Now, before we even begin with the list, let’s all agree on this: most horror games are very, very bad. There’s not an ounce of horror in them and the fact that they’re called horror games is an insult to the word horror. Most horror games are gory (in a bad way) and contain surprises that you can see from a mile away. In the off chance that there’s some actual horror in the game, it’s executed quite badly.
That being said, from time to time, we come across a game that truly deserves to be called a horror game. From the idea to the storyline to the execution, everything comes together perfectly, creating a true horror game.
So, if you’re new to the genre or have already played some horror games and looking to play a few more, here’s the list you want. Now, let me be clear — this isn’t a hierarchy list. It’s a list of the best horror games that I’ve played arranged in no particular order.
One common theme that you’ll see with all these games apart from the horror itself (duh) is that they all serve horror well. Basically, the horror isn’t over the top, in your face horror. It’s calmer, more sinister, and truly terrifying. So, fasten your seatbelts and pray to your Gods. This ride’s certified scary!
#1 Resident Evil 7 – Biohazard
Now, before you start rolling your eyes and start calling me Captain Obvious, hear me out. There’s no way I can compile a list of horror games and not have Resident Evil in it. It’s just an unwritten rule. Horror and RE go together.
But, when RE 7 was first announced, a lot of people, including me, weren’t really sure of what to expect. When a gaming franchise has released as many sequels as RE has, it’s easy to slip into a bit of a rut. Same settings, same story, the same kinds of tricks, and so on.
However, RE 7 is not a copy-paste job. Thought has gone into the storyline, the setting of the game, the execution and pretty much everything. The RE 7, at least for me, was a pleasant surprise.
The Story
We’re Ethan Winters again… so no surprise there. The basic plot of the story is that Ethan’s wife, Mia, has been dead for three years. But now, Ethan receives a text from her which brings him to an old plantation in Dulvey. The game pretty much starts here.
There are two downloadable content scenarios called Not A Hero and End Of Zoe, but the fundamental premise of the game doesn’t change in either of those scenarios.
GameGavel Gameplay Review
Now, there’s one major change right off the bat — this game is a first-person point of view. And like great FPS games, there’s a reason for that point of view. Within two minutes of playing, you’ll know that it was a change that was made for a good reason. And the next big change is the fact that RE 7 takes gore to a new level. It doesn’t always work very well, but it’s just the direction that they’ve decided to take.
But what is executed brilliantly is the environment. The Dulvey plantation is amazing, in that it makes its presence apparent through every minute of the game. Evidence of life is not hard to spot. You’ll see old photographs, sports equipment, trophies — indications of family life, and of a family that lived here not too long ago.
In the previous editions of the game, it felt as if the buildings were designed to help the developers create traps, puzzles, and whatnot. Not in this edition. The Dulvey plantation and the home feels very much like a home. The job of weaving in traps, clues, and puzzles into a realistic-looking home has been done exceptionally well.
If you’ve played any RE game before, you know that the game is part horror, part adventure, and part survival. In fact, RE could make it to a list of amazing survival games as well. That theme continues here. You have to scavenge, find food and ammo, and so on— everything that you’d expect to see and do in a survival game.
You also have to survive from enemies. And I’m in two minds about the way it plays out in the game. You see, fighting evil in this game isn’t what you’d call… difficult. Sure, there are a few good battles here and there — the one with Jack Baker is actually quite amazing.
But, apart from that fight and the other Baker Family fights, the rest are quite abysmal. The problem is that the quality of enemies is too low. This is primarily because of the way the primary enemies, The Molded, work. The Molded are basically big black enemies that you have to kill. They come from the mold… duh. But they’re so pathetic in terms of strength or brains that they are more of an annoyance than enemies.
The developers of RE who have developed so many games should have known better. There are a few different versions of The Molded, and to put it bluntly, they’re all equally shit. Then there’s the last gripe I have with this game: puzzles and riddles. I don’t know about you, but I loved these in the previous editions. You had to apply your mind and solve them. It took some thinking. This game doesn’t want you to think.
There’s not one puzzle or riddle that can even be called challenging. Everything is given to you. The buildup to a simple puzzle is so obvious — and so is its answer — that you know everything beforehand. That’s not cool. At all.
What’s Hot
- The setting of the game
- The fights with the Bakers
- The survival aspect of the game
- The shift to first-person
What’s Not
- Riddles and Puzzles
- The Molded
So, on the whole, what do I think of it?
I think it’s pretty darn good, actually. Now, the last few sentences may not seem like it but the thing is, there are so many bad horror games that even with these few drawbacks, RE7 isn’t bad. Yes, I expected a lot more from it, but it’s still fair to say that it’s one of the best horror games that you can play today.
#2 Silent Hill 2
Now, there is a very fundamental problem with this game, in that you can really play it only on PS2. Yes, you can use emulators and whatnot, but it was originally made for PS2, and having played it on both, PS2 and a PC(with an emulator), the PS2 version somehow feels much better.
With that out of the way, let me just say this: I personally think that Silent Hill 2 is the greatest horror game ever made and no, the developers haven’t paid me to say this. Silent Hill 2 is different from a lot of modern horror games, though. The 15-year-old game doesn’t use a whole lot of blood, zombies, and things like that. The horror is more subtle. It’s a continuous, palpable feeling of something just not being right.
It takes just about two minutes of playing and you’ll get that feeling. Something’s off and it’s now very, very weird. There’s no loud, unnecessary shouts or bangs. Rather, the horror brews continuously. It festers in the atmosphere around you, lingers in the rooms that you open, and reaches a crescendo at exactly the right moment. The game was critically acclaimed and to this day, developers cheekily steal (borrow?) its style and tropes.
Story
Silent Hill 2 isn’t exactly a sequel to Silent Hill. There’s just a common city, but apart from that, it’s pretty much an independent game. James Sutherland (the main character) receives a letter from his wife Mary. She’s been dead for three years, though. In the letter, she says that she’s waiting for him in a town where they had been on a vacation once. The name of the town: Silent Hill.
With this invitation, James sets off to the town. He finds out that the road to the town is blocked. His explorations and investigations begin. I know, Resident Evil 7 also has a similar beginning, but you know what, those are mere “coincidences”.
GameGavel Gameplay Review
One thing that’s clear when you begin the game is that there’s something not right with James. The game starts with James looking into a mirror rather disturbingly. Then, over a few minutes, you realize that the game is built in a dream-like world.
You can’t see very far, there’s lots of fog, your decisions aren’t really coherent, and so on. Silent Hill 2 plays with that ‘world within a world’ concept beautifully. The more you play, the more confusing it gets. Then there’s the fact that James isn’t what you’d call a skilled man. In most games, the main character has some support from the story which shows that he’s good at combat, scavenging, and things like that.
Not in Silent Hill 2. James can’t just kill people in a single stroke. Hell, he can’t even defend himself easily. He can’t sprint like Bolt. Neither can he fight like The Rock. He’s pathetic.
At every step of the game, James is helpless. It’s a situation that’s reinforced again and again throughout the game. Not just in fights, but also in choices that James has to make. I can’t recall a lot of major decisions in the game that I made of my own accord. They were forced on my helpless character.
And when the game does allow you to make choices, it holds you accountable to them. And these “decisions” aren’t always black and white. They’re more nuanced. This is where we need to talk about the AI of the game.
I know it maybe wasn’t called AI in that time. But basically, the AI studies you. And not at major points of the game, but at every step. Every turn that you make can cause a different outcome. The number of times you read that letter by your wife can have an impact.
There are different endings to the game and each one is creepy. In one of the endings, you see a small dog at the end. It’s just sitting there, enjoying your desperation, misery, and helplessness. There’s no explanation about why the dog’s evil or how it does what it does. It’s just there. And that really captures the essence of Silent Hill 2. It’s not just a game that you play, but it’s a game that also plays with you.
What’s Hot
- The dreamy nature of the game
- The plot twists
- The AI
- Weaving stories within the main story
What’s Not
- PS2 is pretty much the only console on which you can experience the game in all its glory
So, before we move on with our list, this is what I’ll say. Play Silent Hill 2. If you have a PS2, that’s awesome. If you don’t, find someone who has it and then play it. This is one of the greatest horror games of all time and it’ll be a shame if y’all don’t play it.
#3 Until Dawn
Teenagers going around killing people — or getting killed — isn’t really new in the game world. It’s been here forever, but few games have made the trope work like Until Dawn. Now, this game doesn’t appeal to everyone. But if you like Walking Dead, this one’s a treat.
One aspect of the game that stands out is the writing, not just in terms of dialog or story, but also in terms of ensuring that there is a continuous cause and effect line to the game. Supermassive Games has done a lot to ensure that these elements stay in the game.
Instead of having a script written in-house, they went to Hollywood writers Larry Fassenden and Graham Reznik. The result is that the game maintains a tongue in cheek tone throughout the game. Instead of sulking and pouting at people for complaining about a lack of storyline in their previous games, Supermassive Games have done themselves a favor by coming up with a killer storyline this time.
Story
Now, before we look at the story, it’s worth mentioning that there are a lot of cliches in the storyline. The reason that it’s great is that the game accepts that there are a whole lot of cliches. And it throws in plenty of red herrings so that you don’t even think that you know what’s coming next.
So, the story. Eight teenagers go to a lodge on Blackwood Mountain for a party. Josh’s sister and another friend go missing during this party. One year on, they are still missing. In their memory, Josh invites the same people to visit the lodge again on the anniversary of their disappearance. It is here that things start to go wrong for the group… again.
GameGavel Gameplay Review
If you haven’t guessed it by now, the main character is Josh. But instead of being in control of just one character, the game changes which character you control all the time. So, in a way, you’re responsible for all eight of them.
At this point, you should know more about cliches and tropes. Obviously, the premise of going to a cabin in the woods is a trope. Then there are the characters who might as well be called Horror Trope 1, Horror Trope 2, and so on.
There’s the horny couple who pretty much are on top of each other whenever they can. There’s one strong female character who’s focussed on all the practical stuff and is independent. I don’t understand why there has to be one and only one character like this, but hey… It is what it is.
Then there’s the nerd. He — like in every single movie or game — has glasses and is quite anti-social. I don’t know how he made these friends with that attitude, but that’s not to be questioned, I guess. And finally, there’s a funny guy who’s a bit dim. That completes the ensemble of cliches. But, thankfully, that’s where most of my complaints with this game end.
The true genius of Until Dawn is its writing and the impact of your decisions. In most interactive games, your choices have a clear over-the-top impact. Not here. The impact is subtle, yet clear. Depending on the choices you make, you’ll see characters start hating someone or maybe growing closer to someone. And even that change is conveyed subtly. You’ll see it through small changes in tone and vocabulary of the characters.
Also, there’s another rather important thing that your decisions can have an impact on. Life and death. You see, you can finish the game with everyone alive or most people dead and this result is very much based on your decisions. Like other games, you can’t really go back to a save point and revive someone with a different decision. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. Unless you decide to play from the beginning, there’s no way to bring them back.
As for the horror aspect itself, it’s a standard slasher approach, to be honest. There’s nothing breathtakingly amazing about the horror. At the same time, there’s nothing really that stands out as being horrible. But of course, there are a few things worth mentioning. Let’s start with the good: audio. Most horror games overdo audio. There’s simply too many sounds and screams and it sort of ruins the experience.
Until Dawn uses audio very judiciously. There’s no unnecessary sound and at times, you really can’t place the sound itself. The advantage of taking this route is that when there’s actually some sound, you know it’s serious. Also, silence adds to the horror. Not having weird sounds all the time makes you almost vulnerable and that’s a good thing in a horror game.
Then there’s the video, graphics, and animations. They are amazing… at times. Frame Rates fluctuate for no good reason. And then there are these weird moments where you’ll go from “Man, this is a goooood cut scene” to “What the hell just happened with their faces”.
The transition of video from amazing to bad is so stark that at times, it will pull you out of the game. It’s one of those annoying things which has no fix and you can’t sort of escape either. You just have to live with it if you want to play the game.
What’s Hot
- The Storyline
- Having control over more than one character
- The cause and effect aspect
- Audio
What’s Not
- The video
- Too many tropes
So, should you invest 12 hours on the game?
To be honest, I had zero interest when I began the game. I just wasn’t into the story. One hour in, and I was cringing at all the cliches that the game was hitting without an ounce of shame. Four hours in, you couldn’t make me stop playing.
And that’s really my verdict on the game. It’s cliched and cringe-worthy at times, but on the whole, it doesn’t matter. Because the game doesn’t rest on these tropes. Instead, it uses these tropes to tell an amazing story with loads of horror. That’s well worth my 12 hours.
#4 Dead Space
By the time Dead Space made its arrival to the gaming scene, the horror genre was actually pretty full. Basically, a few franchises dominated the market and the rest practically got no attention. So, developers didn’t bother coming up with a new game either.
Until Dead Space, that is. Dead Space took the horror genre away from our planet and placed it on a vessel in space. It ushered in a whole new perspective to the genre. This isn’t a game where people explore run-down mansions or deal with dysfunctional families and their zombie relatives.
This is a horror game set in the future. While there are a few flaws with the game, this much is undeniable: Dead Space breathed a terrifying new life to the horror genre and it did a bloody good job at that.
Story
As I mentioned earlier, Dead Life happens hundreds of years in the future. A future where Earth has no resources left to use. But thankfully — and quite handily — mankind has mastered space travel.
So, legions of spacecraft leave the Earth and go to other planets to ‘crack’ them. Basically, planet cracking is a process of splitting a planet into several pieces and mining all its resources. This is done by melting the resources. Once that’s done, the byproducts are transported back to Earth for human consumption.
The best mining rig in town (erm… in space?) is the USG Ishimura. It’s amazing at what it does and has performed the maximum number of cracks. So, it comes as a surprise to the people when it stops communicating with all the other vessels. No big deal, though. A group of maintenance crew is sent — as they often are — to see what’s up.
Isaac Clarke is part of this crew that arrives on the USG Ishimura. He wants to come here because he has his friends here, one of whom has left him a rather incoherent and cryptic message before disappearing.
Once they step aboard the mining spacecraft, things start to go wrong… fast. The crew is attacked by weird creatures, the vehicle of the crew is destroyed, his team members are separated from him, and suddenly Isaac finds himself all alone.
Lo and behold, there’s the setting of the game. Isaac is stranded on a broken spacecraft with no communications. His friends seem to be dead and there are terrifying creatures on the spaceship. Survive.
GameGavel Gameplay Review
Now that you’ve put yourself in the shoes of Isaac, just think for a moment. All this while, what we could do in a horror game was limited by the environs of the game. With dead space, you’re in the future.
This enables the developers to completely change the fundamentals of the game. Instead of old and rusty buildings, you’ll find yourself in a modern spaceship. There are no old revolvers here. It’s all modern. Lasers and whatnot. But don’t think for a moment that this isn’t a horror game. It definitely is. It’s just that the way of inducing terror is different.
What’s also different and good to see is that Isaac isn’t part of SEAL 6. He can’t simply kick creatures to kill them. He’s an engineer and it shows. He isn’t agile or super strong. But he’s smart. So, the way to get new weapons is to find the schematics and engineer them, while you simultaneously try to save yourself from those god-awful creatures. They are called the Necromorphs.
These creatures are strong as well. You can’t get away by simply shooting their heads off. They have weak points and it’s only at those spots that your weapons can have an impact. They also have this tendency to attack in groups. While there’s a lot of high-tech stuff happening, the focus is still on being a survival horror game. At no point will you feel that you’re playing an adventure game. One perfect example of this approach is weapons.
You can’t simply go on upgrading weapons till they become insanely effective and damaging. There are lots of other things that you can upgrade as well. And, there’s a cap on the overall number of upgrades you can do. This way, you have to think long-term and decide what to upgrade. And it’s not as if there are no consequences. The outcome of the game rests on the upgrades you choose to make.
Finally, there’s the horror aspect of the game. First off, the entire spaceship isn’t available for you to roam around. You’re confined to one deck at a time. Immediately, there’s a strong sense of claustrophobia.
The only way out of a deck is to fight the Necromorphs. There are different types of them and they aren’t like zombies. They are intelligent. They can work together as a team and also have a wicked sense of surprise. If you don’t kill them completely, they will get angrier and attack you with more zeal than before. There are also different types of Necromorphs and each one has its own style of functioning.
I won’t give this away completely, but when you play, look out for parts of the spaceship that have become ‘living’. The cherry on top of this rather gory cake is the visual effects and the audio. And I don’t use the word gore lightly here. I haven’t seen a lot of games that show blood and gore quite like Dead Space.
There are scenes that will genuinely scare you, especially as you know more and more about what happened. You’ll stumble across journals that recount their tales. Fights after finding these journals have a more profound meaning and somehow become scarier.
Then there’s the audio. Again, audio in Dead Space isn’t overdone. It’s there for when it makes sense. As you walk across the spaceship, you’ll hear the Necromorphs crying in the distance. There’s no direction to the sound. They could be on the other end of the ship or right behind you.
The only real bad point about the game is that the story and progression aren’t all that great. Kill Necromorphs, kill the boss, next deck. Repeat. That’s pretty much how it works.
What’s Hot
- The environs
- Audio and video effects
- Action-oriented
- Pretty much zero technical issues
What’s Not
- The progression is a bit repetitive
- Controls aren’t the friendliest
If you’re an enthusiast of the genre, there’s really no good reason to not play Dead Space. The game single-handedly breaks a whole lot of genre tropes and does it in style. The story is engaging and the horror is good. I gave it twelve hours and I can say that I enjoyed every minute of it.
#5 Dark Souls
Before we even start off, just know that you need mods if you want to enjoy any aspect of the game. There are way too many drops in the frame rates and a whole host of other issues to simply play Dark Souls straight out of the box.
Most gamers have heard of Dark Souls and I’m sure you have too. The “Prepare to Die” tagline of the game is quite popular. It’s mentioned by writers like me all the time. If some of us forget to mention it, Youtubers back us up. There’s a ton of merchandise made with the tagline — you get the idea. It’s popular.
But behind all this hyperactive marketing, there’s an excellent game. A game of despair, helplessness, and gloom. Dark Souls isn’t a game built to deliver jump scares. It’s a game designed to disturb you.
Story
The story of Dark Souls, for the most part, is unexplained. It’s not as if the developers were too lazy to come up with a story. Instead, it’s the other way round. The game enables you to interpret things the way you see. So, there are a lot of snippets of information that you’ll come across as you play. Make of them what you will. All that you’re given explicitly is a backstory, and that too at the beginning of the game.
Without going into too many details, here’s the story: Dragons ruled the world back in the day. A man called Gwyn comes across the “First Flame”. He uses it to find the “Lord Souls”. With the help of these, he defeats the dragons and starts the Age Of Fire.
As time passes, the human population increases and the fire starts to fade. Gwyn sacrifices himself to extend the Age Of Fire. Because the flame was rekindled artificially, there’s now a curse of the undead. The curse of the undead causes humans to resurrect upon death constantly. There, that’s the premise. We play one of the undead, locked away in the undead asylum (obviously). The game begins when the player escapes.
GameGavel Gameplay Review
There are two things you need to know about Dark Souls. One — it isn’t easy. It’s actually one of the tougher games out there and two, this isn’t a 10-hour game. You have to put in more hours. Yours truly put in 50 odd hours the first time.
If you haven’t guessed it already, there’s a lot of grinding in Dark Souls. Nothing is easy. Everything takes effort, caution, and a measure of adeptness to achieve. I honestly can’t review this game in about 300 words here. Instead, I’ll give you the gist of the game.
First off, you will have to familiarise yourself with the vast, vast world of the game. There’s a lot of ground to cover and a lot of steps to take. And each of these steps will try to kill you. You’ll face fire demons, lizardmen, and many more terrifying opponents.
And you’ll die constantly in the beginning. It’s the game playing teacher. You’ll learn how the game works. You’ll understand how unforgiving the game truly is. This is one of the things that I love about Dark Souls. The game doesn’t help you in any way. If you progress, it’s solely because you deserve to.
Then there’s the fact that it’s a bit of a community game. So, as you roam around killing all these demons, you’ll see the ghosts of other players. They’ll usually be huddled around bonfires, which actually act like save points in the game. The fact is, for the most part, Dark Souls is a game that makes you feel alone. But from time to time, you’ll see that other players have left little notes for you to read. It might warn you of the dangers that lay ahead.
Of course, you can also help out other players by doing the same. All this is only possible when you’re online. The other thing that you can do when you’re online is call for assistance or help someone who’s calling for assistance.
These distress calls usually come when someone is battling a boss and just can’t go past. But Dark Souls, being the game that it is, doesn’t let you do these things easily. There are a few conditions that you need to fulfill if you want to call or respond to someone else. Finally, the horror. Fundamentally, Dark Souls is a game based on combat and survival. But there’s definitely loads of horror in the game. Thankfully, they aren’t jump scares.
Dark Souls induces a perpetual sense of disturbance in you. There’s no guarantee of what will come next. You are, for the most part, alone. And it’s a big world out there, filled with all sorts of monsters waiting to kill you. The fear in continuous in Dark Souls. It’s unrelenting. You’re walking along happily to your next destination and boom. You’re surrounded by butchers, skeletal swordsmen, and serpent-warriors. You have to fight to survive.
To me, the design of the game is what brings the horror. And for that horror, I love it.
What’s Hot
- Going online for help
- Open world design
- The visuals are stunning
- The complexity and the difficulty of the game
What’s Not
- Not a game that you can play to relax
- Frame rates drop way too much, too many times
Before we move on to the next game, I just want to reiterate that the review of this game is not even remotely complete. There are so many subplots, characters, characteristics, and quirks that I simply can’t get into in this review.
I haven’t even covered 30% of this game in the review. But, I’ll tell you this much: Dark Souls is one of my favorite games of all time. Not just in this genre, but in general. Play it once and you won’t be able to pull yourself away from it.
#6 The Evil Within 2
The Evil Within 2 screams its way into this list, pulling off every horror trope in style. Isolated town? Check. Spooky settings? Check. Weird unnecessary sounds that make no sense? Check. A rather clueless main character? Check.
With all these cliches, you’d be forgiven to think that The Evil Within 2 is just another game with nothing unique or special to offer. Well, I have one name to give you: Shinji Mikami. If you’re into horror games, you’ll recognize the name instantly. Shinji is the mastermind behind the Resident Evil franchise.
Perhaps, that’s the reason I was slightly disappointed with The Evil Within 1. I expected it to be so amazing, and it wasn’t. I had a whole host of complaints with the first iteration of this game. But this one, the second part, is just brilliant.
Story
Don’t worry if you haven’t played the first iteration of the game. Some characters are the same, but the story itself is completely independent. So, with that out of the way, let’s get to the story itself. The main character is Sebastian Castellanos. He was a cop in the first game. Things went wrong, and he’s now an ex-cop. He’s lost his daughter to a fire five years ago and thanks to this, his wife has abandoned him.
Before we go ahead, here’s a little something to know about Evil Within 1. Like Assassin’s Creed games, Evil Within 1 doesn’t really happen in the real world. Instead, there’s something called the STEM world. It’s an alternate reality. In Evil Within 1, people in the STEM world started turning into monsters. In that iteration of the game, Sebastian deals with this problem in that alternate world.
Back to the present. Sebastian learns that his daughter, whom he thought was dead is actually alive and that she’s trapped in this STEM world. I know, I know, cliches all around and yes, you’re right. He goes to save his daughter. That’s the premise of the game. Here’s where we begin our journey as Sebastian Castellanos.
GameGavel Gameplay Review
Again, I know the story is a bit cliched. This is the sixth game on the list and the third one with an eerily similar story. But bear with me. While the story is cliche, the gameplay isn’t.
The story is told to you before the game starts. Once you actually start playing, there’s so much to experience in Evil Within 2. So, before we jump in, you might need this bit of information. Not a lot of people like EW 1, but even in that game, everyone loved the STEM world.
It was the highlight of the game. I, personally, loved it. The STEM world, the mechanics of it — everything. It was perfect. But the problem with EW 1 was that there wasn’t enough gameplay set in the STEM world. Actually, there was too much gameplay set outside the STEM world. This time, that isn’t the case at all. You’re directly thrown into the STEM world.
You’re in a city called Union and like it should be in any horror game, the city is weird. There’s art here and there, lights flicker on shops, and apart from the occasional creepy sound, the city is quiet. One thing that you’ll notice is that Sebastian ends up in dark locations quite a lot. Obviously, this is for those jump scares. However, here’s the thing: very few dark places actually house monsters.
There are just enough dangerous dark corners to keep you cautious. Though this is a minor aspect of the game, the reason I mention it is to point out the attitude of the game. Every single step of the way, the game is predicting you. And more often than not, it predicts correctly.
EW 2, unlike its predecessor, isn’t a closed world game. It’s semi-open. This has enabled the developers to come up with a better flow for the game. Sebastian can explore a lot more of the Union now, and of course, find more monsters lurking in the shadows.
But those are not important to the overall progression of the game and they are also not the best part. The best part about EW 2 is the sense of helplessness that it’s able to enforce on Sebastian. There are so many situations in the game where you feel that it’s all over for him; that his worst nightmares are confirmed and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. And all this drama usually happens in silence.
Sebastian will do something heroic, only to find that there’s no next step. You’ll stand there in the eerie silence of the Union, wondering “what next”. In other games, these points usually mean that you have to do something else — maybe unlock something else.
Not in EW 2. The developers have somehow managed to communicate his sense of helplessness in these situations. So, instead of being tempted to progress, the game makes you contemplate what you’ve done. In fact, throughout the game, there’s this palpable helplessness hanging around Sebastian. He controls nothing. Things happen to him, it’s not the other way round. And this is the genius of EW 2. Direction.
When you play the game, you’ll realize that it’s directed not just to scare you, but to disturb you. There are plenty of games that are better than EW 2 when it comes to jump-scares. But I haven’t seen a horror game that’s directed this disturbingly.
What’s Hot
- Direction
- The fact that you’re immediately thrown into the STEM world.
- The jump scares are well executed
- Part-open world setting of the game
What’s Not
- Frame rate jumps when you play at 60 fps
- Quite a lot of cliches
Evil Within 2 isn’t like a typical horror game. Yes, there are a lot of cliches and jump scares, but the unique selling point of the game is it’s direction and its ability to unsettle you. If that’s the sort of game you’re looking for, you now know where to find it.
#7 Amnesia: The Dark Descent
The last game on this list is Amnesia and it’s fair to say that it’s one of the more popular horror games that you can play today. If you’re a fan of the genre, you’ve heard about it. You’ve heard about the castle and whatnot.
The reason Amnesia is so popular is that it sticks to a plan that works. It has all the basic ingredients for a horror game and also, it’s a “pure” horror game, unlike most others. I’ll go into the “pure” part shortly, but basically, it means that it’s more about scaring you than anything else.
There’s also another reason for its popularity and that has to do with its story and the way it is told. Most popular games have two layers of the story. The first layer is the main, important story that defines why we exist. The second goes into the details and gives us all the nuances.
For example, think of Assassin’s Creed games. The main story is about Assassins and Templars. If you know this much, you can go ahead and play the game. For enthusiasts, there’s a way to find out more through cutscenes and additional quests and whatnot.
Amnesia, like Assassin’s Creed, separates the main story from the nuanced one. You are given some basic context to play the game. If you choose to, you can dig deeper and find out more. While not finding out everything about a game might seem like blasphemy to us enthusiasts, most casual gamers don’t care. It’s about great graphics and awesome sound effects. So, Amnesia makes it easy for casual gamers to enjoy the game as well.
So, with all that said, what is the story? Let’s take a look.
Story
So, I won’t go into the nuances of the story, because you don’t actually need them to play the game. Here’s the outline that you need to know: In 1839, a young lad belonging to London and named Daniel wakes up confused.
He’s in Brennenburg Castle, Prussia. He doesn’t know anything apart from his name. He’s in a castle of some sort and he finds a note that he’s written to himself. It asks Daniel to kill Alexander. The note also says that the fact that he doesn’t remember anything is good for him.
Daniel doesn’t have a clue about Alexander. He doesn’t even know why he has to do this, but he’s helpless and at the mercy of this information, he starts exploring the castle to find answers. This is how and where the game begins.
Throughout the game, there are notes. These notes are scattered in the castle and if you wish, you can collect them all. These notes will provide the nuances of the story for you. Some notes are very important and the game, by default, will lead you there.
GameGavel Gameplay Review
Remember that I said that Amnesia was “pure”? Well, let’s look at that with some context. These days, horror games are becoming more and more like adventure games with lots of gore So, it’s about your weapon, ammo, and things like that. Personally, I’m not a fan of that trend. Horror games mess with your mind and put the fear of the Lord in you.
You see, Amnesia is a bit like that. It’s more about instilling fear in you than it is about adventure. Want a clue? You have no gun in Amnesia. So, when a blood dripping, terrible-looking monster is looking at you, you run. You run like your life depends on it, because it does. You run into the shadows but darkness isn’t safe either. So, you light your lantern and hope that you somehow survive and the fuel doesn’t run out.
Also, there’s an emphasis on puzzles in Amnesia. Not the sort of ones for which you need a maths degree. No. But there are reasonably good puzzles throughout the game which can unlock doors, missions, and much more.
The horror of the game comes from a combination of your helplessness and the monsters. Unlike horror games of the recent past, these monsters make sense. They aren’t ridiculously slow like zombies, but they aren’t Usain Bolt’s cousins either.
Finally, there’s the atmosphere. The game pretty much happens in a castle. The limited geography has enabled the developers to extensively optimize that castle to create horror. And as far as my time with Amnesia is concerned, it scared me alright.
What’s Hot
- The storytelling
- Lack of weapons
- Puzzles
- Survival aspect of the game
What’s Not
- The voice acting
- Very short game
Final Words
So, there you have it. These are my favorite horror games at the moment. These games aren’t perfect. In fact, they all have something wrong with them. However, they all do two things very well. They capture the idea of a horror game very well and also, they execute their plans brilliantly. Each game on this list has scared me and you know what, I’m so happy that they terrified me.
What are your favorite horror games? Do you agree with the list or did you want to see some other games make it here? Are you eagerly expecting Left 4 Dead 3?
Let me know. I love hearing from you people!
But if you’re just not into horror games, you might like some outstanding racing games on Steam, or maybe even some of the most amazing metroidvania games.