Phasmophobia
If you’ve had an internet connection at all over the past month, you’ve probably heard of Phasmophobia. You play as a ghost hunter – yes, like on one of those awful Discovery/History/TLC shows – and…hunt ghosts. The game is intended to be played co-operatively, but if you’re feeling brave you can play single-player. It also has VR Support and can be played cross-platform with friends who aren’t playing in VR. Like Alien: Isolation, Phasmophobia uses your microphone to let you call out to ghosts, and there’s actually a list of specific words that get them upset. The game is currently in early access so you can get some cheap scares in before the full launch. There’s also a mode where you play as the ghost in the works, so you too can be the one who knocks…things over and scares people.
Until Dawn
Until Dawn is a love letter to slasher-flick fans. Its star-studded cast and cinematic direction make for an excellent choose-your-own-adventure type game, with tons of different endings depending on the choices you make and which characters you manage to keep alive. The dialogue is exceptionally schlocky, and the plotline is so all over the place you won’t know where your next scare is coming from. One of the game’s most interesting mechanics involves having to hold your controller perfectly still while hiding – which is actually a lot harder to do than it seems. If you’re in the mood for a horror game, but don’t want to do a whole lot of finger-work, this is the game for you. It’s also a surprisingly good party game!
Yakuza: Dead Souls
The Yakuza franchise has really blown up in the west over the past few years – and deservedly so, it’s a phenomenal series. So although it may be a bit tricky to find a copy of, Yakuza Dead Souls is the perfect survival horror game for fans of the melodramatic crime series. It’s a surprisingly simple plot for a Yakuza game – a zombie outbreak hits Kamurocho, Haruka is kidnapped (as is tradition), and a cast of series regulars must fight off hordes of zombies to save the city. The game is currently only available for PS3, so if you still have yours kicking around and an affinity for the Yakuza series, you’re bound to love this spin-off.
Doki Doki Literature Club
If you haven’t played it, just…trust me on this one. And if you have played it, I hope therapy is going well.
Resident Evil 2 & 3 Remakes
It just wouldn’t be Halloween without Resident Evil, and luckily Capcom has recently given gamers a chance to revisit two of the series’ most beloved entries. As it was when they originally released back in 1998 and 1999, the remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3 released just over a year apart from each other, with the former receiving more favorable reviews (so if you have to choose only one, go with 2). They both feature massive bulking monsters hunting you down through a zombie-infested Raccoon City, and the two stories actually coincide and overlap in the series timeline. These games adopt the RE4 over-the-shoulder action style as opposed to the franchise’s recent adoption of the first-person perspective, but still manage to stay tense and horrifying by sticking to the survival horror roots of their original incarnations (very little ammo, save points few and far between). Plus these titles are home to some of gaming’s most notorious boogeymen, Mr.X and Nemesis. Even if they don’t put the poop in your pants, they’re worth playing for their relevance in gaming culture.
Carrion
Carrion takes the old idea of playing as the monster in a new direction by putting you in the tentacles of a disgusting factory-born murder beast hellbent on consuming its creators and everything else unfortunate enough to exist nearby. It’s a really simple but effective unsettling side-scroller, and in some ways is the Carnage/The Thing simulator I never knew I wanted. What’s most impressive is how the freakiest parts of the game are the Carrion’s animations and the way it makes you wonder “what the hell is this thing?” as you foster its power and uncover the secrets behind it. It’s a short game too, so you can squeeze all the scares out of it on a nice overcast October evening. Just uh…mind the vents.
What do you think of this year’s horror recommendations list? Which of your favorite games did we forget? Are any of these going to be your Hallow’s Eve plans for this year? As always, let us know what you think in the comments, and be sure to keep it locked to COGconnected for all your gaming news!
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