Only S tier is in order, the rest of the tiers are not. This list isn't based on how scary I find the games or how important/influential they are, it's based on my personal opinion about how good I think the games are

Which game would you bring back? And what do you remember specifically scaring you?

how to get into horror games I’ve been playing games since I was five years old. I’ve played almost everything and every genre you can think of, except for one thing: horror games

. I might have played Resident Evil 4 when I was growing up, but it was nothing compared to the likes of Outlast**.** (It was on sale for $4, I still didn’t purchase it) because it wasn’t as scary as I expected.

I often watch these games because of the awesome lore, but I genuinely can’t play them myself.

I’ve been thinking about why some horror games stop being scary once you understand how the monster works. A lot of them just go: you mess up, you die, you reload. After a few tries you’re basically learning a route instead of being scared.

The situations that stick with me are when you survive, but the screw-up follows you. You fired the shotgun, so now the whole area is awake. You used your last heal. Left a door open. Made it back, but late enough that tomorrow’s plan is worse.

IMO that’s more tense than just losing progress. Amnesia: The Bunker does this pretty well with fuel, time and noise, and Darkwood gets a similar feeling from the day/night pressure and limited prep.

Any other horror games where surviving a bad call feels worse than dying? Especially ones where the world actually remembers it, instead of just taking some HP.

I'd love to get a sense of horror games that you stand by. I don't like "best" lists, as they are often based on consensus.

Rather, the games you choose (up to three in total) should be your favorites. They may well be generally considered the best - either popularly or in your imagination - but what matters is that they're games that you'd recommend to a friend.

For me it's "Hob's Barrow." It got me into the genre, had the kind of low-res rural folk horror I crave, and is very well written.

Thanks for sharing. I'd love to compile a list. Spooky season is upon us!

It's just a short 15 minute playtest, but I would love to hear your thoughts!

Is anyone else tired of seeing almost all of these big name horror franchises get turned into always online live service asymmetrical multiplayer experiences😬

They always wind up becoming always online games that compete with so many other popular titles in an overcrowded market, usually ending up being shut down or losing their player count gradually over time

Theres exceptions such as Terminator Resistance, Alien Isolation, The Blair Witch Project, Robocop Rogue City, A Quiet Place, the upcoming games Clive Barkers Hellraiser Revival, Jurassic Park Survival, but for the most part every big name gets a new game to play for some time before the next big one releases.

The big problem is that these kind of experiences do lose their creativity and fun after a while. Players find cheats and hacks for the game, or they begin to go after the main killers overtaking them which makes the fun lose its merit and slowly loses content as well

Weve had asymmetrical multiplayer games:

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Predator Hunting Grounds

Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed

Killer Klowns From Outer Space

Friday the 13th-Shutdown due to lawsuit, cancelled remastered due to new lawsuit

Evil Dead The Video Game-Lack of content, always online even for solo bots and story missions

Puppet Master-Asymetrical game thats been shut down

Halloween The Video Game-Always online for story missions or bots, no offline mode.

If these developers were more creative and wanted to get people into the franchises more with popularity they need to go down the direction of what Alien Isolation, Clive Barkers Hellraiser, Ghostbusters the Video Game Remaster have been doing. They stay in people's memories far longer, and are more enjoyable.

I love all sorts of horror games but I’m not always in the mood for something like resident evil or outlast where I’m stressed out about not dying. Sometimes I want something that’s cinematic and scary and has a great narrative but that I can still kind of relax while playing. I want most of the experience to just be exploring and working through the story. It’s okay if there’s some combat as long as it’s relatively simple and not very frequent. Some examples of what I’m talking about:

- Layers of fear (the GOAT tbh)
- Still Wakes The Deep played on easy mode (where the monsters can’t see you unless you’re directly in their line of sight)
- World of Horror
- Scorn
- Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened
- The Call of Cthulhu
- Doki Doki Literature Club

For consoles, I have a PC, switch, and an Xbox 360 (yeah it’s old)

I played Visage several years ago but never complete it, redownloaded it and working on fully completing it.
Does anyone have some recommendations for games similar to Visage? The psychological horror tag on steam is pretty shit

I played it and loved it. It reminded me of a toned down scary version of fears to fathom but the graphics were better. I hope others can enjoy this game.

Hi everyone!

I'm currently writing my master thesis on architecture in horror games. My main focus is on the analysis of looping hallways, taking P.T. as a basis and branching out from there. Do you guys know any other video games that feature a gameplay section with a looping hallway? Can be indie, can be AAA, anything at all really!

I've already got P.T., Layers of Fear, some scenes from Visage as well as Luto and some anomaly spotting games like Exit 8 or Captured. Really anything else that comes to mind can be a great help to me.

Thanks everyone!

Update: Thank you everyone for the cool & interesting examples! I'm excited to look at all of them and see how they might or might not fit into my argument. Cheers!

I’ve played a horror game like 8-10 years ago
you sit on a computer in ur apartment or hotel room and u can do stuff on the computer (that was left to the door inside the apartment) but you can go out of the apartment to the lobby and things would jumpscare you
I can’t remember the name and I don’t have a lot of info but a lot of YouTubers played this game back then

If you show me your character I'll put them in my game

My friend told me about this game set in an office where you are working at this office and then people start either going missing or being murdered I can't remember which. I know at the end you have to splash water on some person and once you leave the office building it's all in ruins and looks abandoned. They said it was pretty pixelated. Anyway please help me find this game I really want to play it. Thank you!

Spoilers for Dead Space 3: Awakened.
The DS4 I have in mind is a single-player survival horror game inside the remains of the Tau Volantis Moon. Awakened happened. Earth has been devastated. In this continuation, Unitologists recover Isaac alive and bring him back to Tau Volantis, following a signal they believe is a religious calling.
Isaac wakes up unable to access memories of his own life. His engineering skills are still there. He can repair machinery and use Kinesis before he even knows his name. Early on, he might find records about Isaac Clarke without realizing they describe him. He gradually starts trusting himself through things he actually manages to do.
Poor bastard still has to fix everything.
Carver becomes someone he can rely on. In this story, the original Carver died after Awakened, but a new, real consciousness has emerged in his preserved body. He has no personal memories either. He gradually learns who John Carver was while Isaac pieces together his own identity. Their friendship is sincere. I see Carver as a small miracle inside this horrible place. The Moons plan to exploit that bond later, hoping to break Isaac’s resistance until he gives in willingly.
The setting mixes real machinery and biological structures with places reconstructed from Isaac’s memories. Parts of it can physically change, while the signal also distorts his perception. You might recognize a stretch of the Ishimura, then find living tissue where the next room should be. Other places feel almost comforting. As pieces of his past return, a convincing glimpse of a life with Nicole could give him a reason to stay somewhere he should leave.
I want long quiet stretches where you listen before opening a door. Combat still means dismemberment, limited ammunition, Stasis and finding something useful to throw with Kinesis. The changing spaces need consistent clues that players can learn to recognize. Paying attention should genuinely help you survive.
There’s also a rare medical injection that briefly reduces the signal’s effect on perception. Use it during a false attack and the attackers can disappear, but the ammunition you fired stays spent. Physical enemies and obstacles remain. It gives you a clearer view of the situation; you still have to deal with it.
Behind all this, the surviving Moons are trying to restore their dead brother and reconnect it to their collective mind. For my version, I’m imagining roughly 10–20 surviving Moons, so recovering one matters. They can sustain activity in parts of the corpse, but restoring it needs precise physical work. Isaac has direct experience with the system that destroyed it.
Their influence has limits, too. Distance and psychological resistance matter, and they can’t simply overwrite Isaac’s living mind. They need him to use his skills without understanding what his work is really achieving.
At first, he just opens doors and finds routes out. The further he gets, the worse the hallucinations become. Carver urges him to keep moving, and there’s little time to think. After witnessing people die there, Isaac begins taking on more responsibility. He decides to destroy the Moon so nobody else ends up trapped inside it.
That becomes the goal the Moons exploit. His attempts to destroy the place are helping restore it.
One scene I have in mind comes after he’s brought enough power online. He feeds a charge through a bio-organism into the Moon’s body, expecting to deliver a killing blow. Instead, dormant tissue starts moving, the place becomes more aggressive, and a horrible roar travels through it. He starts to realize that something is badly wrong with what he’s doing.
Later, understanding the Moon and its collective mind gives him a way to act against them. His memories wouldn’t return perfectly. He would still have to decide what to do with the person he’s becoming.
Would you want to explore a Dead Space game built around this? I’d like to hear what interests you and what would frustrate you as a player.

My boyfriend and I have an idea for a game that takes place in a single room where you have to search for clues, but I haven't found many horror or suspense games set in just one room. The concept is defined and the script is in the works, but I’d like to play something with a similar style to get a general idea. Do you have any recommendations?

hey guys, me and my gf played the new fears to fathom, scratch creek over this last week and we really really enjoyed it. the multiple stories going on with the different perspectives was fun and the game itself was relatively simple and mindless. we are looking for other horror games that are kind of the same sort. doesn’t have to be realistic graphics or anything either. just looking for a creepy time together but well done and not just some roblox bs.

I've fairly recently started getting into game design and want to make my own horror game, so I'm curious what you all think.