With Halloween approaching, the gimmick of writing about scary things becomes prevalent. Well, far be it for me to buck the tradition. I mean, what am I gonna write about in October, Christmas games?
I decided to go back to my past and chronicle the games that scared me the most. Believe it or not, that’s not a simple thing to do. The horror genre has many entries across numerous platforms, but most of them didn’t pan out. There aren’t a lot of games that really get under your skin and terrify you as you play. I figured I’d list ten of the games that freaked me out the most, listed alphabetically.
There are a few rules in play here. First, these are games I have played. If it’s not listed here, odds are I have not played them. Second, I limited myself to one game in a series. If not, the first three Silent Hill games would be here. Third, I artificially limited myself to ten games. This article is long enough as it is! Fourth, this only covers released games, which unfortunately disqualifies the excellent P.T.
Finally, keep in mind that this list is based on my opinion only. I’m sure some of the entries on this list are debatable, and I’d love to have a debate about them. If I missed a title you consider scary, let me know. If I haven’t played it, I’d like to give it a whirl. If I have, we can discuss its omission.
Alien: Isolation (PS3/PS4/Xbox 360/Xbox One/PC, 2014)
After the absolute shitfest that was Gearbox’s Aliens: Colonial Marines, many were left wondering if anyone would get the Alien universe right. Sega, publisher of Colonial Marines, answered emphatically. They changed developers – and likely corrected the mistakes they themselves made on the previous title – and published Alien: Isolation, a game many consider to be the definitive Alien experience.
Creative Assembly’s title puts you in the role of Amanda Ripley, daughter of Alien badass Ellen. Set 15 years after the original movie, you are placed onboard a courier ship headed to a space station, Sevastopol. The station holds the flight recorder of the Nostromo, the vessel Ellen was on. Amanda seeks closure, hoping to find out what happened to her mother. What she gets upon arriving at Sevastopol is some of the most intense cat-and-mouse gameplay ever experienced in a video game.
Amanda is pitted against only one xenomorph, but she cannot kill it. As you guide her around the Sevastopol, hunting for clues or supplies or just help, the alien is ever present in the back of your mind. You will find weapons that will fend off the beast, but it will only slink away and plot how to approach next. The feeling of being hunted combined with the claustrophobic environs you have to maneuver through create a tension that is palpable to the gamer. I cannot imagine playing this game in VR without wearing an adult diaper!
As both a chapter in the movie’s lore and as a horror game, this title succeeds.
Alone in the Dark (PC, 1992)
This was the first game to truly scare the pants off me. It is quite literally the granddaddy of survival horror, directly inspiring the Resident Evil series. Though some parts of this game don’t hold up as well today, this game still packs the scares.
The year is 1924, and Jeremy Hartwood, a famous artist, has hung himself in his mansion, Derceto. The police investigate, rule it a suicide, and move, on. But two people – Emily Hartwood, Jeremy’s niece, and Edward Carnby, a private investigator – decide to enter the mansion. Once inside the mansion, they are trapped and must discover the source of the mansion’s haunted legend.
Surviving is by far the most difficult thing in this game. Danger is hidden around almost every corner, in the form of a monster, trap, or puzzle. Some monsters are unkillable, forcing you to solve a puzzle to get past. Throughout the game, you constantly feel like there is something unseen that is ready to pounce. It’s that dread that accompanies you throughout the entire game.
Certain things, like the visuals and mechanics, don’t hold up well today. Still, this game still manages to frighten the living shit out of players. Yes, the granddaddy of survival horror still holds up. For those who love a good scare, especially nostalgic gamers, Alone in the Dark is a superb old-school scarefest.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent (PS4/PC, 2010)
Take Lovecraft’s flair for the unseen horror, add some Lovecraftian insanity, and take away your ability to defend yourself. That is Amnesia: the Dark Descent, and it is one the scariest fucking games you will ever play!
You play as Daniel. It is August 1839, and you wake up in Brennenburg Castle in Prussia knowing only your name and that you lives in Mayfair, London. You then find a note you wrote to yourself, which says you erased your own memory and that you have to make your way to the Inner Sanctum of Brennenburg Castle to kill Baron Alexander.
From that point on, everything about this game is meant to terrify you. Daniel is already slightly unhinged, and the game’s mechanics are not designed to help him. In addition to a health meter, Daniel has a sanity meter. As you guide him through the castle, you have to manage his sanity. As his sanity is drained, he begins to hallucinate and hear things. His sanity is drained by being in the dark and seeing monsters or other horrors.
If Daniel is spotted by a monster, all he can do is flee; he cannot fight and there are no weapons, and the monsters will chase until Daniel is out of sight. You can help Daniel escape by finding hiding places or barricading openings. When monsters lose sight of Daniel, they will stalk around searching for him, giving up after a time. All of this drains Daniel’s sanity. If his sanity bar drains completely, he passes out. His bar will replenish during this time, but he is especially vulnerable to the monsters.
The game is not difficult gameplay-wise. The difficulty lies in the wall-to-wall, non-stop terror Daniel faces from the very beginning. Oftentimes you find yourself hastily sneaking past an empty room you swear is filled with shamblers. That’s how much this game screws with your mind.
Of all the games here, this is the one with the most terror per minute. Amnesia is madness in digital form, and true horror fans can NOT pass up a go at it!
Dead Space (PS3/Xbox 360/PC, 2008)
For a few years, it seemed that horror games of any stripe were just about done. The Resident Evil Series ditched survival horror in favor of action, the Silent Hill series had become a caricature of its former self, and video game publishers seemed convinced that no one wanted a horror game anymore. Then Visceral’s Dead Space appeared and reminded people just how awesome horror games can be.
It is 2508 and you are Isaac Clarke, a ship systems engineer aboard the USG Kellion. When the planetcracker ship USG Ishimura sends out a distress beacon, your ship is sent to render assistance. What follows Isaac is a horror-filled trek through a dilapidated spaceship manned by a necromorphs that never stop coming and constantly test Isaac’s – and your – perseverance.
The atmosphere in this game goes a long way toward adding to the horror, with darkened hallways and wrecked rooms hiding necromorph spawn points. Since necromorphs die from limb dismemberment, the ability to target and lop off arms and legs becomes a perverted kind of fun. But the necromorphs adapt quickly, and later ones can be pretty frightening with their abilities. The game does go pretty heavy on the jump scares in some parts, but it doesn’t detract from the overall mood.
Whenever I play this game, I fire up my sound bar, turn off the lights, and clench my butt cheeks. The spooks are real!
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (GameCube, 2002)
The sanity meter that makes up such a big part of Amnesia actually made its debut here. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem is a GameCube exclusive that is seen by many – myself included – as the absolute best survival horror game ever made for a home console. It may also be the biggest mindfuck you can play.
In this game, you are Alexandria Rovias, and you receive a call in the middle of the night that your grandfather, Edward, has been murdered. You travel to his Rhode Island mansion and decide to stay and investigate his killing. While there you discover an odd book bound in human bone and skin, named the Tome of Eternal Darkness, which holds mysteries about your ancestry. Unfortunately, an evil being named the Ancients wants to use the book in its quest to overtake the world.
As you play through the game, you assume the role of Alexandria or one of her ancestors. There are 12 playable characters in the Rovias bloodline, spread across different eras. Each give more insight into her past, as well as what the Ancients is.
This game was the first survival horror game to erase all the clunkiness of earlier titles. The tank controls and pre-rendered areas are gone, as is the static camera. Melee combat is great, allowing you to target specific areas on enemies rather than just blindly slashing at them.
Of course, the mechanic that defined Eternal Darkness is its sanity meter. As you play through the game, certain unsightly events or monsters drain your sanity meter. As the sanity meter drains, your character begins to hallucinate. If it drains completely, your character keels over. The effect loss of sanity has on the character varies wildly, your character suddenly appearing in a dark room and being chopped to pieces or – famously – a sudden Blue Screen of Death indicating the game crashed…just before the character snaps back to reality. You will find yourself screaming with your character, “THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING!”
If you own a GameCube or backward-compatible Wii and love horror games, Eternal Darkness HAS to be in your library.
Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly (PS2/Xbox/PS3, 2003)
As Resident Evil and Silent Hill dominated the survival horror genre, other games tried adding different gimmicks to their formula in order to carve their own niche. Dino Crisis is Resident Evil with dinosaurs; Siren is Resident Evil with religion. Tecmo’s Fatal Frame series was essentially Silent Hill with a camera, but its creepiness is unique to the series.
Crimson Butterfly centers on twin sisters, Mayu and Mio Amakura, who venture into an abandoned village that is known as the Lost Village. Once there, a spirit possesses Mayu and plans to use her as a sacrifice. You control Mio and must save your twin while trying to decipher the secrets of the Lost Village.
The main mechanic of this game centers on the Camera Obscura, an enchanted camera that can take pictures of the undead. The village is populated by the spirits of villagers who are perpetually trapped doing what they were last doing before being banished, and it helps release them. It also allows you to fight evil spirits. Power-up lenses can be found that can increase damage or add status effects like slowing to enemies. Proximity to the spirit also determines how much damage the spirit receives, which means that you have to get closer to the nasties to hurt them. Oh, and you can’t attack – or sometimes SEE – the spirits without the Camera Obscura.
As Mio unravels more of the Lost Village’s lore, things get creepier and creepier, unveiling more of how this village met its fate. Everything drips with references to Japanese ideas of the afterlife and the underworld. From the word go, everything about the game is unnerving in a way unique to Japan.
I played the Director’s Cut of this game, which improved the audio and visuals, for the Xbox with my daughter. She and I can both attest to just how eerie this game is. For fans of The Ring and other Japanese horror movies, Fatal Frame: Crimson Butterfly is a no-brainer.
Outlast (PS4/Xbox One/PC, 2013)
Many games have tried to duplicate the success of Amnesia. Outlast was able to retain the terror of Amnesia while introducing new mechanics that set it apart from its progenitor.
The game puts you in the shoes of Miles Upshur, a freelance investigative journalist. After an anonymous tip about inhumane experiments being conducted at Mount Massive Asylum, he ventures out to the asylum to investigate. Once inside, he is trapped and forced to dig deeper into the asylum’s secrets to escape.
Unlike Amnesia, there is no sanity bar and no candles or lanterns for light. Instead, Miles wields a camcorder, which has an infrared setting to see in dark areas. However, he must constantly replenish its batteries if he wants to continue using it. The monsters are not supernatural in nature, but the results of the horrible experiments taking place in the asylum.
Either way, you still cannot fight your enemies. Like Amnesia, you must flee from your enemies until they lose sight of you. There are hiding places, like lockers and dark corners, where you can try to hide. You then spend the next few seconds hunched in your cubbyhole, watching them look for you in terror.
The story itself is creepy enough, containing enough dismemberments, corpses, and crucifixions to fill up Stephen King’s bedroom. This is a seriously creepy game.
Resident Evil REmake (GameCube/PS4/Xbox One, 1999)
Resident Evil is the title that brought survival horror to home consoles, and it must be given its due. This entry is for the REmake, however, because the original, although trailblazing, is hokier than an Uwe Boll movie.
The story for Capcom’s horror tale follows Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, members of Raccoon City’s elite police force, Special Tactics and Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.). While scouring the outskirts of Raccoon City for lost team members, they and two other teammates – Albert Wesker and Barry Burton – are attacked by rabid dogs and forced to hole up in Spencer Mansion, where they are trapped. While looking for an escape path, they uncover secrets about illegal experiments carried out by a research arm of Umbrella Corporation. Those experiments roam the halls of Spencer mansion and threaten the S.T.A.R.S. members as they try to escape.
All of the survival horror staples that fans have come to expect from the series are present here. Puzzles are scattered about the mansion, forcing players to wander the halls of the mansion looking for clues. These halls will frequently be populated by zombies, which must be either dispatched or avoided. Certain moments involve fights with zombies that cannot be avoided. And the inventory system will conspire against even the most patient gamer.
The REmake improved the visuals and added a new campaign, as well as introducing a new enemy that will persist throughout the campaign. It also improves the original game’s FMV sequences and overall voice acting, which were easily the worst part of the game. I am usually a stickler for the nostalgic, but this is one exception I make easily.
Sanitarium (PC, 1998)
Of all the games in this list, Sanitarium is the only point-and-click game. That does not detract this game’s ability to horrify you psychologically.
In this game, your character awakens from a coma after a nasty car accident and finds himself in a sanitarium with amnesia. Through the other inmates, he learns that they know him as “Max.” As you guide Max through the sanitarium, which is barren save for the lunatics, you begin a journey through his broken mind, tripping through eight different “worlds” composed of the fragments of his reality. Ultimately, Max has to figure out how he was left in the sanitarium while questioning his own sanity.
This is the kind of game that makes me think its developers, DreamForge Intertainment, did ALL of the acid! The main game is centered inside the sanitarium, while the game’s eight chapters are “worlds”, manifestations of Max’s fractured mind. Those worlds are absolutely disturbing, inducing dread in players as they explore them. Max assumes a different persona in each manifestation, further establishing his supposed insanity. Between the bouncing between worlds, the constant flashbacks, and the attempt to figure out what is real and what is not, it’s a wonder that a gamer’s brain isn’t turned to tapioca. Soon enough, though, a sort of equilibrium is reached, where you begin to understand the game’s disjointed logic. It doesn’t make the game any less creepy, though.
Since the game is point-and-click, its emphasis is not on action but dialogue. There are a few sequences that require some fighting abilities, but they are few and far between. Fortunately, the game’s interface is simple to navigate and doesn’t require too much thought.
If you want to take a trip down a particularly disturbing rabbit hole, Sanitarium can oblige
Silent Hill 2 (PS2/ Xbox/ PC, 2001)
I knew an entry in Konami’s survival horror series would make it in; I was just unsure which of the original three to choose. I finally chose Silent Hill 2 because it was the one that messed with my mind the most.
The game has you play as James Sunderland, a man who arrives to foggy Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his dead wife, Mary, asking him to meet her there. She had died three years prior from an illness, so the arrival of the letter confused him enough to travel there to investigate. While there, he comes across a few people, including Maria, a woman who looks a lot like his Mary. All of them are a bit unstable, making James wonder what’s going on. Of course, there are also monsters lurking through the fog. James decides to explore the town, trusty weapon and radio in hand, trying to figure out what’s going on.
The makeshift weapon and radio, which produces a rasp of static whenever something draws near, are about the only things that return from the original, apart from the town’s name and its fog. The name of this game is puzzles, as there are a liberal amount of them strewn about. They’re not difficult, but they do require pieces that James may not have on hand, forcing a lot of backtracking. Unfortunately, that means braving the fog and whatever is hidden inside it. Traveling through the fog really does take an emotional toll on you as you play. The moment the radio crackles, most orifices tend to snap shut.
Worse is the psychological fear you feel from the other inhabitants you find, particularly Maria. At one point, you see her killed by two Pyramid Heads, the iconic creatures of the series, only to find her later unharmed and with no recollection of that event. These things tend to further confuse you and further distrust anyone you find.
There are many encounters with strange creatures, and here you can fight back. But it’s the psychological fear that can paralyze you sometimes. Everything looks and sounds disjointed. The sound effects particularly keep you on edge. When everything is covered by fog and you hear an odd noise, not knowing direction or distance can really crank up the paranoia.
Silent Hill 2’s is the antithesis of Resident Evil. In Capcom’s series, the threats are external and dealt with physically. In Silent Hill 2, your imagination is the bigger threat. It is psychologically creepy, and the images your mind conjures up after a sitting with it may stay with you for a while after.
