Why would anyone knowingly want to be scared out of their wits? Because it’s so much fun! Like relishing spicy food as sweat pours down your face, horror game aficionados enjoy the deeply immersive feeling of terror and dread as they bury themselves in a nightmarish game world.
With that in mind, we look at six horror games that are guaranteed to give you good value for your money.
From slow burns to jump scares, these six horror games will keep you up at night
1) Alien: Isolation
Platforms: PS3, PS4, PC (Steam/Epic Games Store), Xbox 360, Xbox One, Linux, OS X, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS
Survival-horror game Alien: Isolation is set 15 years after the events of 1979 movie Alien and depicts similarly retro-modern technological artifacts as seen in the movie, giving it a functional and familiar feel. You play as Ripley’s daughter Amanda as she scours the Sevastopol space station for information about her mother while avoiding murderous androids and the titular alien Xenomorph at every turn.
You’ll be hiding inside lockers a lot, sweating as you clutch on to your motion detector to scan for movement. The gameplay is primarily stealth-based, with scant little in the way of defending yourself in combat situations. The eerie corridors set against the backdrop of inky black space creates a palpable sense of tension and dread. Audio-visual design is critical in a game like this and Alien: Isolation certainly delivers on this front, from atmospheric fog in corridors to the scratching and clawing of the murderous Xenomorph as it snakes around vents.
2) Resident Evil 7
Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, Windows (Steam)
Eschewing the more action-focused approaches of its immediate predecessors, 2017’s Resident Evil 7 marked a return to the roots of the franchise, with a first-person perspective and a focus on slowly amping up tension in the highly creepy surroundings of a decrepit plantation home.
Your Moment of Zen has some legit jump scares in it. RE7 in VR is Scary. #ResidentEvil7 #twitchclips #SupportSmallStreamers pic.twitter.com/ymTa54faxU
— Johnny Chase (@JohnnyLChase) October 18, 2019
You play as Ethan Winters, who is on a mission to track down his long-lost wife Mia but soon has more pertinent things to worry about, such as the certifiably insane Baker family. Even when you first arrive at the gates of the Baker Ranch under the late afternoon sun, the sense of dread is scary enough to set you up for what’s ahead. If you’re looking to turn things up a notch, the game can also be experienced in VR on a PSVR 1 system.
3) Alan Wake
Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox One S/X, Xbox Series S/X, Nintendo Switch, PC (Epic Games Store)
Alan Wake was Remedy Entertainment’s second big hit after the widely-acclaimed Max Payne. Though it’s an action-adventure title, the game has some very intense moments of sheer terror and desperation.
You control the titular character, a novelist, as he finds himself facing ghostly apparitions of characters he’d written about. Your primary defense against these “Taken” is light, which you can use to injure them before finishing off the creepy buggers with a firearm. Aside from your flashlight, which keeps running out of juice, you’re kept on your toes as you seek out streetlights and other sources of illumination to keep the Taken at bay.
With relentless adversaries and quick transitions from perfectly serene to disturbingly dark, Alan Wake will keep you at the edge of your seat.
4) Dead Space
Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox Series S/X, PC (Steam/Epic Games Store)
In space, no one can hear you scream, but you’ll certainly wake your family members and neighbors during some of Dead Space’s more scary moments. Set in the 26th century, Glen Schoefield’s sci-fi horror game sees you guiding engineer Isaac Clarke through a mining ship littered with terrifying Necromorphs. These horrific creatures possess a variety of abilities that keep you guessing how they’ll come at you next. To add to the tension, you also have to juggle air tanks to maintain breathable air.
Unlike some horror games, you can fight back in Dead Space, and what a delightful endeavor it is. The game features a highly detailed strategic dismemberment system that lets you shoot off limbs and appendages to slow the enemies down before you give them a good stomping with your armored boots.
The 2008 game was so well-received that it got a much deserved remake earlier this year. All systems were rebuilt from the ground up using EA’s Frostbite Engine and the next-gen consoles’ fast-loading features are taken full advantage of to let you seamlessly transition between sections of the vast ship.
5) Outlast
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Linux, OS X, Nintendo Switch, Windows (Steam/Epic Games Store)
What could go wrong in an asylum? Before you manage to conjure up the vast number of horrific possibilities, you’ll be cut down to size in Outlast. As with Alien: Isolation, this is a game that really doesn’t let you fight back as much as backtrack and avoid trouble before it finds you.
When Outlast came out in 2013, there really wasn’t any horror game that had a playable character quite as defenseless. Your only equipment in the game is a camcorder with night vision for navigating dark areas, and as with Alan Wake, it drains batteries that you have to keep replacing during your jaunts around the asylum. As an added bonus, you can also use it to record certain in-game events that later sees your character, a journalist, write about it to put together a backstory.
6) The Medium
Platform: PS5, Xbox Series S/X, PC (Steam, Epic Games Store), Amazon Luna, macOS
Set in Poland in the years following the fall of Communism, psychological horror game The Medium sees you control Marianne, a spirit medium capable of straddling the real and spirit worlds. It’s quite a unique gameplay mechanic that you have to make good use of to make your way around the world and discover secret passages and hidden clues that are only available in either realm.
Puzzle solving involves fiddling around some very spooky areas in the game, while the occasional Monster chase will have your heart pulsating as you make judicious use of your spirit abilities and stealth to make it to the next safe zone. Along the way, the morbid and, at times, tragic nature of the spirit world never stops being unsettling, as spirits with broken faces and limbs engage you in casual discourse about deeply disturbing events.
