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Welcome to my estate. I trust you'll find your stay here a pleasant one. I'm afraid I won't be able to come greet you personally, but I've sent some of my creations to make you feel right at home.

The House of the Dead Sega Saturn manual.[[src]]

The Curien Mansion is an estate owned by genetic engineer Dr. Curien. Originally built in the Middle Ages, it housed a research facility for human genome experiments conducted by the DBR Corporation. In 1998, the property was linked to disappearances and an incident during which Curien, driven homicidal by his research, released hostile biologically-engineered creatures in the mansion.

It is the setting of The House of the Dead, as well as the namesake of the franchise. The mansion also appears in the non-canon spin-off Zombie Revenge, serving as the base of operations for ZED, a bioterrorist.

History

The mansion was built in medieval times; Curien, who lived there with his son Daniel, hailed from a noble family.[1] Daniel fell terminally ill, with Curien desperate to save his life.[2] With financial backing from Caleb Goldman and the DBR Corporation, Curien built and used a high-tech research facility within the mansion.[3]

Curien's experiments were to "...remove the barrier between life and death," thus curing Daniel.[4] However, Curien's obsession and abandonment by his researchers drove him mad.[5][6] On December 18, 1998, he unleashed his experiments upon his staff in an attempt to destroy mankind; AMS agents Thomas Rogan and G neutralized the threat. Curien himself was killed by his "masterpiece", Magician, who in turn the agents destroyed.[7]

Sometime after, Goldman visited the mansion and took Curien's research to further his own plans.[8]

Appearances in Other Media

  • The Curien Mansion appears in Zombie Revenge, a spin-off with several other references to the House of the Dead series. The stage itself its named "The House of the Dead", and the music is a new arrangement of the first chapter theme. However, the interior sections are different. No mention of Curien is made, and the mansion serves as ZED's base of operations.
  • The Curien Mansion is featured in several games in the Sega Superstars series developed by Sumo Digital. The House of the Dead name is not used, with the series instead referred to as "Curien Mansion" or abbreviated as "HOTD", as the series is banned in Germany.[9]
    • The mansion's front yard is a tennis court in Sega Superstars Tennis. There is a mini-game which involves fighting waves of creatures with tennis balls.
    • Three race tracks in Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing - Outer Forest, Sewer Scrapes and Deadly Route - take place throughout the Curien Mansion.
    • The mansion returns as a single track in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed named Graveyard Gig. Zobio & Zobiko, the protagonists from Loving Deads: The House of the Dead EX and the only playable racers representing the series, can be seen getting married in later laps. As Transformed is the only game in the Superstars series to see a Japanese release, the Japanese version brings back the House of the Dead name.
  • The Curien Mansion appears in Project X Zone as a battlefield; here, Zombie Revenge's Rikiya Busujima and Resident Evil characters Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine must defeat Nemesis and L.Raptor.

Trivia

  • The Curien Mansion serves a similar function with the Spencer Mansion in the Resident Evil franchise in many ways, such as zombies and creatures roaming around the mansion, both had a secret laboratory underneath the mansion, and both housed creatures created by the antagonists which eventually turned on their masters.
  • It is not specified what country is the Curien Mansion located in, though fans assume it is located in England or Scotland, as the driver seat in Thomas Rogan's car is on the right-hand side, a characteristic of British cars.

Gallery

Data

Screenshots

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 The House of the Dead Sega Saturn manual, pg 19
  2. The House of the Dead III - First flashback
  3. The House of the Dead 2 - The Third Chapter: Darkness (opening dialogue from Harry Harris)
  4. The House of the Dead III - Second flashback
  5. The House of the Dead III - Third flashback
  6. The House of the Dead III - Fourth flashback
  7. The House of the Dead
  8. The House of the Dead 2 - Opening cutscene (console only)
  9. Wilcox, John (February 15, 2008). SEGA Superstars Tennis Q&A Feature. Totalvideogames.com. Archived from the original on July 4, 2009. Retrieved on April 27, 2020. “The situation is that [the House of the Dead games] are banned in Germany, and as far as we understand it, if a game is banned there then you can't reference them in another game. If we'd done a German version of the game, then we'd have to double the number of versions - or we could just choose another name. So as Curien is the name of the mansion in House of the Dead we renamed it Curien's Mansion [''sic'']... [which] seemed like a safer choice.”
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