The House of the Dead

The House of the Dead is a video game franchise created by Sega, which began with the 1997 game of the same name. Many games in the series were originally released in arcades and utilize a light gun, but can be played with standard controllers on consoles and with a mouse or keyboard on home computers; for the PlayStation Network releases of III and 4, they can also be played using the PlayStation Move controller.

There are six House of the Dead games originating in a first-person light gun rail shooter format. The mainline entries all have common traits including special agents pairing up to take on hordes of biologically engineered undead (referred to as "creatures" in the wider series and as "mutants" in Overkill). The games are divided into chapters, each of which culminates in a boss battle against usually massive, terrifying creatures. The bosses in the first four games as well as the sixth are all named after the Major Arcana of occult tarot. Gameplay elements differ among the different games in the series, with each having different characters, firearms, and types of enemies. In many of the games, there are branching paths (determined by one's actions) and unlockable bonuses, along with different endings based on one's performances.

Several spin-offs from the mainstream storyline have also been produced, including a virtual pinball game, an English tutorial and a typing tutorial, as well as a film trilogy. In addition, select enemy characters appearing in the first two games were adapted into fully articulated action figures by Palisades Toys (which canceled the second toy line before release due to limited returns from the first series). Along with Capcom's Resident Evil, The House of the Dead has been credited with popularizing zombie video games as well as re-popularizing the zombie in mainstream popular culture from the late 1990s onwards, leading to renewed interest in zombie films during the 2000s.