Horror Video Games deliver intense, spine-chilling experiences, making them a favorite among gamers. At polarservicecenter.net, we understand the need for immersive entertainment, and we’re here to guide you through the top horror games available. This guide will help you find the most terrifying and brilliantly crafted horror experiences that will chill you to the core.
1. Stay Out of the House
Stay Out of the House Cannibal Butcher
In recent years, many have attempted to capture the nostalgic, yet deeply unsettling aesthetic of analogue horror – a subgenre centred around turn-of-the-millennium tech and found footage – but none do it quite as well as developer Puppet Combo. Stay Out of the House is the standout entry of the one-man studio’s work, putting you to the test as you attempt to escape the disgusting lair of a cannibal butcher.
You have three days to plan your escape: will you scramble for a weapon?; set the serial killer’s traps against him?; or maybe help other survivors? The killer will adapt to all of them, barricading once-unlocked rooms, hiding items, and more, all to offer you an unforgettable CRT-filtered nightmare.
2. Slender: The Eight Pages
Slender: The Eight Pages Flashlight
Slender: The Eight Pages arms you with just a flashlight and tasks you with sneaking through a park at night to collect a series of increasingly creepy notes. You need to stay one step ahead of the “Slender Man” – a tall, faceless, tuxedo-wearing terror that stalks you throughout the ten or so minutes it’ll (hopefully) take you to escape. It’s simple but effective, and its stalking threat stays with you far longer than it takes to play.
3. The Evil Within
The Evil Within Protagonist
The Evil Within offers challenging gameplay, limited resources, an engaging story, and brilliantly horrific enemy design – The Keeper, Laura, Zehn, and Neun. This wickedly creative, tense, and tough game does not suffer fools gladly, yet you’d be an even greater one not to give it a chance. That is the definition of great survival horror.
4. Condemned: Criminal Origins
Condemned: Criminal Origins FBI Agent
Condemned: Criminal Origins combines survival horror action with detective work, it builds a great sense of atmosphere that always makes you feel on edge and uncomfortable, and that’s the best part about it. Even if you’re squeamish, we recommend you play this alone at night with all the lights off, even if it’s just once, to fully appreciate just how frightening it really is.
5. Manhunt
Manhunt Execution
Manhunt stands out by making you the architect (albeit under slight duress) of the terror. James Earl Cash, a criminal sentenced to death row, is given a second chance in the form of a “starring” role in a mysterious director’s snuff film. Bloody, violent, and questionably sick, Manhunt is M-rated for a reason, and that’s largely because of its graphic depictions of murder. Death by crowbar to the face, wire chokes, and machete hackings are just some of the gruesome things you’ll see.
6. Inside
Inside Side Scroller
Inside is a side-scroller dripping with an oppressive, unsettling atmosphere. Playing as a young boy in a world filled with ever-increasing danger, you must solve elegantly designed puzzles and escape all sorts of horrors as you push onward. It’s the fear of the unknown that keeps tensions high. As you gain the ability to control others and put them to work in the game’s best conundrums, Inside’s incredible art direction really comes alive, showcasing a dark, twisted world where humanity has been reduced to faceless shadows of their former selves. It’s unforgettable stuff.
7. Visage
Visage 1980s
Set in the 1980s, you play Dwayne Anderson, a resident of a large home tormented by the supernatural, as he tries to find a way out and learn more about what is causing the paranormal activity. As you explore the dark and eerily silent house, entities taunt you by breaking light bulbs, turning on and off lights, and slamming doors. This constant barrage of sensory terror, combined with the pressure to maintain Dwayne’s sanity, makes Visage one of the more challenging horror games released in recent years.
8. Phasmophobia
Phasmophobia Ghost Hunters
Phasmophobia involves four players joining together as amateur ghost hunters, armed with tools like night-vision cameras, holy water, and radios. Wander through haunted homes and abandoned prisons, calling out for spirits from the beyond, as you gather clues in an attempt to successfully identify what kind of ghost is haunting your location. As the clock ticks the chances of running into a ghost increase, and so does the danger.
9. Dead by Daylight
Dead by Daylight Killers
Dead By Daylight launched in 2016 as a meagre but well-meaning asymmetrical slasher horror game where various bumbling teenagers avoided gnarly eviscerations from archetypal slasher movie villains. By 2021, it had become the Super Smash Bros. of horror games. It’s just as fun to play the game as a group of seemingly helpless survivors in one round as it is to play as a huge, powerful, horror movie monster in the next.
10. Until Dawn
Until Dawn Camp
Until Dawn possesses all the best (and worst) qualities of a B-grade horror movie: camp, gore, death, interpersonal tension, cheesy dialogue, a predictable plot, and liberal use of jump scares. Its game world – the Blackwood Mountain lodge – is relatively small, but developer Supermassive made it as entertainingly hostile as possible. This bitter landscape is captured with a keen eye on isolation, and Until Dawn does a great job of encouraging the sense that you’re always being watched as the teens split off from one another both physically and emotionally.
11. Alan Wake 2
Alan Wake 2 Night City
Taking cues from the likes of David Lynch, Stephen King, and David Fincher, Alan Wake 2 is a deeply cinematic dive into the surreal. It’s a game of two halves and follows the intertwined journeys of titular writer Alan Wake and FBI agent Saga Anderson. The further you venture, the stranger things get; you’ll write new pathways through reality, witness a bizarre Finnish horror movie, endure an anxiety-inducing chat show, and take part in the best rock opera you’ve ever gunned your way through.
12. Soma
Soma Underwater
Soma is undoubtedly one of the subgenre’s shining interactive examples. Set in a decaying underwater research facility, it navigates themes of identity, consciousness, and the role of artificial intelligence while also subjecting you to nail-biting stealth horror situations. This is a non-combative experience with an emphasis on avoiding danger at all costs.
13. Clock Tower
Clock Tower orphan
Clock Tower is a 16-bit survival horror classic that deserves its place on this list thanks to its pioneering stalker-psychopath gameplay. Jennifer is a teenage orphan stranded in a Resident Evil-like manor and she’s tasked with point-and-clicking through its impressively detailed, oppressive world. Worst still, she has to avoid the dreaded “Scissorman” who is a near-unstoppable force who is always lurking nearby.
14. Forbidden Siren 2
Forbidden Siren 2 PS2
Forbidden Siren 2. The story follows a group of stranded survivors on a remote Japanese island. Exploiting the best J-horror tropes, this episodic-style mystery has a steep learning curve: trying to master the unique ‘sight jacking’ ability – which lets you peer through the eyes of both friends and foes to navigate its rain-soaked levels – it tricky, but once mastered, you’re left with a refreshingly unique horror experience.
15. Resident Evil
Resident Evil Zombie
It’s hard to imagine what horror in video games would look like without the arrival of Resident Evil. The first in the long-running (and extremely successful) series arrived in 1996, letting players explore the zombie-infested, puzzle-riddled Spencer Mansion, and it’s fair to say the survival horror genre hasn’t looked back since. Resident Evil set the mould for everything that followed. The isolation, the limited resources, the relentless sense of dread, and jump scares.
16. Five Nights at Freddy’s
Five Nights at Freddy's animatronic
Five Nights at Freddy’s is an entire game about the fleeting joy and haunted magic of a seemingly lifeless collection of animatronic pizza restaurant mascots who suddenly spring to life and become horrifying nightmares. You’ll flip through security cameras and other various devices while unsettling mechanical faces pop up sporadically or generally go bump in the night.
17. Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil 4 Reinvention
By the time Resident Evil 4 rolled around the played-out formula of the series was in need of a reinvention. Resident Evil 4 once again puts you in the shoes of Leon S. Kennedy, who is in rural Spain to rescue the president’s daughter. But that plot quickly thickens as he gets tangled up in a story in which a new deadly virus threatens to sweep the world.
18. Left 4 Dead 2
Left 4 Dead 2 Zombie
As the title suggests, each mission of Left 4 Dead sees four players stranded in a quarantine zone and the group will only make it out alive if they work together to overcome the undead hordes. Left 4 Dead’s enduring appeal lies in its smart AI director, which finds new ways to deploy zombies and generate scares in every match. With snappy gunplay, fantastic level design, and a whole ‘80s horror franchise’s worth of blood ready to chuck all over the walls, Left 4 Dead 2 remains an eternal horror classic.
19. Outlast
Outlast Interactive Nightmare
With Outlast, developer Red Barrels took the found footage movie genre and expertly turned it into a five-hour interactive nightmare. Outlast gives players nothing in terms of defense; it’s a game of cat and mouse, where you’re the mouse and the cats are hyper-aggressive, disfigured patients at a supposedly abandoned psychiatric hospital.
20. Alien: Isolation
Alien: Isolation extraterrestrial
Alien: Isolation demands that you outwit a single, indestructible xenomorph that stalks you around the sprawling Sevastopol space station. The beast quite literally has a mind of its own, capable of learning your tactics and finding new ways to hunt you. With only stealth, guts, and a few select tools to help you survive, Alien: Isolation is a terrifying horror simulator in a way few other games on this list are.
21. Dead Space
Dead Space Derelict Spacecraft
As Isaac Clarke, you’re tasked with exploring a derelict spacecraft with terrore lurking around every corner. Its dimly lit corridors are littered with monstrosities from god-knows-where, and unfortunate crewmates mutilated into a disfigured mess. Dead Space personifies our fear of the unknown and graphically illustrates the deep space horrors we’d only ever really seen in the movies.
22. P.T.
P.T. Looping Hallway
P.T. may not have been a full release and it’s no longer available to download, so we debated whether it should even be on this list. But the playable teaser – hence the name P.T. – is one of the scariest games ever made and as such, deserves recognition. The subtle changes to the environment on each loop preyed on players’ expectations of familiarity and added disturbing life to a seemingly restricted play area.
23. Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Amnesia: The Dark Descent Brennenburg
Starting with the protagonist, Daniel, waking up alone in the dark castle of Brennenburg, he has no memory of how he got there. As he explores his surroundings he realizes there’s a shadow stalking him, and wandering about the castle are other creatures that will give chase if they spot you. Your only defence is to run and often hide in the dark. Stay in the dark too long and you’ll lose your mind. You’ll need to balance the game’s use of light to see what the hell you’re even doing with hiding in the darkness to avoid monsters, the same darkness that is slowly driving you insane.
24. Resident Evil 2 (2019)
Resident Evil 2 Protagonist
The locations were creepier, the enemies more menacing – this was the introduction of the infamous Licker and Mr. X – and the scares were bigger and badder. The adventures of Leon and Claire in Raccoon City not only became a benchmark for Resident Evil but for the genre as a whole In every way that 1998’s Resident Evil 2 improved on its predecessor, the remake also replicated in kind.
25. Silent Hill 2
Silent Hill 2 Restless Town
It’s an increasingly disturbing and psychological journey into the repressed thoughts of its unassuming protagonist, and the tortured souls he meets along the way. Emotional tragedy, guilt, anger, abuse, and the horrible ways the resulting trauma manifests are handled with a grace and maturity that only strengthens Silent Hill 2’s disturbing subject matter. The mounting feeling that you are fleeing from an inescapable mistake, all leading up to the haunting revelation at the end and a devastating fight against one of video gaming’s most menacing antagonists, makes Silent Hill 2 the scariest game of all time.
Top 50 Horror Video Games
Here is the list that emerged from the shadows after 1.2 million match-ups, as chosen by the IGN audience using our Face-Off tool in October 2022.
| Rank | Game | Developer |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Silent Hill 2 (2001) | Konami |
| 2 | Resident Evil 2 (2019) | Capcom |
| 3 | Resident Evil 7 Biohazard | Capcom |
| 4 | Dead Space (2008) | EA Redwood Shores Studio |
| 5 | Resident Evil 4 | Capcom |
| 6 | Silent Hill | Konami |
| 7 | Resident Evil Village | Capcom |
| 8 | Resident Evil 2 (1998) | Capcom |
| 9 | Silent Hill 3 | Konami TYO |
| 10 | Resident Evil (2002) | Capcom Production Studio 4 |
FAQ About Horror Video Games
What makes a video game “horror?”
A video game is classified as horror when it aims to evoke feelings of fear, dread, and anxiety in the player. This is achieved through various methods such as suspenseful atmosphere, jump scares, psychological elements, and disturbing imagery.
What are the key elements of effective horror video games?
Effective horror video games typically include a combination of suspenseful atmosphere, chilling sound design, limited resources, vulnerability of the player character, and a compelling narrative that delves into dark and unsettling themes.
How do horror games create a suspenseful atmosphere?
Horror games create suspense through the use of lighting, sound, and environmental design. Dimly lit environments, unsettling ambient sounds, and claustrophobic spaces all contribute to a sense of unease and anticipation.
What role do jump scares play in horror games?
Jump scares are sudden, startling moments designed to shock the player. While they can be effective in moderation, overuse of jump scares can diminish the overall horror experience. The best horror games use them sparingly to maximize their impact.
What are some popular subgenres within horror video games?
Some popular subgenres include survival horror, psychological horror, and action horror. Survival horror emphasizes resource management and vulnerability, psychological horror focuses on mental and emotional distress, and action horror combines horror elements with combat-focused gameplay.
How do developers balance horror with gameplay mechanics?
Developers balance horror with gameplay mechanics by ensuring that the mechanics enhance the feeling of vulnerability and unease. Limited resources, difficult combat, and the inability to fight back all contribute to a sense of powerlessness that amplifies the horror experience.
What are some of the psychological techniques used in horror games?
Psychological techniques used in horror games include manipulation of player expectations, unreliable narrators, and exploration of taboo subjects. These elements can create a sense of unease and challenge the player’s perception of reality.
How do horror games use sound design to enhance the experience?
Sound design is crucial in horror games as it creates a sense of immersion and unease. Creaking floors, distant whispers, and sudden loud noises can all heighten the feeling of dread and anticipation.
Are there any horror games that are considered “too scary?”
Some horror games are considered “too scary” due to their intense imagery, disturbing themes, and high levels of psychological distress. These games may not be suitable for all players, especially those with a history of anxiety or sensitivity to horror content.
What makes Silent Hill 2 the scariest game of all time?
Silent Hill 2 is considered the scariest game of all time due to its deep exploration of psychological themes, emotional tragedy, and disturbing imagery. The game delves into the protagonist’s repressed thoughts and the tortured souls he encounters, creating a haunting and unforgettable experience.
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