On Oct. IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. NBC News Logo. Covid Politics U. News World Opinion Business. Share this —. Search Search. Follow NBC News. Of course, horror games have to abide to some cliches and narrative tropes as a simple rule of the genre, so whilst jumpscares, darkness, and possessed NPCs are expected and taken with a grain of salt - it's the way that the hotel delivered its classic spooky storyline that set it apart from its competition.
It only makes it all the more bizarre that a snack company funded it with no visible profit for themselves. As for the gameplay itself then, you're initially faced with a demonic maid hiding in a bathroom. She can only be escaped by flashing your camera in her face, but you can only do that by finding her in the dark first, listening through your headphones whilst she whispers weird nonsense to herself to get a feel for where she is.
Moving through the rooms, a creepy baby then needs quite literally singing to sleep with a lullaby of your choice, forcing you to croon into the microphone at just the right volume, lest you get your face ripped off. The game continues in much the same way, even taking pictures of you with your own webcam at key jump scares to add to its photo-library of terrified guests at the hotel, which you can browse through if you make it out alive from an unknown serial killer's lair.
If all that wasn't enough, entering your phone details results in a real-life call to tell you exactly how to escape. But as many players soon found out, that wasn't exactly the end of it - the game would call you at a later date to tell you that you never really left the hotel, and that there's no real escape from its horrors. If anything was enough to make you shut your laptop and never mess with the internet again, this was definitely it. A disappointing sequel came in the form of Asylum the next year, but didn't have the same draw or creative flair that intrigued so many players the first time around.
Asylum also actually required codes taken from Doritos packets to enter the site, a clear sign that money was the driving force rather than giving something back to their consumers - which is fine, they have to make it somehow - but the choice vastly altered the tone from Hotel's brand freedom.
Playing on the anxieties of a generation growing up online, Hotel was an excellent reflection of how technology can come back to bite us on the ass, before disappearing into the ether itself.
Many speculated that by using personal information, the game had condemned itself to being sued out of existence - or on the other hand, that it was so scary it had to be taken down for fear of terrifying people half, or fully, to death. Whilst either would be a heroic end to Hotel 's online run, the truth is sadly a lot less interesting.
Doritos just decided they'd had enough of paying for the domain and let it expire, dropping the whole thing into obscurity. It's somewhat fitting for the mystery nightmare hotel storyline, but sad enough that new players will never get to look back on this neat little spooky game. Hotel really was an excellent product of its time and an apt reflection of how technology can be turned against us so easily: something interesting to think about after you'd dumped all your personal details into its sign in page.
In any case, more horror games could take inspiration from interacting with wider branching technology, transforming VR from a headset experience into terrifying real-life situations. For now though, the hotel is closed, the asylum is locked, and only gameplay footage remains.
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