A brand new Steam game is launching today that pays tribute to one of ID Software's pre-DOOM classics, 1991's Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion (h/t: PC Gamer).
Haunted Lands is a new indie title described as a "dark and bloody retro-inspired action platformer" and is the work of the solo developer, and "Dangerous Dave" fan Alexey "alevgor" Goryachev.
Originally envisioned as an unofficial sequel to Dangerous Dave, built in Gamemaker, it was eventually turned into its own project and was released as a free game on itch.io in 2020, which was warmly received by members of that game's community for its nostalgic "EGA-style" art direction. This prompted the developer to revisit the title in hopes of releasing an updated paid version on Steam.
Writing in a Steam devlog over a year ago, Goryachev said, "Many players have correctly guessed that my biggest inspiration for Haunted Lands was Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion. At first, it was a small tribute to Dangerous Dave, but the more I worked on it, the more I realised its potential. That’s how I came up with the idea of character classes - Gunners, Mages, and Beasts, each with unique abilities."
In Haunted Lands, players "delve into perilous burial grounds crawling with evil spirits and nightmarish abominations", with the goal of dispatching the various terrors with an arsenal of weapons, including a trusty shotgun. But rather than simply being a copy of Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion, it goes to some effort to add in some additional depth, introducing multiple playable characters (six in total), each of which comes with different abilities, as well as "hardcore" challenges and artefacts that unlock "new ways to approach battles."
If you happen to be a student of ID Software's early history, or have read David Kushner's Masters of Doom or John Romero's Doom Guy: Life in First Person, then there's a high chance you may have heard of Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion in the past.
Created in 1991 by a team that included all four ID Software founders (John Romero, John Carmack, Adrian Carmack, and Tom Hall), it was a sequel to a platformer designed and programmed exclusively by Romero, and saw players take control of a shotgun-wielding character named Dave, who must navigate through a house filled with zombies, slimes, and flaming skulls. Though inevitably not as famous as what came after, it certainly has its fans online — many of whom, we imagine, will be excited to see the game still inspiring experiences in 2026.
If you want to give the game a go, you can grab it here. A release on GOG and EGS is also planned, but it's not currently guaranteed whether all titles will release at the same time.