With House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn making its way to arcades a little later this year, we thought it would be a fitting time to look back at the series — and what better way to do that than with a tribute video?
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Put together on YouTube by Andrew Louis, the video, which can be seen above, starts off by looking at the game that started it all for the franchise, the 1996 classic The House of the Dead. Originally released for arcades, the game found its way to the Sega Saturn before that system was discontinued with a pretty solid arcade port.
From there, we’re taken to the 1998 sequel House of the Dead 2, right in the midst of a boss fight against a multi-headed serpent in the middle of town.
We then get a look at the spin-off beat-em-up Zombie Revenge, which was a decent hit in arcades before coming to the Sega Dreamcast.
The Typing of the Dead, the typing simulator mixed with House of the Dead 2, follows, and continues to be a cult classic for Dreamcast owners.
The 2002 cult classic The Pinball of the Dead for Game Boy Advance is next up, with some great looking visuals and even some boss battles. THis is a classic if you haven’t discovered it yet.
We then start to get into the more contemporary games with 2002’s House of the Dead III, which introduces shotguns into the fold. It found its way to various consoles, including the original Xbox and PlayStation 3, as well as part of a compilation for the Wii.
The 2005 arcade favorite House of the Dead 4 follows, with even more advanced visuals than ever before, along with immense boss battles. This one got ported to the PlayStation 4 as well years later.
The Typing of the Dead 2 followed in 2007, but didn’t get released here in the U.S., instead just being available for PC and arcades in Japan. It looks to be a pretty shoddy port of House of the Dead 3, so no big loss.
In 2008, the Wii compilation House of the Dead 2 and 3 Return arrived, creating another must-have shoot-em-up for owners of the system.
English of the Dead came out in Japan for the Nintendo DS in 2008, where you actually had to say words to shoot at enemies. It was an interesting approach, though the game never came out here.
There was also a House of the Dead EX game that came out in Japanese arcades in 2008, though we missed that one too.
In 2009, the game got a new home-only game called The House of the Dead Overkill, which first came out for the Wii before arriving for the PlayStation 3 in a more advanced version, going with more of a Grindhouse-style approach with original characters and storyline. (Oh, and the record number of uses of the word “motherfucker.”)
In 2013, a variation of that game, The Typing of the Dead: Overkill, came out for PC. It turned out to be a pretty good cult classic, though a console release would’ve hit the spot.
And finally, we come to Scarlet Dawn, which will arrive in arcades later this year.
Where will House of the Dead go next? Guess we’ll find out soon enough!
