7 – Bioshock
The original Bioshock is an interesting game because it’s not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when you think of horror. One of the first games to ever make me scream like a child, Bioshock’s horror lies in absolutely gruesome depictions of violence strewn about the environment – a city leagues under the ocean hiding from our world’s controlling and invasive systems of power devastated by drug addiction – and witnessing the desolation of its inhabitants in an intimate way. Personally speaking, I think the most horrifying moment of this game is when you come across one of Rapture’s citizens singing “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” while they hunt for their next victim or tear apart the innards of an already dead one, desperate for more ADAM. One of the game’s earliest stages, the Medical Pavillion, is easily the most horrifying area of the game with a bunch of well-timed jump scares and scripted sequences that play with the environment, making for a very tense series of fetch quests leading up to the game’s most disturbing boss battle, plastic surgeon Dr. Steinman.
6 – Resident Evil 7
The iconic horror series has been reinvented multiple times, and the latest attempt is easily its most effective in regards to horror. Resident Evil 7 simultaneously brought the franchise back to its contained environment and storytelling roots, while giving players a literal fresh perspective by making the switch to a first person camera. The main character, Ethan Winters, receives a message from his deceased wife Mia that he traces and follows to a dilapidated plantation in the bayous of Louisiana, where he encounters an absolutely batshit insane family of deranged mutants and murderers. The game juggled jump scares and terror effectively, with standout moments including Daddy breaking through the first floor wall after cutting your arm off at dinner, Marguerite’s transformation into a giant spider, and being stalked through the Baker’s industrial basement by a new breed of reanimators called the Molded. Playing it on the PSVR (which it was a launch title for) made it that much more horrifying and helped the game dominate let’s play channels across the internet for the month it came out. It was clear that Konami’s loss of PT was an enormous gain for Capcom, with RE7 filling in the hole left by the cancelled Silent Hills reboot, and the developer announcing that a follow-up is already in the works.
5 – Outlast
Outlast was a cult success when it launched on PC back in September 2013 and received a surge in popularity when it was brought to PS4 early the following year (and Xbox One that summer), where it was included as one of PlayStation Plus’ free games in February. The game puts players in the role of investigative journalist Miles Upshur as he tries to uncover a series of bizarre human experiments at Mount Massive Asylum. Players are given no way to defend themselves from the various horrifying enemies they come across including an invisible creature that practically dissects humans alive, a mutilated cyborg-doctor who introduces himself by ripping off the main character’s fingers, and two super buff naked dudes with a passion for murder. The game’s Whistleblower DLC served as an equally horrifying prequel chapter to the game’s story, and though last year’s Outlast 2 wasn’t quite as well received as it’s predecessor, a third installment was announced for the franchise in December, and developer Red Barrels has another project related to the franchise set to release before Outlast 3. Either way, the first game is sure to be a standout horror title for genre fans and newcomers alike.
4 – Dark Souls/Bloodborne
The Soulsborne games are a few different kinds of horrifying. There’s cheap jump scares where enemies you could never see coming pounce on you as you turn a corner, and disgusting monstrosities that skitter, sprint, and slime towards you as you traverse the depths of Lordran and Yharnam. But easily the most horrifying part of Dark Souls is it’s most well-known and defining feature: death. Dying is the scariest part of the Soulsborne games because, as players will know intimately, when you die, all of your Souls/Blood Echoes (which act as currency and experience points simultaneously) are left behind where you fell. If you die on your way to retrieve them, which can be particularly easy to do if you left them in a boss arena or crowded area, they’re lost forever. This makes every battle in these games a tense and butthole-clenching experience as players white-knuckle their way through the game’s atrociously repulsive monsters inspired by the likes of HP Lovecraft and Junji Ito, all of which blended together makes for one of gaming’s most horrifying and beloved franchises.
