Whenever you launch a horror game there’s one feeling you always expect to hit you—and that’s fear. It could be a creeping shiver ascending the back of your neck or your fight or flight instincts kicking in to jolt your system. If you’re a fan of a palpable and immersive atmosphere or you enjoy the build to a terrifying climax, when true horror hits—it hits hard.
Years of braving the depths of depravity has brought me to this moment to bring you the top 13 scariest horror games of all time. This list has factored in sound and art design, including the atmosphere, narrative, and imagery used to craft a terrifying experience. This list also purposely doesn’t include multiple entries from the same franchise. Let’s get into it.
13) Five Nights at Freddy’s 4
FNAF 4 is the perfect blend of jump scares and challenging gameplay. What made this game so scary is its sound design and how it forces you to accept that a jump scare may hit you at any moment. If you want to survive the night, then you must trust your ears and focus on what’s happening around you. The simple yet clever gameplay design to keep you in one place at a time and restrict your movement only creates panic. It strips away the innocence of a kid’s bedroom and makes it feel like a fortress you must protect from the monster hiding in your closet.
FNAF 4 is pure childhood nightmare fuel brought to life inside the digital realm. But the problem with this entry, like other FNAF games, is that you can quickly get used to its terror. In fact, you have to if you want to win. Being good at FNAF means you have to focus and train yourself to become immune to jump scares. Therefore, the scare factor may not last as long as other entries on this list.
12) Darkwood
Survival horror from a birds-eye view, Darkwood‘s grungy dark setting immediately greets you with dread. The perspective is a surprisingly effective one, as seeing your surroundings at all times invites the perpetual feeling that you’re always surrounded. The realistic sound design paired with the top-down perspective only fuels the feeling of loneliness and dread for what’s lurking around every corner.
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A punishing experience, there’s nothing in Darkwood to comfort you, even the crafting menus make you feel like you could be ambushed at any moment. Focusing on what truly matters—your survival—darkness encompasses your fortress as you wait the minutes out for the sun to rise, fearful for what could enter your sanctuary.
11) Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly
While the first-person view forces you to look at the horrors in front of you, Fatal Frame II takes it a step further with the Camera Obscura. Exorcizing spirits is a difficult task when you’re trapped inside a slow-panning screen that demands you look your enemy in the eyes. Panicking is inevitable, and cutscenes won’t save you from the constant threat of vengeful spirits.
I’ll never forget the fear I felt as I watched the falling woman descend from the spiral staircase for the first time. Fatal Frame II is a strong survival horror game with excellent level design and puzzles to easily keep you entertained, all while fleeing from the hostile spirits plaguing the haunted village.
10) Wrong Floor
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—N4bA is an evil developer that knows exactly what they’re doing. Wrong Floor is a bite-sized experience that perfectly captures dread. A dreamlike setting, there’s no worldbuilding or narrative required to deliver tense horror in Wrong Floor. Lighting and sound design are simple but incredibly effective as you navigate complete darkness with a horror game’s absolute essential: A trusty flashlight. But something is tugging at you—you’re not alone.
Wrong Floor invites you to take a step into the cold darkness, where a sense of isolation masked by the feeling of being watched greets you with a creepy grin. A 15-minute experience that may leave you with nightmares, this free-to-play horror is one that’ll stay with me for years.
9) Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
There’s nothing quite like Eternal Darkness as it blends adventure and survival horror together for a unique game that tricks you into a comfortable state. While its combat and content isn’t scary, it’s the use of game-breaking mechanics that messes with your sense of reality, making you believe that you may have a faulty version or have your hands on a haunted video game. Items can disappear, auditory hallucinations can be heard (all in-game, of course), the blue screen of death could rear its ugly head, or the screen turns black.
Eternal Darkness introduced multiple gameplay mechanics that would become staples in the indie horror realm. Reappearing in games such as Imscared, Pony Island, and Buddy Simulator 1984, Eternal Darkness brought the psychological horror to your doorstep by acting like a virus on the GameCube. Frictional Games’ Amnesia and Penumbra implemented their version of a sanity meter, showcasing the influence Eternal Darkness had on horror games.
8) Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a unique entry in the franchise for being the only true horror game. Known for perfectly blending action and survival horror (with a hint of cheesy cutscenes), the franchise took a dark turn with the release of Biohazard. Forced into a first-person POV, which has since returned with Village, RE7 gave us compact labyrinth-style level design as members of the Baker family pursued us. It created an impactful atmosphere where panic and sweat would be a natural and appropriate response, feeling like a throwback to Resident Evil‘s mansion.
Each antagonist had unique gameplay mechanics and an appearance that kept RE7 fresh. Biohazard had you juggle puzzles while being chased by a family of Mr. Xs as you navigate around their estate.
7) Outlast
If you’re not a fan of gore and nudity, then Outlast really isn’t for you. Not for the faint of heart, Outlast invites you to join in on the madness. Like Einstein’s theory of insanity, Outlast can get a bit repetitive at times, especially when you can only run and hide from the wickedly evil residents of Mount Massive Asylum. Taking what made Amnesia so impressive, Outlast improved the core mechanic of being unable to fight by adding the camera feature you’d heavily rely on to survive each encounter.
The clever use of lightning meant you had to use the camera’s night vision to make sense of your surroundings. This restricted your vision, thus increasing your anxiety. Running wasn’t an option for the residents were watching your every move. The storytelling told through imagery of static screens hypnotizing patients, the empty female ward, and the hanging bodies of those who came before created a hopeless setting.
6) Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Although Amnesia: The Bunker is the superior horror game (as the first in this franchise has outdated gameplay), The Dark Descent created an anxiety-inducing setting that few have been able to match. Amnesia (and Penumbra) perfectly demonstrate H.P. Lovecraft’s fear of the unknown. While this is no cosmic horror story, the psychological narrative shown through chattering teeth and otherworldly monsters that stalk your every move made The Dark Descent an unforgettable experience.
Once you get past the persistent nervous feeling The Dark Descent carries over you like a weighted burden, you can shift your focus on understanding its narrative, which only strengthens the immersion. I remember being too scared to play the Justine expansion and that was against a blind monster (maybe I have PTSD from Gears of War’s Berserker). A story told through note collecting, The Dark Descent is an important walking simulator horror game that shouldn’t ever be forgotten.
5) Welcome to the Game II
A constant with Reflect Studios games is the anxiety each gives through their uneasy setting and punishing gameplay. Welcome to the Game II is not only a terrifying experience, but a cruel one too. There’s no comfort or sanctuary to run back to for even your home is a tourist spot for the creepiest killers alive.
Braving the dark web to save the next victim of a deadly game, you need to juggle hacking attempts, continuously switch WiFi networks, and survive encounters against assassins—all while searching for hidden keys tucked away in the darkest corners of the Internet. The strange and eerie pages are hypnotic for all the wrong reasons, but they’re the least of your concerns as the overwhelming feeling that you’re being watched will claw at you and keep you away from your computer desk. Even stretching your toes could get you killed. Can you get a handle on your nerves?
4) Alien: Isolation
The smartest enemy AI in a horror game, Alien: Isolation is an intense cat and mouse game from start to finish. The best stealth horror has to offer, this Alien adaptation will become your new bar for every other horror game to reach and continuously miss. Everything is a threat, but the robots and humans feel like small fry compared to the persistent chase of the Xenomorph.
The Xenomorph continuously adapts to your gameplay. If you’re the type to hide in lockers or under cover, then the Xenomorph will learn your moves, predict your next step, and snuff out your light before your next breath. Being too scared to progress will only get you killed. Drool drips from open vents, heavy footsteps rush through the ventilation system, and the motion detector tracks the movement of the unkillable beast. Nowhere is safe.
3) Dead Space
The feeling of isolation creeps up on everyone, but Dead Space brings it to the forefront. The last human to wander the ruined space station alone, the sound of space is the only comfort. But even that can’t be trusted. While the Necromorphs are terrifying on their own, it’s the lighting and sound design that makes you not want to continue playing Dead Space.
I distinctly remember loading this game up as a teen and retreating to the menu whenever I thought a Necromorph was lurking around the corner. Your senses are heightened as if your survival is truly on the line. The goal of Dead Space is clear: survive. Hastily written in blood, a command is given from the onset: Cut off their limbs. It’s despair—it’s loneliness—it’s fear.
2) Nun Massacre
There is something about Puppet Combo games that truly makes my skin crawl. The atmosphere this developer creates in every game is unmatched, but it’s Nun Massacre that takes top spot for being the most unforgiving, spine-chilling game to ever walk this Earth. While Stay Out of the House has a similar anxiety-inducing atmosphere, Nun Massacre throws a persistent bloodthirsty enemy at you: a nun. A blade in one hand, hidden often behind her back, your screen warps, an inhuman scream pierces through the headset, and you feel your end is fast-approaching.
Whether it be for its incredibly challenging setting that resets your progress when your life is swiftly taken by the terrifying nun or for its trial-and-error gameplay, panic is an inevitability in Nun Massacre. So how do you solve a problem like Maria? You run away and pray you’ll escape Hell.
1) P.T.
The impact P.T. has had on the world of horror since its 2014 release is tremendous. Psychological horror permanently shifted from the quiet feeling of being stalked you’d typically get from walking sim horror games (e.g., Amnesia: The Dark Descent) because of P.T.‘s influence. While we’re all used to seeing repeating corridors, jittering character models, and creepy voices coming through a radio, this was virtually non-existent before Silent Hills‘ playable teaser.
Exploring the descent into madness through endless corridors with a story told through abstract memories, P.T. had an atmosphere like no other. Confined in a first-person perspective (something we haven’t seen in Silent Hill—outside of Henry Townsend’s eerie apartment in SH4), this cancelled project created a feeling of uneasiness in your own home. Its macabre tale, perfectly placed jumpscares, and puzzles to keep you hooked to the bitter end made P.T. a one-of-a-kind experience that has since been replicated to (sadly) the point of oversaturation.
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