The Best Horror Games

Outlast is a first-person game that treads some very secure horror ground – there's an old asylum and the player, a freelance journalist named Myles Upshur, chooses to go and explore it. The asylum is unlit, so the player will have to sparingly use their night vision camcorder to explore the corridors and wards. As it becomes clear that there's something lurking in the building, the player must rely on their stealth tactics to evade detection. This restrictive gameplay only adds to the sense of isolation, vulnerability, and terror - the player cannot fight, they can only run and hide. A truly atmospheric and terrifying game. This Outlast Trinity collection includes Outlast, Outlast: Whislteblower DLC, and Outlast 2. Amazon.co.uk

Player's will have the choice of controlling Officer Leon S. Kennedy or student Claire Redfield as they tread the street if Raccoon City attempting to find the truth behind the viral outbreak which has mutated citizens into mindless and horrific beasts. When Resident Evil 2 first broke onto the scene way back in 1998, before the PS2, before the film adaptations, before RE6 'happened', RE2 set the standard for horror gaming. Not only was it perfectly designed, balanced, and paced, but it was as scary as could be. In 2019, Capcom took it upon themselves to rebuild the classic game from the ground up, freshening it for the latest console generation and allowing players new and old to enjoy this quintessential fright-fest.Amazon.co.uk

The player controls Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen Ripley, who is part of a team sent to retrieve the Nostromo's flight recorder by Weyland-Yutani 15-years after the happenings of the original motion picture. As events transpire, the player finds themselves stranded on a base alone with hostile humans, androids, and an Alien. The gameplay forces the player into evasion over all out warfare, and as the Alien cannot be defeated, they must use their sparse resources to trick their way to freedom. The survival-horror video game genre feels like it's designed for capturing the essence of 1979's Alien, and thanks to the first-person perspective and atmospheric world, lighting, and sound design, the player will never be free of an unrelenting sense of dread. Amazon.co.uk

Resident Evil 7, the debut first-person outing for the Resi franchise, is a truly horrible experience, for all the right reasons. The player takes control of Ethan Winters as he tracks his missing wife to a derelict plantation in rural Louisiana. Unfortunately, the farm proprietors, the Baker family, are cannibals. As a horror-survival title, the gameplay of RE7 leans heavily on exploration and evasion, oftentimes having the player flee from cannibalistic pursuers rather than engaging in all out combat. RE7 proves that respectfully channelling the spirit of some modern and classic horror movies can really elevate a video game. The PSVR compatibility adds another level of horror, allowing the player to get up close and far too personal with the many, many WTF moments. Amazon.co.uk

Until Dawn knows its pulp horror movies and has distilled this knowledge into a fantastic interactive horror tale. Eight teens are off to a mountain lodge (accessible only by cable car) for a night of clumsy fumbling and casual indiscretions. However, their night soon turns sour when a masked figure and spirits with a taste for human flesh begin to torment them. The gameplay is a mix of interactive cutscenes and area explorations, with the eight narrative lines being informed by player decisions, quick time events, and a strict auto-save feature. Until Dawn incorporates genuine horror elements with self-aware satire to create a game which is thrilling and continuously engaging. Includes voice acting from Rami Malek, Hayden Panettiere, and Brett Dalton. Amazon.co.uk

Until Dawn: Rush of Blood isn't a clever horror game and is an experience very much separate from its predecessor. It's a rail shooter that has the player guided around the various levels on a carnival rollercoaster while blasting various enemy nasties. The fact the player is locked into the PSVR headset is taken full advantage of, however, with well-timed jump scares and genuine in-your-face hideousness resulting in a brilliant all-out horror thrill ride.Amazon.co.uk

The USG Ishimura, a mining spacecraft, has inadvertently made contact with an alien artefact and their communications have gone down. Isaac Clarke, an engineer, is sent into get things up and running. While Isaac is more than capable of fixing radio equipment, it turns out that he is woefully underequipped for battling alien mutant, as the player will soon discover as they take control of him. Dead Space is a masterclass in atmosphere and gore-horror design. Sure, it's old but it's solid gold - if you've still got one of the last generations consoles knocking about, this game is always worth a revisit. Amazon.co.uk

In Bloodborne, the player takes control of a Hunter who is investigating the source of a hideous and mystical plague. The game is a strange but magnificent beast. It's from the brains behind Dark Souls series and elements from those games are certainly echoed in Bloodborne's gameplay, level design, and difficulty and learning curve. It's firmly a dark fantasy title, but there are laces of subtle horror weaved throughout the sparse and secretive Lovecraftian narrative, which leave the player unsure of what's happening and why. When this is combined with the high-stakes, stress-inducing gameplay, the result is genuinely brilliant and unsettling game. Amazon.co.uk

In the platform-puzzler Little Nightmares, the player controls Six, an anoraked youngster lost in the dark and whimsical world of The Maw, a place inhabited by spoiled and soiled souls. The game plays like a collaboration between Tim Burton and Studio Ghibli – while the souls are concerned with their next meal, Six is concerned with evading the hideous caricatured beings, such as the blind long-armed janitor and the grotesque Twin Chefs, and escaping to freedom. Each area of The Maw is loaded with puzzles to overcome, atmospheres to absorb, and great philosophical questions to ponder. Amazon.co.uk

Henry was an animator for Joey Drew Studios in the 1930s. Thirty years later, he's invited back to the seemingly abandoned studio, only to discover that occult practices and a mysterious 'Ink Machine' have been utilised to manifest his old cartoon sketches. Happenings occur and horror ensues. Bendy and The Ink Machine's gameplay combines puzzles, melee combat, and survival-horror elements in a game which feels truly unique, truly entertaining, and truly unsettling. As an episodic title, the game was originally released as five chapters, all of which are collected in this complete edition. Amazon.co.uk

Taking place two years after the events of The Blair Witch Project, this game explores ex-police officer Ellis Lynch as he searches Black Hills Forest for a missing child with his dog, Bullet. As a first-person survival-horror game, the player controls over Ellis are limited, with the semi-open-world forest being explored with only the help of Bullet, a flashlight, walkie-talkie, and mobile phone (which will occasionally ring, with the story being effected by the player's choice to accept or reject these calls). Taking inspiration from the original movie, Blair Witch also combines found footage, photographs, notes, and cassettes to further the story. The game's atmosphere is heavy and dark, with mysterious figures being glimpsed through the trees, allowing the game to pay homage to its psychologically chilling roots, while injecting it's own unique horror video game scares. Amazon.co.uk