost Town, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin as there's only the Count's minions wandering around. Count Bloodcount's Castle, the final non-boss level of the game, is a quiet, haunting trek through the Count's castle and avoiding his undead minions. And finally, the boss fight with Bloodcount features Bugs and Taz trying to avoid having the vampire drain them of their blood.
• In The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy, a haunted castle makes up the fifth stage, with a few minor Lethal Lava Land elements, and Dracula as the boss.
• The Haunted Forest in The Berenstain Bears' Camping Adventure, which is the fifth and final level unlocked after beating the initial four levels, but only on Brown Bear (normal) Difficulty or higher. It's a dark forest where you can expect to be attacked by owls, porcupines that shoot their spines at you, and of course, inexplicable bear ghosts.
• The first half of Stage 5 in Chuck Rock takes place in a dinosaur graveyard filled with bones, skeleton enemies and dying dinosaurs. Some enemies pull off a Winged Soul Flies Off at Death when you defeat them.
• Dagger Heights from Terrascape, complete with skeletons, bats, and Grim Reapers. And the boss is a witch, Gwynn.
• In the Animaniacs Licensed Game for the Sega Genesis, Stage 4 takes place in a studio for a horror film. The boss of the stage is Dracula, which should come as no surprise, as Konami, creator of the Castlevania games, also developed this game. The follow-up game, Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt, also features a level on a horror movie soundstage. Yakko and Dot have to journey through a haunted mansion to save Wakko from the experiments of Dr. Scratchenshtein.
• Home Improvement: Power Tool Pursuit!: The Third Set is set in a Haunted Castle/Horror Movie set complete with ghosts and other creepy crawlies.
• Giana Sisters DS: Most of Castle Levels are haunted with floating, skeletal, three-headed specter enemies, properly named Ghosts.
• Ganbare Goemon:
  • Legend Of the Mystical Ninja has the first stage, the dilapidated HoroHoro Temple located just outside Oedo.
  • Kiteretsu Shogun Magginesu has the bonus stage unlocked after all the tokens at Circo Puerto Amusement Park modeled after Hell in Japanese mythology. The boss is a parody of Dracula from the Castlevania games called Draculan. Then you fight a rematch against Kabuki, the boss of the Scary Haircut Castle.
  • Kirakira Dochu Boku ga Dancer ni Natta Wake: The Water Moon Fortress is part fishing spot, part golf course and part shooting gallery and it somehow possesses a really unsettling, grimy atmosphere. The facehugger-like chickens hatching from egg pods don't help matters either. ^note a reference to 1990 Aliens Arcade game developed by Konami.
  • Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon combines this with Toy Time with the Ghost Toy Castle. The boss is the Surrender Robot Dharumanyo, a mechanized killer daruma doll.
  • Goemon's Great Adventure has the Mafu Island that once again takes inspiration of Hell as depicted in Japanese mythology, featuring lakes of boiling blood, spikes everyone and all assorted undead yokai.
• In Wacky Races (1991), the second half of Stage A-1 takes place in a haunted house, which is filled with bats, knights (both kinds), and mummies. The boss of this stage is Big Gruesome and Little Gruesome in the Creepy Coupe.
• In Densetsu no Stafy 3, the third stage, Misty Town, is a ghost town full of fog.
• Bobby's World: When Derek orders Bobby to clean out his closet, he teases Bobby by telling him the closet is haunted, leading him to the fifth and final level, which takes place in a haunted house. Ghosts, vampires, monsters, skeletons, zombies, bats, and witches all serve as enemies. The Final Boss is a giant monster.
• Normy's Beach Babe-O-Rama: The fourth stage, "Transylvania 1973" takes place in the castle of Professor Warhol, who has captured Thalia, the Goddess of Warm Sand, to make silicon chips for his new invention; video games. Enemies in this stage include wolves, possessed candelabras, possessed books, ghosts, and rats. The boss is Professor Warhol, whom Normy must defeat by playing games resembling Pac-Man and Pong.

Puzzle Games

• I Spy Spooky Mansion entirely takes place in an haunted manor with a skeleton guiding you into it.
• Kuru Kuru Kururin: The levels in World 9 (Ghost Castle), as its name hints, take place inside a haunted castle filled with ghosts, sarcophages, chalices with creepily-colored flames, and fountains of lava in the background. Since this is the final world, the levels require mastery in regards of controlling Kururin's ship, and avoiding once again all the types of hazards and tricky layouts that appeared in the previous worlds.
• Pâquerette Down the Bunburrows: The Spooky Bunburrow has signs of decay and has bunny ghosts in the foreground. The Forgotten one has candles and bats.
• The Realm of Death in The Spiral Scouts, which is a graveyard filled with skeletons, ghosts and other supernatural beings and is Always Night.

Racing Games

• The Mario Kart series has several racetracks set within either haunted piers or Ghost Houses. In piers, the tracks are made of wood and lack railings, so all drivers must tackle the corners with extreme caution to avoid falling into the water; and in some cases, the night's darkness also makes visibility more difficult. The spooky tracks that have appeared in the series are:
  • Super Mario Kart - Ghost Valley 1, 2, and 3.
  • Mario Kart 64 - Banshee Boardwalk.
  • Mario Kart: Super Circuit - Boo Lake, Broken Pier, and all three SNES Ghost Valleys.
  • Mario Kart: Double Dash!! - Luigi's Mansion (battle course).
  • Mario Kart DS - Luigi's Mansion (race track), N64 Banshee Boardwalk, and Twilight House (battle course).
  • Mario Kart Wii - re-uses Super Mario Kart's Ghost Valley 2, and DS' Twilight House.
  • Mario Kart 7 - re-uses Luigi's Mansion from DS.
  • Mario Kart 8 - Twisted Mansion. The Switch version brings back Luigi's Mansion from Double Dash!! since day one, as well as GBA Boo Lake as DLC.
  • Mario Kart Tour - reuses SNES Ghost Valley 1 and 2, GBA Boo Lake, DS Luigi's Mansion and DS Twilight House.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing has the House of the Dead series of tracks, all set around and within Curien Mansion.
  • The sequel, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed has Graveyard Gig, also located in the aforementioned Mansion.
  • Team Sonic Racing has two examples; Boo's House (which takes place in Sandopolis Zone) and Haunted Castle. The former mixes it with Shifting Sand Land, while the latter plays it completely straight.
• Diddy Kong Racing has the Haunted Woods track, stationed in the fourth world, Dragon Forest.
• Super Indie Karts has the course Whispering Garden, based on Whispering Willows.
• In Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix, Most Haunted Tour is a big creepy house with pumpkins, skulls and scythes in your way. Subverted in that it's not really haunted, just a set location for The Loud House's Show Within a Show ARRGH!.

Role-Playing Games

• Baldur's Gate II:
  • The game features the Temple Ruins, an area corrupted by a powerful undead called the Shade Lord. Within, one finds numerous types of undead—there are even a couple who aren't evil and want to help you—and those few creatures that aren't undead are linked to them in some way (golems made from bones, a dragon from the Plane of Shadow). Ironically, before it was defiled the temple was one of Amaunator, the forgotten sun god, who loathed undead as most sun gods do in Dungeons & Dragons-related settings.
  • During the Unseeing Eye quest, there's a bit where you get thrown into a pit of ghouls deep below the city, and have to fight your way out.
  • There's also the lair of the vampires in the city's Graveyard District, which opens onto a broader catacomb full of all sorts of nasty things. More vampires show up in the expansion pick in the prison of Saradush.
  • There is also the Underground City in the first game (populated by zombies, ghouls and the occasional skeleton warrior). Many other areas occasionally have undead encounters as well, but these feature them almost exclusively.
• Uptaten Towers in Dragon Quest V, although its denizens are benign for the most part. In fact, they ask you and your close friend to help banish the undead that have moved into the place because they want to be put to rest.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • In Daggerfall, the eponymous city is haunted by the dead king's ghost. The impetus for the Emperor sending you, a trusted agent of his, to Daggerfall is to investigate the haunting. Plenty of other "haunted" dungeons are present as well, with various undead and supernatural enemies present there.
  • Morrowind has the Dunmer Ancestral Tombs, which tend to be populated by all manner of undead enemies, and sometimes even lesser Daedra. Ancestral Ghosts in particular cannot be harmed by non-enchanted weapons lower than silver quality. Bonewalkers, a zombie-like type of undead, can cast spells which damage your Attributes. (Likely forcing you to retreat to civilization to recover, as "damaged" attributes will not return to normal like a "drained" attribute, meaning you'll need a potion or blessing to restore it.)
  • Chapel undercrofts in Oblivion are full of Sanctified Ghosts, which are identical to ghosts in all but name. They upgrade to Sanctified Specters as you level up. There are also plenty of dungeons with regular level-scaled undead, though perhaps the most notable is an abandoned manor in the middle of Skingrad whose supernatural activity has gone entirely unnoticed by the townsfolk. Benirus Manor in Anvil is likewise haunted by ghosts until you kill its undead former owner.
• Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes: The setting of Chapter 3, the Necropolis where the undead live for all eternity. It's a dark, unsettling location with ribcage corridors and an acidic lake. Fiona finds herself here after having died, and over the course of the chapter she has to find a way to return to life, for which she has to participate in a ritual at the top of an ancient pyramid. She also has to defeat Lordess Ludmilla, which is by far the hardest part.
• Pokémon:
  • Pokémon Tower in Pokémon Red and Blue and their remakes, a resting place for deceased Pokémon full of ghosts and possessed mediums.
  • And Mt. Pyre later in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire and their remakes. Yes, a whole mountain city of the dead— as if a tower wasn't bad enough.
  • The Sinnoh games (Pokémon Diamond and Pearl) have the Old Chateau and the Lost Tower, though the former is definitely the creepier of the two.
  • In Pokémon Black and White, Unova follows suit with the Celestial Tower, which adds aliens (in the form of the Psychic-type Elgyem) to the usual melange of Ghost Pokemon.
  • Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 have Strange House, with ghost types and a ghostly girl. She'll vanish after you get the Lunar Wing out of the house and go get Cresselia. The fun part? Leave a room and come back to rearranged furniture.
  • Pokémon Sun and Moon has the Abandoned Thrifty Megamart. It was the original site of the Thrifty Megamart, but was built on the sacred land of the island guardian Tapu Bulu, who was angered and destroyed it. It now sits abandoned and is used as Acerola's Ghost-Type trial site, and is home to quite a few Ghost Pokemon as well as Mimikyu, who is also the Totem Pokemon.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars has the Sunken Ship, which is a combination of this and Down the Drain — weirdly, though, at the end of the area the ghosts get dropped in favor of pirates.
  • Paper Mario:
    • Forever Forest and Boo's Mansion in the first game.
    • Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door provides the page quote. The Creepy Steeple is a dark, creaky old manor inhabited by Boos and by the shape-stealing ghost Doopliss. Pirate's Grotto in Keelhaul Key is haunted by Cortez's pirate crew consisting of ghostly flames, and there's Cortez himself. There is also Poshley Sanctum, a temple inhabited by Dark Boos.
    • Merlee's Basement and the Underwhere in Super Paper Mario.
    • The Enigmansion in Sticker Star was just a cozy little mountain lodge until Boos invaded and took it over.
    • The Dark Bloo Inn in Paper Mario: Color Splash is a haunted hotel full of ghosts. The ghosts are toads that will not pass on to the afterlife until they have had a tea party.
    • Paper Mario: The Origami King: The Scorching Sandpaper Desert is a combination of this and Shifting Sand Land. When Mario gets there, the desert is shrouded in The Night That Never Ends due to Hole Punch stealing the sun from the sky, and the dunes are haunted by undead enemies — skeletal Dry Bones roam the main desert area, while the nearby ruins are mostly inhabited by Boos. The Temple of Shrooms, an Egyptian-theme take, is also mostly inhabited by these enemies, alongside Giant Spiders. It's a pyramid full of Bandage Mummy enemies where forty Toads have had their faces removed and left with zombie-like mannerisms as a result. Mario has to gather the Toads and enact a Michael Jackson's Thriller Parody in order to draw out the boss, Hole Punch. Once the sun is restored, the undead vanish.
  • The west side of Gloomy Woods in Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam is this, with King Boo and his army inhabiting it and featuring a dark, somber theme in contrast with the illuminated and somewhat joyful east side.
• Final Fantasy:
  • The Phantom Train in Final Fantasy VI.
  • The Ship Graveyard in Final Fantasy V, which crosses over with Gangplank Galleon.
  • The Iifa Tree in Final Fantasy IX. The game hates you on this level, since if you didn't know you needed to pack special items to cure zombie status, your party members are going to be impossible to revive.
  • The Zanarkand Ruins in Final Fantasy X.
  • Final Fantasy XI has lots of areas like this: the Eldieme Necropolis, Garlaige Citadel, Gusgen Mines, King Ranperre's Tomb, the Sacrarium and Arrapago Reef.
  • The Nabreus Deadlands (go figure), and the Necrohol of Nabudis (again, go figure) in Final Fantasy XII. In fact, any place with mist in the game is bound to be a Big Boo's Haunt. Barheim Passage is the first one.
• In Granblue Fantasy, the mist-shrouded island fits the trope very closely. It's an island inhabited by zombified villagers, and the monsters encountered there are mainly of the undead variety. Of course, one of the locations on the island is a Creepy Cemetery.
• Titan Quest, features many, many areas like this, though most of them are optional, a few in the Egypt act are not.
• Westwood's Lands of Lore RPG features a castle filled with ghost that have massive damage resistance against all but a few certain magical weapons.
• The King's Field series has many areas like this due to its atmosphere. Graveyards, burial chambers and ancient battlefields dot the landscape. Almost everywhere you go in the games you will find skeletons, ghosts and monsters. Some of the games even feature ghosts of elves and phantom heads with hands that come out of the ground. You can even talk to the skeletons and some ghosts of giants or people long since passed.
• Mega Man Battle Network 2 has Netopia Castle, which has ghosts that ran around and brought death to you. Or brought you to death, bringing you to a gravesite. IFL Tower from Mega Man Star Force 2 also qualifies.
• Dubloon features The Pirates Graveyard, which among its attractions includes ice-breathing ghosts, Zombie Pirates, Grabbies and a Treasure Tower.
• Shadow Hearts has... In fact, pretty much every dungeon. Owing to the game's Survival Horror roots, many dungeons have various ghosts and undeads as main enemies.
• In the Wizardry games, take a wild guess what you'll face at the Isle of the Dead and Isle of Crypts in VI and VII, respectively.
• Demitel's manor from Tales of Phantasia is a standard Haunted House inhabited by ghosts, undead monsters and Demitel himself. And it's complete with a Light and Mirrors Puzzle.
• The Last Story has the abandoned mansion explored in Chapter 20. In it, Zael and his friends have to help a gentleman (Horace) find his wife Meredith, who has been trapped in this mansion. Many rooms showcase illusory effects that make the characters feel uneasy, and at the end they have to defeat a spectral boss to rescue the abducted woman.
• The Evil Spirit Club, the third dungeon of Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth. It consists of two settings: an Old School Building and an Abandoned Hospital. Enemies include giant blue babies wearing a metal mask over their entire head, and creepy dolls that turn out to be an anglerfish-style lure on top of a huge pile of faces.
• The EarthBound Series:
  • The Cemetery, the town of Spookane, and Rosemary's Manor in EarthBound Beginnings. All three areas are flooded with zombies. Ghosts and haunted suits of armor join the mix in Rosemary’s mansion, where disembodied voices taunt you as you search for the fourth melody - which is played for you on a haunted piano.
  • Threed in EarthBound is a dark town beseiged by zombies and ghosts until Ness and crew deal with Master Belch.
  • Osohe Castle in Mother 3 is absolutely lousy with the undead. While most of them just want to party, others will try to attack you like any other baddie in the game. Haunted suits of armor return, and are joined by monsters lurking under rugs and fake doors.
• Pandora's Tower: The Dusk Tower is a dark, twisted version of the Dawn Tower. Even during day, it sports a tenebrous dark atmosphere accentuated by the purple-colored energy that overflows the place.
• The fifth chapter of BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm is partially set in /x/, a gloomy little village surrounded by a vast, twisted forest. There are a few normal folks living there, but the whole place is very eerie, and spirits and dark secrets abound. For specifics, see the examples on the game’s Nightmare Fuel page - there are quite a few.
• Some Etrian Odyssey games have a stratum with dark, twisted motifs. For example:
  • Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan: The Hall of Darkness is a large facility stained with blood in its floors and walls, areas that warp explorers back to a starting point unless they pay attention to the toxic tiles' placement, wrap-around corridors like those of the second stratum (Misty Ravine), a room with a very stinky smell (like in the Miasma Forest mini-dungeon), and is home to an extremely dangerous monster. The last floor mixes the setting with Slippy-Slidey Ice World.
  • Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth: The Fetid Necropolis is filled with corpses, limited visibility, undead skeletal enemies and toxic floors. During day, the sunlight will allow the explorers to evade the F.O.E. that are vulnerable to it. During night, no light will be present but at least the floors won't be toxic. As such, planning how to explore the place and at what time will be important.
• Golf Story has Oak Manor. Ruled by an evil wizard, and home to skeletons and a ghost, with a pair of goth girls trying to make the skeletons their minions. There are also pumpkins scattered everywhere.
• Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines:
  • While already a game all about the undead, has its own ghost level in the form of the Ocean House Hotel. You, a superpowerful vampire, have to clear a ghost out of someone's real estate holding. The advantage is not with you.
  • Giovanni Mansion. Infiltrating a gathering of vampire society's most infamous necromancers? What could go wrong?

Shoot 'em Up

• The second area in Downwell.
• Gradius Gaiden has an interesting version - a level made entirely of the barely-functional scrap left of the hordes and hordes of alien ships you defeated in past games. Some of them occasionally spring to life and pitifully fire a few weak shots before deactivating again.
• The Forgotten Planet in Sigma Star Saga is a ravaged wasteland that at some point during its destruction developed a "Haunted House" motif. In addition, it's also that one level and it wasn't playtested very well.
• Tankylvania in Heavy Weapon is set in a graveyard. It's also the first level where you'll encounter the Atomic Bombers. The boss of the level is Eyebot, a robot that's appropriately based off a tentacled Eldritch Abomination.
• The TaleSpin video game for the NES has a haunted mansion as its fourth level.
• The penultimate level of Parodius Da!, "Night of the Living Dead," is full of skeletal enemies and Youkai.

Simulation Games

• The spooky carnivals in The Sims "Makin' Magic" expansion pack.
• This is the theme of Halloween World in Theme Park World. Ride on the backs of giant plague rats, bounce on a brain-shaped bouncy house, and of course let us not forget the haunted house ride!

Stealth-Based Game

• In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the dead quite literally come back to haunt you. In a downright creepy non-battle with The Sorrow, Naked Snake must wade upstream in an eerie, fog-shrouded river, where he is accosted by the ghosts of all soldiers he's killed in the game. If the player has avoided lethal methods to this point, this encounter will be nearly deserted. Not only that, but the manner in which you killed each soldier affects how they appear and what some may scream. Cutting a throat will render that person's head hanging by a thread from their neck when you encounter them on that river. It even gets to the point that, if you kill a soldier up in the mountains, let a vulture pick at his corpse, and then kill and eat that vulture, that soldier will appear there with it, and cry out "You ate me!"
• Various locations in the Thief games. The Bonehoard and the Haunted Cathedral Levels in 1, and The Cradle in 3.

Tabletop Games

• The Ravenloft setting has Castle Ravenloft, Strahd Van Zarovich's own fortress with undead lurking everywhere. There is also Necropolis, an entire city of undead. Really, the entire setting could be considered one big Big Boo's Haunt, well, and a lot of other monsters as well.

Wide-Open Sandbox

• The Simpsons Hit & Run: All of Level 7, which sees the suburbs from Levels 1 and 4 getting a Treehouse of Horror-themed makeover as a result of the alien Buzz Cola's ability to raise the dead. Zombies roam the streets and traffic vehicles include coffins driven by skeletons and ghost boats. Gameplay-wise, the undead beings are harmless, with the main threat being the Big Bad of the story.
• Terraria:
  • The Dungeon is a massive fortress populated almost entirely by an army of elite undead skeletons. Even when "killed," a ghostly being called a Dungeon Phantom has a chance to drop from the enemies and still try to pursue the Terrarian.
  • If enough graves are in one location, the surrounding area becomes a Graveyard mini-biome, which has a gloomy gray filter over the screen and features undead enemies spawning in the middle of the day.

Multiple Genres

• League of Legends and Legends of Runeterra:
  • The Shadow Isles are a place of ruins where death doesn’t work right and the souls of the dead linger as a dangerous Black Mist, the result of an ancient king’s folly corrupting the isles’ blessed waters and mists. Champions and characters from the Shadow Isles tend to share a similarly haunted appearance, with most being undead. The Twisted Treeline was set on the Isles before said map’s removal, and future Riot Forge game, Ruined King, will be set here.
  • *Anywhere* in Runeterra can temporarily become this trope during a Harrowing (an event where the Black Mist invades places besides the Shadow Isles), though it most commonly strikes the nearest region to the Isles geographically: Bilgewater.
• Epic Battle Fantasy series:
  • Epic Battle Fantasy 4: The Graybone Cemetery is an optional mini-area consisting of a graveyard and two tombs. Its enemies include living trees and mushrooms, Wraiths, a type of Monolith with necromancy powers, and a skeletal Hydra.
  • Bullet Heaven 2: Browngrave Necropolis is a stage set in a forest full of the undead, with enemies consisting of skeletons and spirits. Towards the end, the team enters a portal that leads to a realm of the dead. Its main boss is a Giant Spider with skeletal cats operating it, while its extra boss is the undead version of the game's first boss.
  • Epic Battle Fantasy 5: The second half of Mystic Woods is haunted, containing enemies such as cursed Mirrors, living voodoo dolls, and the ghostly Fallen and Wraith families. Its associated bonus dungeon, the Deathly Hollows, leans more on the haunted angle, a cursed cave below the Mystic Woods with even more undead.

Non-Video Game Examples

• The Tower of London is supposedly infested with ghosts of the victims of royal strife over the centuries.
• If there's anywhere on Earth that's haunted, it's Poveglia. Its ground is made of bodies.
• The Haunted Mansion or Phantom Manor, depending on which of the Disney Theme Parks you visit.
• Every building the Ghostbusters visit. Of course, considering what the heroes do for a living, that is a given.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh!, a Duelist Kingdom arc episode "Call of the Haunted" pitted Joey against a Zombie duelist who used undead zombies that could be killed by normal means, but a card of the Zombie duelist (the eponymous Call of the Haunted) just caused them to keep coming back.
• Discussed by JonTron and Egoraptor in Game Grumps as they played through the Big Boo's Haunt in Goof Troop. This is one of Jon's favorite level tropes, as long as they're creative and not "tropey as fuck".
• Tweetsie Railroad, a theme park in Boone, North Carolina, usually has The Wild West as its main theme, but during October, the event known as "Ghost Train" begins. Tweetsie sets aside the usual cowboy trappings from the main season and embrace this trope in full. Everything becomes scary and haunted, and they even decorate the namesake antique locomotive with skeleton decals. The main attraction, a show during the train ride, is given a horror theme that changes every year (2009 had a zombie theme, 2010 had vampires, and 2012 was themed around The Fair Folk), while the main season's train show is frontier-themed. The music during the train ride even changes. During the main season, they play Country Music and Bluegrass Music on the train's PA system. During Ghost Train, the PA system plays a mix of Heavy Metal and Hard Rock.
• Random Assault: The haunted castle Tony "inherits" in episode 031, the Halloween Special.
• In the Tales of the Fox series, the night is the time when ghosts come out, and only fire and fresh blood can keep them from driving you mad. In some parts of that world they're vampire ghosts.
• The Hogwarts castle from the Harry Potter book series. There is a Deathday Party held for ghosts.
• Poltergeist is about a house haunted by poltergeists (who later crosses over).
• The Whipstaff Manor from Casper where Casper and his uncles haunt.
• Kamp Koral: The Trawler cabin is home to creepy characters who are based on deep-sea animals, like blobfish and anglerfish. Sandy finds herself very unsettled when she has to spend the night there — while most of it's due to her paranoia, there are genuinely creepy things like bats, a dirty slime bath, and a spider camper having kidnapped someone.
• The Dark Lands from The Super Mario Bros. Movie has dead, leafless trees, a decrepit castle and a bunch of Dry Bones that chase Luigi when he enters. It lends itself to a reference to Luigi's Mansion, a cartoony horror game, when Luigi calls for Mario while carrying his flashlight. It combines one element of Mordor, namely lava.

---

Yes. Resident Evil, House of Dead, and any other horror game you can think of. Extra points for reaching the bottom of the page without adding them to the list.

---