We’ve written extensively about Maine in the movies, Maine on TV, Maine in books and other examples of Maine in pop culture. One thing we’ve never explored, however, is how Maine has figured into one of the biggest mediums in entertainment: video games.
While Maine has been the setting for some of the most popular games of all time, it’s been underrepresented in video games as a whole.
You might be surprised to learn that there have been almost no video games based on the works of Stephen King. There were a handful of early 1990s point-and-click games based on “The Lawnmower Man,” “The Running Man” and “The Dark Half,” but other than those and “Stephen King’s F13,” a tie-in game released alongside his 2002 short story collection “Everything’s Eventual,” there haven’t been any others.
Here are eight that are set in Maine, from blockbuster titles to little-known games released as companions to popular movies and TV shows.
The Silent Hill franchise
This long-running series of horror video games, which first launched with the original “Silent Hill” game in 1999, has had many different plots and characters over the past 25 years, but one thing has always remained: the mysterious Maine town of Silent Hill. The town — located somewhere non-specific on Maine’s coast — is overrun by a cult that worships a dark, malevolent god. There are lots of scary monsters.
We said before that Stephen King’s works haven’t really gotten the video game treatment, but the Silent Hill games are clearly heavily inspired by a number of classic King novels, at least in mood and setting. It remains the arguably the most popular game to be set in Maine.
“Fallout 4: Far Harbor”
This 2016 expansion to the wildly popular “Fallout 4” game, set in a ravaged world after nuclear armageddon, is set on The Island, a fictional location off the coast of Maine that’s clearly based on Mount Desert Island. Far Harbor, as the name suggests, is based on Bar Harbor — one that is infested with mutated creatures, instead of tourists. With its forests, mountains and mist-shrouded coast, it’s a perfect setting for the uneasy adventure that is the Fallout series.
Still Life 2
In this 2009 second sequel to “Post Mortem” and “Still Life,” you’re an FBI agent sent to Maine to track down a serial murderer known as the East Coast Killer. Rare in a video game, real-life places are mentioned in “Still Life 2,” including the town of Jackman. With horror and detective elements mixed throughout the game, it’s a fun whodunnit in rural Maine.
“Casper” and “Charlotte’s Web”
It’s still really common for video games to be developed alongside popular movies and TV shows — especially in the 1990s, when cartridge consoles like Nintendo, Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis were everywhere. There were two games based on “Casper,” the Casper the Friendly Ghost movie from 1995 that was famously set in Maine. A decade later, a video game version of “Charlotte’s Web,” based on the 2006 movie that was itself based on E.B. White’s beloved Maine-set children’s novel, was also released.
“Murder She Wrote”
As if a video game based on an E.B. White book wasn’t thrilling enough, there was also a game based on “Murder, She Wrote,” the long-running mystery TV series starring Angela Lansbury as amateur Maine sleuth Jessica Fletcher. You solve five different mysteries in the game, including one involving a murdered lobsterman, and another involving someone killed in a vat of maple syrup. We did not make that up. It’s definitely the most “Maine” of the whole list of games here.
“Peace Island”
Made by a team of Maine-based independent game developers, this game is set on a Maine island where cats rule. It’s calm, non-violent and open world exploration-based, as you move through the island from the perspective of a cat, trying to figure out what happened to the humans that used to live there. The game is made in Maine and was crowdfunded by fans, and is still under development. A beta version of the game is expected to be released in the coming months.
“Cabela’s Trophy Bucks”
This game barely counts as being set in Maine, as many different U.S. states and Canadian provinces are featured in this hunting simulation. But yes, Maine is one of the states where you can shoot deer and other game. In this instance, the real thing is definitely better.