The Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds is excited to announce a call of content for an upcoming Special Issue focused on horror in video games.

Abstract deadline: 1 April 2026
Full article draft deadline: 28 July 2026

It has long been accepted that video games and horror go together like ‘a match made in hell’ (Rouse III, 2009), and this delightful expression paves a road for continual investigation into the complex relationship between video games and horror. This Special Issue seeks to provide a space in which academics and practitioners can share scholarship, reviews and articles centred around the complex and wide-ranging field of video games intersecting with horror.

Whether work is hyper-local, global or interstellar, we welcome imaginative, creative, ethical and diverse academic content from all disciplines and subject areas.

This Special Issue will run in concurrence with Falmouth University’s Horror & Videogames 2026 conference, hosted at the university’s Penryn campus in Cornwall on 7–9 July 2026. We will consider academic articles of 7000 words, as well as shorter reviews and essays.

Abstracts of 300 words should be submitted to falmouthhorrorandgaming@gmail.com.

Visit the conference website here:

https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/events/falmouth-horror-gaming-2026-conference

Keywords/possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• agency
• AI (affects and effects)
• bosses and enemies
• cyber spirituality
• games and mental health
• games and physical health
• game architecture
• game ghosts
• game mechanics
• game spaces
• game story telling
• horror and gender in games
• horror icons
• interactive fiction
• lasting impacts of play
• nostalgia
• online multiplay
• queerness
• representation
• the weird
• trauma

[https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-gaming-virtual-worlds#call-for-papers]