Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends is a multiplayer game within the fighting game genre that draws inspiration from foundational titles in the category like Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat, and Darkstalkers. The game was released on October 17, 2024, on the Steam marketplace by Hur4c4n Studios and is a sequel to their 2006 fighting game Terrordrome: Rise of the Boogeymen (Contributors to The Slasherverse). Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends, uses classic horror figures and themes through the twelve playable characters and the variety of stages you can select, those being: Frankenstein, Sasquatch, Neverman, White lady, Dracula, Bloody Mary, Van Helsing, T.H.I.S., Mr. Hyde, Wendigo, Spring-heeled Jack, and The Invisible Man (NamuWiki). As the player, you pick one of the twelve characters, and your opponent (either the computer or another person you are playing with) picks one as well, with the goal of depleting the health bar of the other. You primarily do this by landing attacks on each other, ranging from punches, kicks, and special moves that are unique for each character. Special moves are performed by doing a variety of motion inputs such as quarter circles, half circles, full circles, and the “dragon punch” input, which was popularized by Street Fighter.Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends is often played competitively by avid fighting game players, with tournaments being held regularly. Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends is a niche game in the fighting game community, meaning there are not many active players or attendees to the tournaments, unlike other competitive horror games like Dead By Daylight that have their own competitive league, sponsored by the developers.
Fig. 5. “Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends” character select screen featuring the 12 playable characters. Source: Hur4c4n Studios. “Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends”. Steam. Windows 10 18363.836 or Higher. 2024.
Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends does not follow a detailed story and instead combines legendary horror, folklore, and mythological icons to create a unique experience. While the game has a single player arcade mode, it does not pertain to any narrative and instead consists of consecutive fights with increasing difficulty. The game uses themes from mostly western based horror media, using characters such as “Frankenstein” and “Dracula.” Additionally, modern horror figures are also used in Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends, such as the “Neverman,” which seems to be a copyright free version of “Slenderman (Terrordrome : Reign of the Legends).” Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends takes these horror characters from across time and allows the player to create their own scenarios and lore about how these figures ended up fighting.
Autoethnographic Component
I first discovered Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends when one of my favorite fighting game content creators, “Diaphone,” posted a YouTube video testing every new fighting game at the Evolution Championship (video link), which is an annual tournament series focused on fighting games. “Diaphone” is a YouTuber, a live streamer, and competitive fighting game player who has recently exploded in popularity due to his entertaining and informative content. A large portion of “Diaphone’s” content revolves around playtesting new fighting games in order to bring attention to smaller games with less representation from the broader community. “Diaphone” reviewed Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends in his video and praised its horror themes, which stuck with me, and I soon wish listed it on my stream account (Diaphone). I only ended up purchasing Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends at the start of this project, thinking it fit the assignment perfectly, while also being aligned with my interests.
I've competed in fighting games for around eight years, primarily in Super Smash Bros Ultimate for the majority of it. The main thing that drew me to Smash Bros was the crossover of characters across the gaming world. As the player, you could see “Pikachu” from Pokémon duke it out with “Cloud Strife” from Final Fantasy VII, creating an experience unique to the game. This brought me immense excitement, and the feeling was reinstated when I launched Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends for the first time. Although I am not a huge horror fan, nor am I exceptionally knowledgeable on the genre, seeing the iconic characters in the game. combined with modern characters, brought back exhilarating memories that I once had when playing Smash Bros for the first time. I quickly wanted to see and try all the possible combinations for fights I could make, as the game felt fresh, and with every game I played, I discovered new interactions depending on the characters and stages I selected. With the many possible combinations, the game never felt stale or overdone, allowing me to revisit the game almost every day for a week.
I mainly played Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends, alone since I did not know anyone who also owned the game, but also because the solo combo trials drew me in. Combo trials are challenges where you do a specific combo listed on the screen until you complete them, and I found the combo mechanics very intuitive. I did these challenges for almost all the characters in the game and had a great time due to the tough difficulty and variety of combos present in the game. Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends is a very enjoyable and responsive game. I played a lot of “Frankenstein” in the game as I thought his combos felt the most satisfying to perform due to the great sound design when attacking my opponent. I highly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys horror themes and playing fighting games.
Themes and Connections to Scholarly Sources
The game uses thematics from western based horror literature from the late 1700s to the 1800s, such as gothic novels like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and John William Polidori’s The Vampyre, representing the playable characters “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” in Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends (Morrison).
Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends combines foundational horror characters with modern day horror figures such as the “Neverman,” which is the game’s interpretation of “Slenderman,” and "T.H.I.S.,” who is likely based off of the killer clown trope, popularized in the 2000s by Stephen King’s novel and later more influential movie, It (Radford).
Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends takes heavy inspiration from classic fighting games and other games in the genre. A notable example of this is the connection the game has to Mortal Kombat. The finishers and super moves in Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends, take the overly thematic and gory “Fatalities” Mortal Kombat is known for and put a horror twist on them (Church).
Folklore from other cultures besides the more Eurocentric ones is also present in Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends. The character “Wendigo” is present as a playable fighter in the game and is a creature from Native American mythology. Wendigo is known to possess or abduct humans and is usually associated with cannibalism. Moreover, “Wendigo” resides in lakes and other areas with large deposits of water (Historical Dictionary of Gothic Literature).
Fig. 2. Promotional image for “Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends,” featuring characters “T.H.I.S.,” “Bloody Mary,” " Dracula," “Frankenstein,” and “Alex Van Helsing” (In order from left to right). Source: https://playtracker.net/insight/game/67700Another playable character present in the game is the “White Lady.” The “White Lady” is based on the stereotypical female horror figure seen in a plethora of media, characterized as having long black hair and a white dress. This can be connected to a Tagalog urban (Lim).
In Todd Harper's book, The Culture of Digital Fighting Games: Performance and Practice, the chapter on online fighting game communities helps shed light on how Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends functions as a niche sub community in the greater fighting game community. A passage states that “gaming communities often function in [ ] the public, collaborative construction and dissemination of game knowledge (Harper).” My introduction to Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends was not through official promotion of the game and was instead shared with me through the community itself. Furthermore, players and content creators share their knowledge of the game online, illustrating that the collaboration of the community influences the way people learn about video games.
Blank, Trevor J. Slender Man Is Coming : Creepypasta and Contemporary Legends on the Internet. Edited by Trevor J. Blank and Lynne S. McNeill. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2018.
Church, David. Mortal Kombat : Games of Death. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2022. doi:10.3998/mpub.11477677.
Harper, Todd. The Culture of Digital Fighting Games : Performance and Practice. 1st ed. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014. doi:10.4324/9780203566275.
Hur4c4n Studios. Terrordrome - Reign of the Legends. Steam. Windows 10 18363.836 or Higher. 2024.
Lim, Bliss Cua. "Spectral Times: The Ghost Film As Historical Allegory." positions: east asia cultures critique 9, no. 2 (2001): 287-329/. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/27985.
Morrison, Amber. "Week 2 - Class 1 ." AHVS 311F: Horror Video Games. Class lecture at University of Victoria , Victoria, BC, September 8, 2025.
Radford, Benjamin, and Lila Sanchez. “Bad Clowns.” First edition. Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 2016.
