The Horror Games You Should Play During The Spooky Season

Halloween is coming soon. There's a chill in the air and the leaves are starting to turn. It's time to start putting up spooky decorations and filling your Netflix binge list with horror films. It's also the perfect time to add some horror games into your video game rotation.

However, picking a horror game is easier said than done since not all titles are created equal. This past decade has been ripe for creepy video games, but some are just more macabre than others. Moreover, some action games use a veneer of horror theming to disguise their true genre, so you can never really tell what is a horror game and what is just wearing the skin of one until it is too late. But that's why you're reading this article.

After you're done with this list, you will have all the tools you need to brave the labyrinthine internet in search of your next favorite spooky game.

Hair-raising Halloween fun is often best when shared with friends, but sometimes you can't meet up with your closest pals in person. Fortunately, there are many other ways you can hang out, including through online gaming. Most horror games are terrifying because they instill a sense of isolation in the player. Some, however, are literal haunted house simulators made specifically to be enjoyed with friends.

Phasmophobia isn't out of early access, but it is still making rounds through the internet. The game takes the premise of ghost hunting (i.e., using cameras, emf meters, and modified am/fm radios to record "proof" of spirits) and puts it in scenarios where ghosts actually exist. Each ghost hunting mission in Phasmophobia is a team effort where you and your friends work together to gather evidence of ghosts, get paid, and try to survive the decidedly unfriendly spirits.

Internet audiences are convening to sing Phasmophobia's praises, and just in time for the month of spooks and ghouls. If you want to hang out with friends for a spooky old time and don't think a Netflix hangout will do the trick, boot up a copy of Phasmophobia.

During Sony's PlayStation 5 stream in June 2020, Capcom unveiled the long-awaited Resident Evil 8, which will pick up where Resident Evil 7 left off. The upcoming game will star the same protagonist and feature the same first-person perspective, but RE fans will have to wait until 2021 to play RE8. If you're in the mood for something spooky now, you might as well use that as an excuse to return to the entry that single-handedly rescued RE from the disappointing Resident Evil 6.

Resident Evil 7 brought the franchise back to its roots. No more galavanting across the globe, dismantling terrorist plots to conquer the world with zombies — just a man, a mansion, and a mystery. And zombies. Lots and lots of fungal zombies, some of whom treat headshots as mosquito bites.

Critics raved about the game's effective use of tight corridors, mood-setting lighting, and crunchy sound design. You never know what is waiting around the next corner, but odds are you have neither the stomach nor ammunition to face it — but you will have to anyway if you want to progress.

Oh, and RE7 also features a VR mode. If you thought the game was scary on a screen, just wait until you play it with a VR headset. There's nothing quite like playing a game where the zombies are close enough to lick your eyeballs.

Not all horror games feature haunted crypts and zombie-infested manors. Some take place in outer space because one of the many keys to horror is a sense of isolation. You can't get any more secluded than being surrounded by a cold, inhospitable void that stretches for light years in all directions. An unkillable alien menace also helps.

Alien: Isolation is probably one of the scariest games you will ever experience. You are trapped on a space station with murderous robots and the titular alien. To make matters worse, the alien is unspeakably intelligent. The creature systematically stalks the halls and never follows the same path twice. You can dismantle the androids, but the alien is a constant menace that only retreats, never dies. Moreover, the game flawlessly recreates the Alien movie's terrifying atmosphere via pixel perfect simulations of the film's claustrophobic environments and soundscape.

However, Isolation's true claim to fame is fixing the mistakes of Aliens: Colonial Marines. Instead of mindlessly shooting waves of equally mindless enemies (which spawned from a single word of mistyped code), you always feel helpless, even when you grab a flamethrower.

True horror is giving you tools that fend off most earthly threats and making them as effective as harsh language.

If you spent time on the internet around Control's release, you might have seen articles stating that the SCP Foundation significantly influenced the game. Unless you are a die-hard internet spelunker, you might never have heard of the SCP Foundation, causing all sorts of confusion. What better time to explore the mysterious organization than October, and through video games, no less?

The SCP Foundation is home to many anomalous objects, creatures, and locations — all referred to as SCPs — many of which are deadly. While several video games revolve around one specific SCP, both SCP – Containment Breach and its Unity engine remake, SCP: Unity, let you explore a facility holding the foundation's most dangerous anomalies. As the name suggests, the SCPs are all trying to escape, and to make matters worse, you're no soldier. You take the role of a D-Class personnel — the "D" stands for disposable — as you try to escape the facility with your skin intact.

Unlike most scary games you could play, all SCP games are free to download since everything SCP falls under creative commons. Many gamers love Containment Breach and find Unity just as enthralling. However, just remember that the games are in development, so expect some glitches and other problems that are totally not the result of a sentient AI trying to escape its digital prison.