‘Our ghost meter went crazy’ : we played horror games all night in a haunted prison

Halloween is coming, and our minds are turning to scary games. But which titles are genuine fright fests? Our writers decided to find out in the most ill-advised way possible

Shepton Mallet prison in Somerset is the world’s oldest correctional facility. It is also reportedly one of the most haunted. Between its opening in 1625 and its closure in 2013, it saw hundreds of inmates, from Victorian street urchins to wayward American GIs to the Kray twins. Now a tourist attraction, it occasionally opens to paying guests who want to spend a night behind bars. Some are paranormal investigators, some are brave tourists, and others are video game journalists with a silly idea: how scary would it be to play five recent horror games all night, locked in a haunted prison?

Carrying just a torch, an electromagnetic field (EMF) detector, and a laptop, we wandered the prison finding spine-chilling locations in which to play these immersive supernatural masterpieces. Here is what happened …