Looking for a scary game to get you into the Halloween spirit, are you? Well, look no further because I’ve got the creepiest games that are sure to set the mood.
In my opinion, the best horror games aren’t the ones that load up on non-stop jumpscares and freak you out with grotesque monsters. The best horror games are ones that leave you wandering around in your own thoughts and soaking in the atmosphere. Games that make you feel weak and vulnerable, terrified to venture beyond your sense of security because you don’t know what’s waiting outside.
So, in the spirit of Halloween, here are the scariest games that we could only get through with the lights on.
Alan Wake 2
One of the best games released last year, Alan Wake 2 is by far one of the most unique experiences I’ve had when playing. You’ll go through a wide range of emotions spanning from dread, anxiety, confusion, and elated joy.
The game opens with you playing a naked man emerging from a lake, lost and confused in the middle of the night. You run through the forest in the dark, feeling a growing ominous dread build. Suddenly, the figure glitches into existence, screaming in a garbled muffled language. They quickly catch you, tie you to a bench and cut out your heart. And it only gets creepier from there!
After that creepy introduction, you then play as Saga, an FBI agent tasked with investigating the strange murder of the man you played the night before. Saga has a unique power to relive experiences in a mind palace and connect dots others can’t. While investigating the body, you discover pages that have written out your very actions, predicting everything about to happen to you.
No other game comes close to the sheer anxiety and surreal dread Alan Wake 2 will induce, and for that reason, it’s one of the best horror games out there, perfect for the Halloween season.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Buy it from: PlayStation Store ($90.95), Epic Games Store ($75.95), Xbox ($90.95).
Alien: Isolation
After the second Alien movie, fans of the series were begging for something from the franchise to take seriously. It wasn’t until Alien: Isolation came out that everyone suddenly remembered, “Oh right, these Xenomorphs are meant to be scary”. And they are at their most terrifying in this game.
You play Amanda Ripley, the daughter of Sigourney Weaver‘s character in the movies who has also become a spacecraft engineer. After her mother’s ship, the Nostromo is discovered and picked up by a larger salvage ship, Amanda boards it looking for answers only to find it abandoned, as though it had quickly been evacuated. Inside, androids roam the halls, unblinkingly carrying out tasks. What little humans remain have formed gangs, ruthlessly battling to occupy territory within the space station to consolidate resources.
As you soon learn, a xenomorph outbreak has taken place on the space station, and you are suddenly pursued by one. If you’re running down a hall too loud, you could find yourself jumped by the Xeno. Not paying attention to your surroundings could have you falling into one of its traps and upsettingly impaled by one of its tails.
If you’re itching for more Xeno horror after Alien: Romulus this year, you shouldn’t skip Alien: Isolation.
Play it on: PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Buy it from: Amazon ($47), Steam ($59.95), PlayStation Store ($47.95), Xbox ($59.95).
Silent Hill 2
Silent Hill is one of the most iconic horror gaming franchises ever to exist, and Silent Hill 2 is largely to thank for that.
You play James Sunderland, the most “my wife is dead” looking guy ever to exist, as he journeys through Silent Hill. “Why?” You ask? Well, you guessed it: his dead wife has written him a mysterious letter from beyond the grave inviting him back to the town they once vacationed in.
Once you get into the misty town, things rapidly descend. Hideous monsters emerge from the mist, attacking you while you uncover more cryptic clues about your wife, threading you along.
Silent Hill 2 is a game oozing with atmosphere. It’ll creep you out and stay with you years after you play it. Lucky for you, it also just got a snazzy new remake, so now’s the perfect time to dive in.
Play it on: PS5, PC
Buy it from: Amazon ($119.81), PlayStation Store ($99.95), Steam ($102.50)
Resident Evil 7: biohazard
The Resident Evil franchise is one of gaming’s most beloved, but also its messiest. After two messy games in a row and a long series of spin-off movies, gamers had soured on the franchise. It was closer to an action-fest shooter and had moved far away from its horror roots.
So, video game company Capcom paid attention and went back to the basics with its seventh instalment in the franchise, Resident Evil 7: biohazard.
You play Ethan Winters, a man who receives a message from his wife, Mia, who disappeared three years ago. The message leads him to a strange house in Louisiana, so run down and disgusting it would make Asmongold blush.
After finding Mia, she’s confused and can’t remember anything. While trying to escape, she’s possessed by a supernatural force and cuts your hand off with a chainsaw (it’s called cute affection). After a quick fight, you wake up and meet the owners of the house – a small family of emotionally volatile murderers who want you to join them.
Play it on: PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Buy it on: Amazon ($34.45), Steam ($28.49), Xbox ($24.95), PlayStation Store ($24.95).
Diablo IV
Do you like creepy demons, grimdark stories and unsettling body horror? Then Diablo IV is for you.
In the Diablo series, the world is a battleground for demons and angels to go all out, and humanity is the poor sucker caught in the middle.
After the events of Diablo III, which saw countless big bad evil demons and smug dickish angels die, for the first time in years, things were looking pretty quiet. That is until a group of fanatical cultists decide to resurrect the demon queen Lilith, who quickly garners waves of cultists and worshippers, and, of course, raises an army from hell to destroy the lands.
While the game isn’t jump-scare scary, it is dread-inducing. Every time you see a rogue human in the vicinity of demons, you’ll instinctively start covering your eyes before they’re inevitably brutally slaughtered.
The game just dropped its first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, this month as well, which continues the story of Diablo IV and introduces even more unsettling horror.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Buy it on: Amazon ($109.95), Steam ($74.95), battle.net ($74.95), PlayStation Store ($74.95), Xbox ($74.95).
No One Lives Under the Lighthouse (2020)
Despite the game’s name, oh, you best believe someone is living underneath the lighthouse. But what? Is it a person? A monster? A creepy Airbnb owner? That’s up to you to eventually discover.
You play as a lighthouse keeper on a remote island, maintaining the town’s ominous lighthouse. Each day, you’ll wake up from your rundown shack, head over to the light house and start your routine of chores for the day. You’ll move some burlap sacks, replace the oil in the lighthouse, and clean out some spider webs. Each day, you’ll notice items moved around, oil spilled all over the place, and other hints that you’re not alone.
This rapidly escalates as you’ll find hints about what happened to previous lighthouse keepers, discover your house ransacked throughout the day, and eventually descend into madness.
To say more would spoil the experience, and that’s no fun! Thankfully, No One Lives Under The Lighthouse will only take roughly three hours to beat. However, if you get sucked into the story in your first playthrough, the game has multiple endings that unlock each time you play.
If you loved The Lighthouse with Robert Pattinson and Willam Dafoe, this game will be right up your alley.
Play it on: PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Buy it from: Steam ($9.95), PlayStation Store ($17.95), Nintendo eStore ($18.00), Xbox ($11.99).
Dead Space (2023)
Dead Space was one of the biggest gaming IPs to launch in the 2010s, thanks to its fresh spin of cosmic body horror. In fact, the game was so beloved by both gaming and horror movie fans alike that legendary horror movie director John Carpenter said it was one of his favourite games of all time. The game also received a huge facelift just last year, so you can see your character get torn to shreds but with ultra-modern graphics! Isn’t that fun?????
You play as Isaac Clarke, a spaceship engineer aboard the spacecraft the Kellion. On a routine trip, you stumble upon a stranded ship called the Ishimura found over a remote planet. After a boarding attempt goes wrong, the Killion is left stranded and vulnerable. Before you have time to process anything, the ship is suddenly invaded by creatures called Necromorphs, who swiftly begin killing everyone on board. In the chaos, someone accidentally does a silly, causing the Kellion to self-destruct due to a malfunction. Narrowly escaping with your life, you find yourself stranded on the Ishimura with all the Necromorphs.
Dead Space is a game for anyone who loves horror sci-fi stories like Event Horizon. So, if you like scary spaceships and undead space monsters, this game was tailor-made for you.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Buy it from: Amazon ($49.95), PlayStation Store ($109.95), Xbox ($109.95), Steam ($89.95)
SOMA
SOMA is not only one of the best horror games out there. It might be one of the best sci-fi stories as well.
You play as Simon, a man who survived a car crash that has left him with a serious brain injury. The treatment has him entering his own mind to resolve the injury of his brain, which is chronically bleeding. These cause memory lapses and nightmares. This setup helps to build the expectation for what happens when you wake up.
Despite the modern opening scene, the game occurs in an abandoned industrial facility inhabited by crazy robots. Oil leaks everywhere, everything is falling apart and on fire, and the robots are disassociating from reality, convinced they’re actually human. You’ll navigate around the facility, opening up blocked passages and defeating whatever crazy robot appears after.
Now, on that setup alone, it’s hard to see why SOMA would be so lauded for its narrative. So, to spoil some of the surprise, yes, there is a massive twist in the game. In fact, it’s such a solid twist, that it launches the game from “solid horror game” to “I’m going to be annoying and only talk about this game for a month”.
Play it on: PC, PS4, Xbox Series X|S
Buy it from: Steam ($43.95), PlayStation Store ($42.95), Xbox ($44.95)
Doki Doki Literature Club
No, I’m not doing a bit. Yes, a romance visual novel is one of the most unsettling games out there. No, it’s not because you have to talk to women or, god forbid, read (that is a part of it, though).
You play as a new student at a school who quickly gets recruited into a literature club so it can meet its minimum member threshold to stay active. There, the club president assigns everyone to write their poems of self-expression. Here, you can help the other club members and support them in reaching their creative ambitions and, supposedly, form a wholesome connection with them.
Now, obviously, this isn’t scary (or at least it shouldn’t be). There is a twist here, something that flips the entire game on its head. But it’s a twist so good that the game has become a genuine cult classic. More than seven years later, it is still getting re-released and has maintained a place in gaming pop culture.
You can download the base version of the game on PC and Mac for free. Or, if you want to buy it on console, you’ll get extra side stories and other goods outside of the game that make it a more definitive version.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Nintendo Switch
Buy it from: Amazon ($79.65), PlayStation Store ($18.95), Xbox ($22.45), Nintendo eStore ($18.75), Steam $(22.99).
Until Dawn
If you have a friend who’s obsessed with horror movies but refuses to touch a video game, Until Dawn is the game to suck them into the hobby.
The game is closer to an interactive narrative with light gameplay sections that will have you exploring linear corridors and collecting items. Outside of those sections, you are making snap decisions in cutscenes that have long-lasting impacts on the rest of the game and its large cast of characters. You don’t play as a single character; you play as eight, and you can easily have everyone killed if you’re not smart and make the wrong choice.
After partying in a lodge on a secluded mountain, a small group of friends must do everything to survive throughout the night while being abducted and hunted down by masked men and horrifying creatures.
If you need further proof of the game’s quality, it also stars a ton of Hollywood bigwigs like Rami Malek and Hayden Panettiere. This makes it all the more shocking when you accidentally make a bad decision, which could result in everyone getting maimed or dying.
Until Dawn also just got a remastered edition for PS5 and PC earlier this month. So if you haven’t played it before, now’s the best time to dive in.
Play it on: PS5, PC.
Buy it from: Amazon ($109.95), Steam ($109.95), PlayStation Store ($109.95)
Darkwood
Darkwood is a classic 2-D top-down experience. Unlike other games that skew your perspective, this game lets you see everything around you (as long as there’s light in the area). That means you’re safe, and nothing will catch you off guard, right? Wrong.
You play as a Polish doctor living in the woods. At the start, you simply go around your little hut, gathering tools and finding things to heal. Along the way, you find a house with a corpse inside it. In it, you find a man whose eyes have been gouged out and replaced with wire; a distorted radio can be heard playing out of his chest. You then pass out and wake up in your house.
Bam. From there, you’re left on your own to survive. During the day, you need to build up your defenses because at night, ooh boy, you’re in trouble. At the end of every day, your secure little hut will have visitors who will break through your windows to attack you. These can range from men, dogs, monsters, or weird mushrooms that boil up through your floor.
During the day, you’ll need to leave your supposedly safe and secure house to forage around for items so you can upgrade your items and defenses. If you don’t, you’ll find yourself getting quickly overwhelmed at night by harder and more elusive creatures. Oh, and if you die, you’ll lose all of your items and have to start from scratch.
All of these elements alone would make it a fairly creepy game to play. But what sends it to the next level is the sound design. There’s no music in Darkwood. It’s just pure atmosphere. At night, this will feel overwhelming as you’ll hear violent knocks against your door, glass breaking, creaking inside your house, and muffled whispers steadily escalating right inside your ear.
Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Buy it from: Steam ($21.95), PS5 ($26.95), Xbox ($21.95)
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