3 – Amnesia: The Dark Descent
The first Amnesia game is widely regarded as an essential horror title that puts players in the role of a man who wakes up in a castle with no memory of how he got there or his own past, and has nothing but a note telling him to go deep into the castle and kill Alexander the baron. Of course, this game has its fair share of jump scares, but the real horror is baked into the act of surviving each room – and not in a low-ammo type of way. Hiding in darkness for too long, or even just good old fashioned seeing fucked up shit will lower the player’s sanity, causing hallucinations that blend into the “real” game seamlessly, layering moments of sheer terror on top of each other. The game also features some atrociously disgusting monsters and a particularly unnerving and unique plot that ranges from Stephen King to aggressively Lovecraftian.
2 – Silent Hill 2
One of gaming in general’s most renowned and beloved titles, Silent Hill 2 is a masterclass in horror game design in regards to structure, pacing, and enemy design. Pyramid Head is obviously the star of the show here in his debut, as he stalks the player across Silent Hill as a symbolic representation of the main character’s desire to be punished for his wife’s death. The game introduced some of the series’ other iconic monster designs including the Bubble Head Nurses, Lying Figures, and the Bloodsuckers, most of which who also represent a repressed psychological aspect of the main character. Silent Hill 2’s soundtrack is another hugely important part of the game as composer Akira Yamaoka was also in charge of the game’s sound effects, in which he used the sound of distant screams and footsteps on broken glass to create a more unsettling environment.
1 – P.T.
As of this moment, this article is simultaneously a listicle and a eulogy. PT was the “Playable Teaser” for a planned Silent Hills reboot spearheaded by Hideo Kojima, in collaboration with Guillermo Del Toro, art direction by Junji Ito, and starring The Walking Dead and Death Stranding’s Norman Reedus. It was a dream come true – Two masters of horror, one master of video game storytelling, and TV’s most badass zombie destroyer coming together to revive the shelved and beloved Silent Hill franchise. The playable teaser itself is widely regarded as one of the scariest games of all time and did a great job of getting players adequately hyped for what was bound to be a landmark horror title for the medium. It wasn’t too reliant on jump scares and its constantly changing level and bizarre challenges made for a haunting experience and became somewhat of a staple the October following its release.
Unfortunately, the game was the first casualty of the mysterious though highly publicized fallout between Kojima and publisher Konami, who isolated Kojima from his team during the development of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, which itself became another casualty as the game was very clearly half of a product. Later that year, Konami pulled PT from the PlayStation store, making it entirely unavailable to any new players or even to be re-downloaded by those who got it when it was, and barred Kojima from attending the Video Game Awards, which host and founder Geoff Keighley rightfully called them out for live during the show. Shortly after that, reports emerged of Konami blocking Kojima’s staff from applying for health insurance and taking measures to prevent employees from finding jobs in the future. Konami has mostly yet to recover from the negative public backlash following the cancellation of Silent Hills and poor treatment of a widely beloved gaming icon, with more recent titles like Sequel Nobody Asked For Metal Gear Survive not doing them any favors.
Of course, there are far more than 10 great horror titles in gaming, and as the industry grows from year to year, more and more horror titles will release to unnerve and terrify players across the world, including re-imaginings of already classic horror titles like Resident Evil 2 to refresh old scares and remind us what made them so classic in the first place. In addition to that, it seems like the younger generations are a bit more susceptible to the scary stuff than we may be, evident from the success of indie horror titles Five Nights at Freddy’s and Bendy & The Ink Machine. Who knows, maybe the young fans of those games will create the classic horror titles of tomorrow some day.
Did your favorite horror title make the list? Of course, it didn’t! Let us know in the comments what you think the scariest games of all time are, and be sure to check out the Top 10 Sequels Nobody asked for right here on COGconnected!