| Sad Satan | |
| Released: | 2015 |
| Genre: | Horror, alternate reality |
| Modes: | Single-player |
Sad Satan is a horror video game released for Microsoft Windows in 2015. The game was allegedly created by a dark web user operating under the pseudonym "ZK".
In the game, the player walks down dimly lit corridors in a first-person view while being periodically interrupted by flashes of full-screen images. There are no goals or win conditions.
There are two prominent versions of Sad Satan; footage of the earliest version was uploaded to the YouTube channel Obscure Horror Corner on June 25, 2015.[1] The channel's videos of the game were picked up by a number of English-language publications[2] [3] [4] and later internationally.[5] [6] [7] A later version of Sad Satan, informally known as the "clone" version owing to the substantial differences between it and the earlier version, gained notoriety for containing extremely graphic imagery, including photographs of mutilated corpses and an instance of child pornography.
The original game in the Obscure Horror Corner video has blurred graphics from a first-person view. The player walks down monochromatic corridors while various audio samples are played and looped over each other. Audio in the game leans heavily on recordings of interviews with various murderers, such as Charles Manson, as well as on distorted or reversed audio of such interviews or musical clips, such as the song "I Love Beijing Tiananmen", played in the beginning; reversed clips from the Swedish Rhapsody numbers station can also be heard. Adding to the game's theme of child abuse, The Doors' rendition of "Alabama Song" can also be heard, starting with the verse "Show me the way to the next little girl."
While the player controls their character through the hallways, images may intermittently display, taking up the entire screen and preventing the player from progressing any further until the image automatically closes a few seconds later. Most of the images seem to reference child abuse, especially people indicted in Operation Yewtree, such as images of Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris surrounded by children. Other images revolve around crime, and include people convicted or accused of murder such as Japanese child murderer, cannibal, rapist and necrophile Tsutomu Miyazaki. Included also are photographs of Lady Justice statues, Colombian footballer Andrés Escobar and political figures such as former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former US President John F. Kennedy. Works of Roger Ballen and Walter Sanders were also included. The only other "characters" in the game are children who simply stand in one place and do not move or interact with the player at all. In the final video posted by Obscure Horror Corner, one of these children does begin to follow the player, causing "contact damage". Since the player has no means of self-defense or any ability to heal damage, the player will inevitably die at this point in the game.[8]
The later "clone" of Sad Satan and its subsequent offshoots closely follow the gameplay template of the original, but display different, often far more graphic, sets of images. These images include photographs of mutilated corpses,[9] and in the case of the earliest build, an image of child pornography.
On June 25, 2015, the YouTube channel Obscure Horror Corner uploaded a series of videos showcasing Sad Satan gameplay. In an interview with Kotaku, the channel's owner, identified as "Jamie", claimed to have downloaded the game from a Tor hidden service after receiving a tip from an anonymous subscriber. The subscriber in turn claims to have found the link via a dark web internet forum, from a user only known as "ZK".[8]
On July 7, Kotakus interview with Jamie was updated with a statement from him claiming that he deliberately misdirected people from downloading the game because of graphic content not present in his YouTube uploads, including pictures of graphic violence and child pornography.[8] 18 minutes later, a supposed download link to Sad Satan was posted on a 4chan board centered on paranormal discussion. Upon examining the game's file contents, users found pictures of mutilated corpses and child pornography, and those who ran the game experienced computer issues symptomatic of malware. Writing for TecMundo, contributor Nilton Kleina noted that this version of Sad Satan contained different content than the version shown on Obscure Horror Corner and characterized it as a "clone".[7] Later that month, users of the "/r/sadsatan" Reddit community uploaded a sanitized version of this build of the game, with all potentially illegal images and malware removed.[5] [10]
Sad Satan was the last game covered by Obscure Horror Corner, and since then, the YouTube channel has been abandoned. There has been speculation that the game was in fact created by the owner of Obscure Horror Corner in an effort to increase viewer subscription count. The game continued gaining recognition worldwide and was played by famous streamers and game YouTubers due to its dark nature.[11]