It's Halloween season and you know what that means! Horror, spooky TV shows and ghost stories are best watched around a campfire or by candlelight. But there is one facility that offers arguably the best spooky experience of all, another that allows you to simultaneously absorb the story as it unfolds and dive into it at the same time. We are, of course, talking about video games. And we've rounded up the scariest titles of all time for you to enjoy this Halloween season.
Limbo (2010)
A densely built piece of video game narrative with a wide and hot hazy atmosphere feel,Limbo designed to make you uncomfortable and achieves its purpose from the first moment. You play as a small child in a terrifying world trying to find your sister through a series of terrifying death platforming puzzles. Feeling likeeraser head vover-industrialized nightmare, this world exists in some kind of surreal ethereal realm, with dark black and white monsters lurking on the outskirts of this dreamlike plane of existence.
A lot inLimbo" seems unrequited, which is directly related to its name. Where are we? Who are we? Why are we trying to find our sister? Who are these beings? Are we as good saviors, as morally pure heroes, as we think? All these hidden questions sit and boil in my stomach every time I play this righteous game, and what turns black at the end is sure to amaze everyone.
Project Zero (2001)
For WesternersFatal frame might not be the first game you think of when it comes to scary games, but thanks to the franchise's focus on Japanese horror, this is one of the best games out there. It is also one of the most unique of all. Other games feature non-superhero protagonists who fight supernatural enemies; they are just normal people trying to survive. But at least these ordinary heroes are armed with melee weapons, guns or other items to fight the forces of darkness. VFatal frame your only defense is the camera.
In the original game, you take control of Miku Hinasaki as she sets out to find her missing brother Mafuyu, who in turn went looking for a famous writer in an infamous haunted mansion. (These survival games have a recurring theme, don't they?) The only way the siblings can defeat the ghosts haunting the building - and get to the bottom of the grim ritual event taking place there - is by using the Camera Obscura, an antique camera that acts as analog "ghost hunter". This transition to a "shooter" from the first person is your only weapon in the game, which can be upgraded by getting enough points when you defeat ghosts by photographing them. The closer the spirit, the higher the points, but also the higher the risk of taking significant damage. It’s a clever mechanic that forces the player to confront the very ghosts that are hunting them with just a shutter, flash, and lens. But it's the exploration of some really disturbing themes and Japanese horror that makes the original franchise title stand out.
The Evil Within (2014)
A survival horror game from the original creatorresident evil , The Evil Within is an extremely violent experience that almost never gives you a moment's respite. 100% of the time it's terrible and you rarely have enough bullets to feel safe somewhere.
You play as a police detective trapped in the mind of a killer, traveling through twisted locations and fighting terrible enemies, all based on the memories and emotions of the killer. In classic fashionRE y There is no way for you to defeat every enemy, so you have to choose your battles carefully and get used to holding that sprint button. The creative level design and upgrade system reward the gameplay loops, but nothing beats the game's terrifying boss battles. It's crazy encounters with truly intimidating monsters, and every victory you manage to get feels extremely narrow.
The story is a bit full of gibberish and ultimately doesn't make much sense, butThe Evil Within is such a fun haunting party that you really won't mind too much.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (2002)
We've talked a lot about survival horror and psychological torment in this list of scary games, but we haven't covered one of the genre's smartest twists yet: the sanity meter.Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem mostly cited as the first game to add such a mechanic, especially in the West, though earlier Japanese releasesLaplace no Ma andclock tower did it first. It's also featured on the Gamecube's list of the best games, but often gets lost in conversation with more globally recognizable franchises. But for our money - and our nerves - it's still one of the best when it comes to your skin. So good, in fact, that Nintendo patented the outstanding mechanics of "Sanity Effects".
Eternal Darkness can give a slightly new gameplay every time you pick it up. Hardcore gamers will choose the "red" path, while finishers will have to complete all three paths if they want to do any of them twice. The game gives you a level or so to warm up and get used to the fighting style, but once you get into the second chapter, watch your sanity; it will fall whenever the enemy spots you... and from then on, things will get more and more terrifying. These effects range from small visual changes like camera tilt or environmental effects to stunning fourth wall breaking moments that will leave the player wondering if their game is truly malfunctioning. This is ingenious material that has paved the way for many other games that came out after it.
Unfortunately, despite attempts to revive the title with sequels and possible runs of the franchise, those efforts ultimately failed. Perhaps some tormented soul will try again. In the meantime, we'll be happy to return to the original nightmare.
The Last of Us (2013)
The Last of Us appeals to you from all sides. Its combat sequences, in which your playable character Joel hides, stalks, and struggles to pay off corrupted, vilely engineered zombies (not to mention the depraved, vilely temperamental people doing poorly in this post-apocalyptic war zone), really take my breath away. These are visceral, physical, immersive game design elements that raise the stakes, along with your pulse, with ruthless, verging on brutal efficiency.
And then psychologicallyThe Last of Us hits harder than twelve Bloaters in a row. Its cold open? Emotionally destructive. His moments of mercy and comfort, including this beautiful giraffe? Only momentary relief, an inevitable calm for a doubly destructive storm. His central relationship between Joel and Ellie? What can I say? This is one of the best duets in the history of video games. It's rich and complex, and it's the only life raft that both characters have, and is based on all sorts of unhealthy coping mechanisms. And the final fate of these two is presented in a sequence that I desperately didn't want to execute.
Perhaps this is the scariest part."The Last of Us" ; an endless, ruthless, borderline and ruthlessly effective rush towards destiny, towards the realization that you still have no control. Terrible game, no matter what.
Alien: Isolation (2014)
The most important lesson I learned while playingAlien: Isolation, is that the alien doesn't care 100% about my gun. I was so excited to finally get a gun that I foolishly tried to face the titular space demon and he just knocked the thing out of my hands like a giant cartoon lollipop and killed the hell out of me.Isolation is a survival horror game where you take on the role of Ellen Ripley's daughter as you make your way through a chaotic space station in search of answers about what happened to her mother. The station is divided between human factions, so you will have to deal withMad Max.-style scavengers and crazy androids, trying to make as little noise as possible so as not to attract aliens. When the alien shows up, you can try to hide in lockers, under tables, etc., but be warned: the alien is pretty damn clear and will find you soon, no matter how quiet you are.
The tension and atmosphere is perfect for movie fansRidley Scott 1979 (it even has a DLC where you can play as the Nostromo team in a mini-mission). It's too long to sustain its premise, but when it's at its best,Alien: Isolation is a rather frightening experience that came dangerously close to giving me a stress-induced panic attack.
PT (2014)
I was talking about a particularly vicious contextPT how about a game with time loops, but, accordingly, worth repeating.
In a disorienting first-person perspective, you wander the same winding corridor over and over again, slowly unraveling a more and more pathetic secret, while a cursed ghost pops up and scares your pants. And the more details you reveal about this mystery, the worse things get, culminating in one of the most frightening, taboo revelations I've ever seen in a video game.
This strange, hard-to-find name that literally means "Playable Teaser" belongs to the Dream TeamHideo Kojima andGuillermo del Toro , who developed a short, self-contained title as, well, a teaser for players of concepts that could appear in the next gameSilent Hill . Unfortunately this game has been cancelled.PT has been removed from the PlayStation Store. But all this only adds to the title an almost mythological level of influence, immersion, terrible fright and psychological destruction. To this day, it's the only horror video game I've ever played that made me lose sleep.— Gregory Lawrence
Silent Hill (1999)
While it's certainly not the most impressive graphical game on this list, the visual style of the originalSilent Hill remains creepy AF even 20+ years later. Konami's own Survival Horror franchise created byKeiichiro Toyama , is now inseparable from eerie atmospheric effects, flesh-covered hell dimensions that would make Cronenberg cringe, and otherworldly creatures that are out for your blood and happy to destroy your sanity. And it all started in the first game.
Every time I walk through the sudden fog, I still keep my eye on the Moaning, Mumbling and Gray children.silent HillIt's all about the atmosphere, a stroke of genius that solved the limitations of the GPUs of the time, while also amplifying the spooky factor. Be it fog or darkness, protagonist Harry Mason has never been able to look far in his quest to find his lost daughter in the monster-infested titular city. Throw in a broken radio that plays a burst of static electricity whenever enemies are nearby, blood-soaked obstacles wrapped in barbed wire, plus overalls, puppet nurses, and puppet doctors, and yes, this game hits you in every sense and sensibility. . But to win the day (and survive one of several endings), you'll have to overcome your own fears and descend into the darkness to deal with the deadly cult. Your reward? We return tosilent hill 2, to meet Pyramid Head!
Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010)
Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a first person horror game where you don't have any weapons throws you into a spooky Prussian castle with no memory of who you are or how the hell you got there. As you slowly make your way through the castle, solving standard survival horror adventure puzzles like flipping switches, repairing equipment, and discovering secret doors, you begin to unlock memories that slowly reveal parts of your personality. However, the castle is full of monsters that are so terrifying that you'll probably fall into shocked laughter between genuine screams after one of them suddenly flies out of the darkness towards you.
Your only "weapon" is the flashlight, which burns through fuel like a blind shark, leaving you in a constant race against darkness that will literally kill you if you stay in it for too long.Amnesia is a truly frightening experience that never stops (even the music on the title screen is enough to make you want to immediately turn it off and watchEverybody loves Raymond ). This is probably the scariest game I've ever played, so much so that I haven't been able to finish it yet. You will understand what I mean as you sit in a tiny pool of torchlight in a pitch-black prison, listening to something bustle around you in the dark.
Dead Space (2008)
The gamedead space from EA Redwood Shores scared the hell out of me, and even though I've been playing it for ten years, I can still hear the screams. Released in 2008, Survival Horror takes place on a (presumably) empty mining spaceship that is overrun by deadly monsters called Necromorphs. You make your way through the ship, encountering various monsters in various forms, as well as the remnants of the ship's crew in various... er... disrepair.
What's great about Dead Space is how the game uses light, shadow, and sound design to scare you. It's not so much the monsters' looks, but the tension that builds as you make your way down the hallway with only a flashlight to guide you, only for a creepy crawler to jump out and scream at its full height. as he tries to tear you apart. It didn't help that I played it on a gaming chair with speakers right up to my ears, but I clearly remember making the decision not to play it right before bed anymore. And while the game spawned two sequels, the first entry holds a special place in my heart - which, when I wrote aboutdead space beats pretty fast...
Resident Evil 7 VR
As in the case withAlien: Isolation , Resident Evil 7 itself is scary in first person (for the first time in the franchiseRE ), but playing in VR is a completely different dimension of hell. The various demos that came out prior to the game's launch were more than spooky enough to keep players entertained, whether or not they were related to the story.RE7 or not. It was clear that Capcom was focusing on horror rather than action - a refreshing change for a fairly fast-paced and kinetic line of games - and that immersive first-person VR was the "best" way to play out the experience. …and scare yourself senseless.
The plot itself also changes a bit. Away from the usual cityscapes players are used to, you play as Ethan Winters, a man who ventures into an abandoned plantation house in search of his missing wife. This plan quickly turns to crap as members of the Baker home family (and Ethan's wife Mia herself) soon go on the offensive; these attacks are brutal, ruthless and literally challenge VR players. But this title is scary not only because of the inevitable violence, but also because of the design of the game, which adds almost all the phobias that afflict people. Claustrophobia? Check. Fear of insects? Super double check. Fungal infections, hostages, mysterious creatures lurking under the lake… the list goes on.There’s not much room to breathe from one scene to the next as you try to not only escape but also survive. And this is just the beginning!
"Welcome to the family, son."
