woops we used a real life criminal case in our game

hall of shame for the surprisingly high amount of times game devs have taken real life criminal cases and stuffed them in a game for one reason or another, suggestions in the comments are welcome

not including shock games because they're not as interesting as these genuine fuckups or horrible ideas

also games that take inspiration from real life stuff like kholat are fine, this list is for direct and generally in bad taste stuff

YIIK: A Postmodern RPG
YIIK: A Postmodern RPG
Uses the suicide of Elisa Lam as the jumping off point for a wacky time bending earthboundlike. Probably the most shameless on the list
Law & Order: Double or Nothing
Law & Order: Double or Nothing
Thinking it was stock footage, a dev added in cctv footage of the abduction of James Bulger
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
Recreates a war crime committed during the Iraq War and attributes it to Russia instead of the US
Nun Massacre
Nun Massacre
Features a soundbyte of a famous 911 call in which Ruth Price is attacked by a home intruder as its main scream sfx. It has since been determined that Ruth Price survived the attack, but this was not known at the time of the game's release
Hong Kong 97
Hong Kong 97
Game over screen infamously includes a photograph of the body someone killed in the Bosnian War lifted from the Death File series
Petscop
Petscop
It's always a bad idea to put real life child murder into your ARG and yet so many of them do it. Petscop has been slowly trying to retcon the Candace Newmaker connection but I'll never forget, cuz it's fucking weird.
Mario Kart Arcade GP
Mario Kart Arcade GP
For some reason in the files of this game is a picture from the Beslan Massacre. Nothing graphic but. Why?
Mortal Kombat 11
Mortal Kombat 11
Although the story is debated these days, Netherrealm allegedly modeled the gore in this game off real gore videos.
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2
The burned corpse model in this game is lifted from a photograph of a real burned corpse. Fun!!!!!
Batman: The Telltale Series
Batman: The Telltale Series
Features an image of Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov's assassinated corpse poorly chroma keyed into footage of a bank heist.
Sad Satan
Sad Satan
Putting this here as a catch-all for every unremarkable boring walking sim horror "game" that flashes bestgore clips onscreen in lieu of actual scares.
Beat Refle
Beat Refle
let's release a sexy massage parlor game modeled after high profile japanese sex crime cases using the names of an idol group we like as the girls surely we wont get sued to death
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008
This game originally featured Chris Benoit very heavily, even putting him on the cover. It was changed before release after the murder suicide, but it's still worth noting.
The Backrooms 1998
The Backrooms 1998
a strange case in which a backrooms slop game is inexplicably based on the real life murder of Timmy King, and asks the question what if he had backrooms powers
Black Dahlia
Black Dahlia
I know that the black dahlia case is thoroughly trampled over by hollywood to the point that a video game version of it with cult conspiracies is almost tame by the standards of media exploiting this crime in particular, but apparently this game also samples the cleveland torso murders so it's basically an applebees sampler platter of unsolved crimes

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