Horror video games are a dime a dozen. Scary horror video games, good horror video games—nicely, these are a lot rarer. We’ve rounded up a number of the finest horror video games ever made, operating the gamut from big-budget extravaganzas launched this very yr to… textual content adventures. Yes, critically.
Turn out the lights, placed on some headphones, ensure you’ve received a spare pair of underwear close by, and revel in these terrifying spine-tinglers.
Editor’s word: This checklist was up to date on October 28, 2021 so as to add a number of new video games and take away some older titles. Hayden Dingman and Adam Patrick Murray contributed extensively to this text.
Like Left 4 Dead, Phasmophobia is a first-person, 4-person horror coop recreation. But whereas Valve’s undead shooter leans into motion with weapons a-blazing, Phasmophobia takes a extra classical method to terror. You management a tiny staff of paranormal ghost hunters, touring to varied areas and utilizing an array of apparatus (from UV blacklights to EMF readers) to attempt to determine the kind of spook haunting the home, and the place they’re lurking. The locations are darkish. The ghosts are not pleasant.
It’s already the perfect ghost recreation I’ve ever performed, even in its present barely janky early entry type. The tips it pulls utilizing the in-game voice chat may be really terrifying. Turn off the lights, seize some pals, and don’t miss out.
Turtle Rock
Speaking of “Like Left 4 Dead,” Back 4 Blood is a brand new cooperative first-person shooter the place you and three buddies (or AI companions) blast by way of hordes of zombies, together with particular variations with meaner talents. Sound acquainted? It ought to—the sport’s even made by Turtle Rock, the developer behind Left 4 Dead. A brand new card system provides a random factor to the sport that may flip conditions on their heads (for higher or worse) and amps up the replayability.
It’s nonetheless a wee bit tough in spots in these early days, however for those who’ve been feeling nostalgic for the L4D really feel of yesteryear, seize some buddies and saddle up. Better but, Back 4 Blood is included in Microsoft’s wonderful Xbox Games Pass for PC, so that you may not even spend a dime to get in on the enjoyable.
Bloober Team
What occurs if you pair up the builders behind horror classics like Layers of Fear, Observer, and Blair Witch with Silent Hill veteran Akira Yamaoka contributing music, then prime all of it off with a cutting-edge real-time ray tracing graphics engine? You get The Medium, a really darkish and disturbing third individual journey the place you play as a psychic who travels (generally in actual time) between the actual world and the spirit world to resolve a thriller in an deserted jap Europe resort city. This one will stress your PC {hardware} in addition to your psyche.
Chernobylite
Not solely is the concept of exploring the well-known nuclear catastrophe website Chernobyl scary in itself, however think about if there have been supernatural creatures roaming round as nicely? Chernobylite seems like a sci-fi horror model of S.T.A.L.Ok.E.R. or Metro set in Chernobyl’s tour zone as you attempt to observe down what occurred to your fiancee 30 years in the past. It’s a stealth based mostly FPS with some attention-grabbing base constructing and choose-your-own-adventure-style storytelling in a package deal I’ve by no means skilled earlier than, and I find it irresistible.
Over a decade after its debut, Frictional’s Amnesia sequence stay a number of the most really spine-tingling horror video games accessible. This yr, Frictional delivered a deal with simply in time for Halloween. Amnesia Rebirth takes place within the Algerian desert in 1937, placing you within the sneakers of Tasi Trianon, who—after all—wakes up with no reminiscence. The recreation’s builders name it “A harrowing journey through desolation and despair, exploring the limits of human resilience.” Better but, Rebirth is a direct follow-up to the legendary Dark Descent, and a number of the locales give off sturdy Soma vibes—two video games we’ll discuss extra later.
Bloober Team places out damned creepy video games, however the one I’m extra enamored with isn’t a fantastic match for this checklist. Layers of Fear 2 is a masterpiece of art direction, a superb homage to traditional Hollywood that I extremely advocate—nevertheless it’s not scary.
Blair Witch is fairly tense although. Taking on the discovered footage aesthetic of the movies, you play as an ex-cop who joins a lacking individuals search—and finally ends up (as you’d anticipate) hopelessly misplaced within the woods. As ever, Bloober’s received a neat gimmick to go along with the motion, scrubbing by way of movie clips to vary the state of the world. That’s a aspect course although. Really, this one’s simply in regards to the pressure of being alone in a forest labyrinth, with no approach out. Sometimes the easy ideas are the scariest, yeah?
A remake of Ice Pick Lodge’s 2004 oddity Pathologic, pseudo-sequel Pathologic 2 preserves a lot of the unique’s delicate horror. There’s a metropolis. There’s a plague. There’s by no means sufficient time.
And certain, there are extra conventional horror components—cryptic speeches, otherworldly entities. It’s extra in regards to the expertise although. Playing as “The Haruspex,” you’re ill-equipped to unravel Pathologic 2‘s mysteries, and that’s a part of the draw. If horror video games are about making the participant really feel weak and powerless, then Pathologic 2 is among the most profitable horror video games of all time. Every success is hard-won, and any fleeting catharsis like a breath of recent air for a dying man.
Resident Evil 2 was one of many extra uncared for Resident Evil entries. Whereas each the debut and Resident Evil 4 have been remastered and even remade repeatedly, Resident Evil 2 was left to languor on the PlayStation for 20 years.
Capcom did right by it though. The Resident Evil 2 remake is the bar for any and all remakes going ahead, transplanting the story and ambiance of the unique into a contemporary engine. A map that tracks your per-room progress is one in all many good tweaks right here, as is ditching the long-lasting (however annoying) save ribbons for all however the hardest difficulties.
Since this remake got here out, Resident Evil VII introduced pure horror in a single bleak location again to the sequence, whereas Resident Evil VIIIage (sigh) revived the clockwork puzzle really feel of the sooner video games. There was additionally a Resident Evil 3 Remake that wasn’t fairly as profitable. But for those who’ve solely received time for one RE recreation this Halloween season, begin with Resident Evil 2 Remake.
No Code’s final challenge Stories Untold created horror from the mundane, nightmares unfolding whilst you spooled by way of microfiche or adjusted the dials on an X-ray machine. Observation is barely extra energetic, however retains that analog really feel. This time you’re aboard a spaceship in Saturn’s orbit—or slightly, you are the spaceship. You’re S.A.M., the ship’s synthetic intelligence, solely afforded a window on the world by way of your numerous safety cameras.
I nonetheless assume No Code described it finest of their first pitch, once they mentioned “Observation is form of 2001: A Space Odyssey—however you’re HAL.” Combine that with some Annihilation-esque cosmic horror, and you’ve got all the makings of an unsettling slow burn.
Another one for followers of New Weird, Control definitely isn’t probably the most conventional horror recreation. Hell, it’s not even probably the most conventional horror recreation made by Remedy. That’d be Alan Wake, after all.
But Control attracts lots of inspiration from The Southern Reach Trilogy, from SCP Foundation, from House of Leaves, from The X-Files and Twin Peaks—in different phrases, from lots of sources which might be horror or at the least horror-adjacent. It’s not often scary nevertheless it’s nearly at all times creepy, a pervasive sense of wrongness that arises from each empty workplace, each clean concrete wall, and…nicely, most likely from the folks floating immobile within the air as nicely.
It’s the kind of horror that sits at the back of your thoughts, just like the veil of the world’s been torn again only a bit to disclose the abyss gazing by way of. And that’s very special indeed.
In 2015 Supermassive tailored Telltale’s type of branching cinematic storytelling to the horror style. The consequence? PlayStation 4 unique Until Dawn, a surprisingly entertaining pulp horror story a couple of bunch of ill-fated teenagers.
Luckily follow-up The Dark Pictures Anthology is funded by Bandai Namco, and thus free to return to the PC as nicely. The first chapter is Man of Medan, which retells the story of the real-world ghost ship Ourang Medan—albeit from the attitude of a recent group of ill-fated twenty-somethings. It’s half journey recreation and half movie, as you make dialogue selections and selections that would hold your characters alive, or end in everybody’s dying.
The writing is pretty predictable, and a number of the performing a bit wood, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a enjoyable time making an attempt to outsmart everybody’s favourite horror tropes. And no matter you do, don’t open the coffins. What, are you making an attempt to finish up lifeless?
New Blood’s carved out a neat little area of interest, creating not simply retro-inspired shooters however ones which might be vaguely horror-inspired as nicely. Dusk takes you thru sinister farms and deserted cityscapes, Amid Evil to a lot weirder fantasy environs. But each are about transferring 1,000,000 miles an hour, capturing something that strikes, and opening a bunch of locked doorways. Scary? Maybe not a lot—however solely as a result of you could have greater than sufficient weapons to defend your self from all of the horrors that await.
If that’s not sufficient, Blood: Fresh Supply remasters one in all New Blood’s inspirations. Might as nicely seize all three and get gibbing.
The first Evil Within was a large number of a recreation. Oh certain, it had sensible concepts, however the execution was simply dismal at occasions—clunky motion, a tedious and poorly paced opening, and a save system that brought on a couple of individual I do know to stop after a couple of hours.
But The Evil Within 2 is superb—one of 2017’s best games, even. The extra open-world construction of some acts takes a little bit of getting used to, however its extra story-driven bits are residence to jaw-dropping spectacle: folks’s final moments frozen in time, unsettling structure, supernatural hallucinations. All the concepts that made the primary recreation well worth the grind are again, and paired with a recreation that really performs nicely this time.
Once upon a time this slide was a battle between Dead by Daylight and Friday the 13th, two horror video games with an identical conceit: Asymmetric multiplayer, the place 4 survivors must band collectively and maintain out whereas one other participant, the highly effective monster, tries to kill them off. “Think Evolve, however for sadists,” I wrote.
But Dead by Daylight is your solely choice now. The Friday the 13th recreation received caught up within the ongoing lawsuit over the sequence rights, with the builders just about abandoning and saying “no new content” can be forthcoming. Rest in peace, and all. You can nonetheless purchase it on Steam, however you’re higher off sticking with Dead by Daylight.
One alien. That was the design route behind Creative Assembly’s Alien: Isolation, which pursued the survival horror temper of the unique 1979 movie as a substitute of the action-packed plot of Aliens.
And it labored. Though a bit overlong and at occasions needlessly troublesome, Alien: Isolation is the strongest big-budget horror expertise in years. This recreation is simply plain tense—nearly unbearably so for those who play it with a VR headset. And it’s accessible for Linux, Steam Machines, and OS X, too.
SOMA isn’t the scariest recreation Frictional’s ever made. It’s not. It’s barely a horror recreation for lengthy stretches at a time, and the monsters are extra hindrance than terror.
But the underwater confines of PATHOS-II are sometimes unnerving, what with the groans of pressurized metallic and the flickering lights and the robots that appear to consider they’re nonetheless human. It’s a strong experience, and one nicely value taking part in even when it received’t make you leap out of your seat.
Now we’re digging into Frictional’s really nice scares. A Victorian-era fort could not look like the perfect setting for a horror recreation, however with Amnesia: The Dark Descent Frictional took every little thing it discovered from its earlier video games, polished it, and launched one of many scariest video games of all time. You play as Daniel, an archeologist who’s misplaced his reminiscence and has solely a letter—apparently written by him—to information his escape from the mad fort and shadowy figures that stalk him.
As of 2018, Amnesia‘s also been updated with a new difficulty level, harder than before. I wouldn’t advocate it for brand spanking new gamers, as true horror’s present in pondering you would possibly die after which escaping. But for veterans, it’s nice to have a cause to revisit the fort.
And whereas it’s extra polarizing, the sequel Machine for Pigs is value trying out, so long as you curb your expectations.
Part of the attraction of Doki Doki Literature Club isn’t understanding it’s a horror recreation if you go into it, so it feels a bit like a betrayal to place it on right here, a “Best Horror Games” checklist.
But even understanding there’s a twist coming, Doki Doki Literature Club continues to be a sensible horror expertise that pulls some unsettling tips on the participant. Better but, it’s free, so even for those who’re not huge into the visible novel style usually (I’m not) you received’t threat a lot by downloading it and giving it a attempt.
Asylums are simple fodder for horror. That mentioned, Outlast makes probably the most of its clichéd setting by offering you no strategy to defend your self and forcing you into the found-footage conceit popularized by horror movies like Blair Witch Project. The recreation has some pacing points, nevertheless it’s positively not for the faint of coronary heart—gore and leap scares abound.
And for those who already performed and loved the bottom Outlast recreation, be sure you try the Whistleblower DLC launched final yr. Outlast 2? Not so much.
It’s a point-and-click, however Stasis has ambiance in spades. You get up on a wierd spaceship, surrounded by our bodies, and it solely will get worse from there.
Styled after the traditional isometric horror recreation Sanitarium and paying apparent homage to Alien, Event Horizon, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, and different bits of beloved style fiction, Stasis is well top-of-the-line horror video games in recent times—not essentially due to overt scares, however as a result of it tells a compelling story and has a approach of getting below your pores and skin.
If System Shock 2 is the perfect space-based survival horror recreation of all time—and it’s—Dead Space is a detailed second. Engineer Isaac Clarke makes an attempt to restore an unlimited house station, solely to search out it’s infested by aliens referred to as the Necromorphs.
Dead Space is basically the horror recreation Doom 3 so desperately tried to be. It’s completely value trying out.
Scared by… a textual content journey? It’s true. The story of a creepy previous mansion and a younger couple, Anchorhead is over fifteen years previous at this level and owes a hefty quantity to Mr. H.P. Lovecraft. Like a very good horror novel, Anchorhead is much less about jump-out-of-your-seat scares and extra about creating pressure, nevertheless it does that masterfully.
Plus it’s free, like most fashionable textual content adventures, and playable through your browser.
Also value trying out: Slouching Towards Bedlam, Vespers.