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Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween for the Atari 2600.
The player controls Leatherface, killing victims with a chainsaw. It’s a little hard to tell what’s going on because of the early graphics. -
The Release of Dragon's Lair and Interactive Film Laserdisc Games.
Developed by Advanced Microcomputer Systems and published by Cinematronics, this is an interactive film LaserDisc video game featuring animation by Don Bluth, and while it worked around the resolution, framerate/number constraints, other limitations were placed on the actual gameplay. A compilation of deaths from Dragon's Lair -
Duck Hunt by Nintendo.
The game was one of the first major games to have violence as the main gameplay feature, as it involved using the NES Zapper light gun to shoot down ducks. This marked a shift to more realistic violence than Nintendo’s prior games, which had fantasy violence that included jumping on mushrooms and bipedal turtles. The main focus of games in this decade was not violence. They were mainly platformers (Super Mario Brothers), arcade games (Tetris), or narrative-based games (The Legend of Zelda). -
Hogan's Alley by Nintendo.
Players shoot cardboard cutouts of gangsters and criminals with the NES Zapper. The cutouts flash quickly and the player’s objective is to shoot the bad guy and avoid shooting police officers and civilians. -
Wild Gunman by Nintendo.
Adapted from Nintendo’s 1974 Wild Gunman arcade game, payers duel against characters in a standoff. If the player shoots first, the characters will comedically lose - a hat will fly off, their pants will fall down, or they will fall over. The enemies lose in a cartoonish way, and no blood is present in the game. This represents a shift from shooting cardboard cutouts in Hogan’s Alley. -
Video Shooting Series Light Gun.
Based on Nintendo’s Beam Gun toy line, it was made for the game Wild Gunman and could be purchased separately or with the game, and included a holster. -
The NES Zapper (Grey).
Redesigned from the Japanese Video Shooting Series Light Gun (or Famicom Light Gun). Bundled with Duck Hunt and other accessories. -
Go to Hell produced by ZX Spectrum.
The player finds crosses to rescue someone from eternal damnation. The game portrays a giant head being sliced by a saw, rivers of blood, and bodies being stretched across racks, etc. -
Death Wish 3 for the Commodore 64.
The main character mows down bad guys with guns and bazookas, body parts fly around, etc. -
Jack the Ripper by ZX Spectrum.
A graphic text adventure that explicitly featured blood and gorey imagery, even having an 18 rating from the BBFC before the ESRB existed. -
The release of Barbarian by Psygnosis.
Barbarian is a one-on-one fighting game that features what is considered one of the first examples of a one-hit finishing move; the inclusion of swords and kicks, as well as the ability to decapitate your opponent and its fairly well-illustrated animation, made the game infamous for its violence, being banned in Germany due to its content. -
The development of Splatterhouse by Namco.
This side-scrolling, beat-em-up game by Namco, the same developers as Pac-Man and Galaxian, combines many 70s and 80s horror tropes that had a fairly high and unusual, yet comical, gore quotient, allowing players to slash the heads off ghouls with a meat cleaver, blast chainsaw-wielding monsters full in the face with shotguns, and batter snake-like creatures to death with planks of wood. -
The Federal Toy Gun Law.
Required that toy guns be distinct from real guns. The law required that toy guns have a blaze orange color, which prompted the update from Nintendo. As far as I can tell, the creation of the original gray NES Zapper did not have a direct impact on the Federal Toy Gun Law. However, it can be inferred that with the popularity of the NES, it probably contributed to some degree. Discussions about legal restrictions on toy gun design were in play in the 1970s. -
The development of Narc by Eugene Jarvis.
This side-scrolling shooter game designed by Eugene Jarvis features a pair of masked cops gunning down a legion of drug dealers with machine guns and missile launchers, with its cutting-edge 32-bit processor allowing for high-resolution graphics of bloodshed and allowing for dozens of enemies on the screen at any given moment. While it was one of the most controversial games released then, viewed today its violence feels almost comical and like a parody of 80s action movies. -
The development of Beast Busters.
An intensely gory horror and sci-fi-themed gun game in which everything explodes into showers of blood and meat.