Entertainment
The 15 Scariest Video Games of All Time, Ranked
Playing scary video games can be a great way to enjoy a quiet night in. Now, not all of these titles are going to please everyone. There’s hardcore horror mixed with psychological suspense and supernatural scares, there are “retro” titles folded in with more modern, visually striking games, and there are franchise titles you expected alongside other games you may never have heard of.
Whether you’re looking for survival horror or a psychological experience, there’s something here for every type of horror fan. In other words, it’s a curated list of some of the best scary video games around, but not necessarily an end-all, be-all. And if you’ve got one we haven’t played, we’d love to hear about it!
17
‘Darkwood’ (2017)
Most of the entries on this list are 3D games, which is common since that is the most immersive, but Darkwood manages to be this scary using a top-down 2D perspective. Trapped in a mysterious, mutating forest somewhere in the Soviet Bloc, players are a nameless survivor in desperate need of escape. In order to survive, gamers must scavenge for resources, craft weapons, and explore the suffocating landscape during the day.
Darkwood is one of the most unique horror video games on this list, proving that it doesn’t need to be a traditional 3D experience to be absolutely terrifying. The top-down 2D perspective reaches its sense of dread by restricting vision to a cone, with threats outside the peripheral sight-line. Not to mention, Darkwood has a grotesque visual style and immersive sound design that really puts the player into the middle of fright. —Lucas Kloberdanz-Dyck
16
‘Limbo’ (2010)
A tightly constructed piece of video game storytelling, with a wide and hazy sense of atmosphere, Limbo is designed to discomfort you, and achieves its goal from moment one. You play a small child in a horrifying world, trying to find his sister while traversing a series of gruesome-death-instilling platforming puzzles. Feeling like an Eraserhead take on an over-industrialized nightmare, this world exists in a surreal ether realm, with shadowy black-and-white monsters lurking on the margins of this dreamlike plane of existence.
So much of Limbo feels, in direct correlation to its title, unanswered. Where are we? Who are we? Why are we trying to find our sister? Who are these creatures? Are we as good a savior, as morally pure a hero as we think we are? All of these lurking questions sit and simmer, and that cut to black at the end punches it all without fail. —Gregory Lawrence
15
‘Fatal Frame’ (2001)
For Westerners, Fatal Frame may not be the first title you think of when it comes to scary games, but thanks to the franchise’s focus on Japanese horror, it’s one of the best. It’s also one of the most unique of the bunch. Other games feature player protagonists who aren’t superheroes out to battle supernatural enemies; they’re just normal people trying to survive. But at least those everyday heroes are equipped with melee weapons, guns, or other items to combat the forces of darkness. In Fatal Frame, your only defense is a camera.
The original game sees you take control of Miku Hinasaki, who goes in search of her missing brother Mafuyu, who had in turn gone looking for a famous novelist in an infamously haunted mansion. (There’s quite the recurring theme in these survival games, isn’t there?) The only way the siblings can defeat the ghosts that haunt the building — and get to the bottom of a dark, ritualistic event that took place there — is by using the Camera Obscura, an antique camera that acts like an analog “ghost-buster.” This shift to first-person “shooter” here is your only weapon in the game, one that can be upgraded by scoring enough points when you defeat ghosts by taking their picture. The closer the spirit, the higher the points, but also the higher the risk of taking significant damage. It’s a clever mechanic that forces the player to confront the very ghosts that are hunting them with only a shutter, flash, and lens. But it’s the exploration of some really disturbing themes and Japanese horror stories that makes the original title in the franchise a standout. – Dave Trumbore
14
‘Outlast’ (2013)
Horror games have found a second home on YouTube, as people enjoy watching their favorite content creators suffer, and one of the most popular games is Outlast. The player is a journalist who breaks into a remote asylum to learn of its mysteries. However, players learn that it is overrun by deranged mutants, and now, they need to escape the haunting location as everything inside tries to kill them.
Outlast popularized a specific, grueling brand of modern horror by forcing total vulnerability, and with no ability to fight back, running is the only option. This game will make the player feel helpless, transforming the gameplay into a relentless chase of nonstop terror. Outlast is a horror classic and one of the scariest modern video games. —Lucas Kloberdanz-Dyck
13
‘The Evil Within’ (2014)
Image Via Bethesda Softworks
A survival horror game by the original creator of Resident Evil, The Evil Within is an extremely brutal experience that gives you almost no moments of reprieve. Everything is terrifying 100% of the time, and you rarely have enough bullets to feel anywhere close to safe.
You play as a police detective trapped inside the mind of a killer, traveling through twisted environments and fighting horrendous enemies, all based on the killer’s memories and emotions. In classic RE fashion, you don’t have the ability to defeat every single enemy, so you have to pick your battles carefully and get used to holding down that sprint button. The imaginative level design and the upgrade system are rewarding gameplay loops, but nothing holds a candle to the game’s terrifying boss fights. These are frantic confrontations with genuinely frightening monsters, and each victory you manage to eke out feels extremely narrow. The story is a little heavy on gibberish and ultimately doesn’t make a ton of sense, but The Evil Within is such a fun spookfest that you won’t really mind too much. —Tom Reimann
12
‘Eternal Darkness’ (2002)
We’ve talked a lot about survival horror and psychological torment in this list of scary games, but we’ve yet to address one of the smartest twists in the genre: A sanity meter. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem is largely cited as the first game to add such a mechanic, especially in the West, though earlier Japanese releases, Laplace no Ma and Clock Tower, did this first. It’s also listed among the best GameCube games, but is often lost in the conversation among the more globally recognizable franchises. But for our money — and our nerves — it’s still one of the best when it comes to getting under your skin. So good, in fact, that Nintendo patented the standout “Sanity Effects” mechanic.
Eternal Darkness can deliver a slightly different gameplay experience every time you pick it up. The hardcore gamers out there will take the “red” path, while completionists will have to tackle all three paths if they want to play any one path twice. The game gives you a level or so to warm up and get used to the combat style, but once you hit chapter two, keep an eye on your sanity; it’ll drop whenever an enemy spots you, and things will get increasingly horrifying from there on out. Those effects range from slight visual changes like a tilted camera angle or environmental effects to full-on mind-blowing fourth-wall-breaking moments that’ll have the player questioning whether or not their game is actually malfunctioning. It’s brilliant stuff, and it paved the way for many other games that came after it. —Dave Trumbore
11
‘Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly’ (2003)
The first game had already made an appearance on this list, but Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly is even scarier, placing it above the first. Twin sisters Mio and Mayu Amakura are wandering through the woods when Mayu chases a mysterious crimson butterfly. Thus, he enters Minakami Village, which has a twisted tradition, with the sisters using their camera to exorcise the dead and escape.
It may be an old game, but the dated graphics add to the frightening atmosphere. Most players want to be as far away from the danger as possible in a horror game, but Fatal Frame II forces the player to get up close. This incredible game design decision made the horror experience much more intimate, scary, uncomfortable, and panic-inducing. —Lucas Kloberdanz-Dyck
10
‘The Last of Us’ (2013)
The Last of Us comes at you from all angles. The combat sequences, in which your playable character Joel hides, stalks, and does his best to reckon with the corrupted, vilely designed zombies (not to mention the corrupted, vilely temperamented humans dealing poorly with this post-apocalyptic warzone), can truly take your breath away. They are visceral, physical, immersive pieces of game design that raise the stakes, alongside your heart rate, with ruthless, borderline cruel efficiency.
And then, psychologically, The Last of Us hits you harder than twelve Bloaters in a row. Its cold open? Emotionally devastating. Its moments of mercy and comfort, including that beautiful giraffe? Only momentarily relieving, the inevitable calm for the doubly devastating storm. Its central relationship, between Joel and Ellie? It’s one of the best duos in all of video game history. It’s rich and complicated and both the only life raft both characters have and predicated on all kinds of unhealthy coping mechanisms. The scariest part of The Last of Us might be the unending, relentless, borderline cruelly efficient sprint toward fate, toward realizing you don’t have control after all. A frightful game no matter how you slice it (with a great TV show based on the game to match). —Gregory Lawrence
9
‘SOMA’ (2015)
Frictional Games is an incredible gaming studio with multiple classics, such as SOMA. After suffering a severe injury in a car crash, Simon Jarrett agrees to an experimental brain scan, but wakes up a hundred years later in an underwater facility. Only he and biomechanical monstrosities are left, with him needing to descend deeper to find a digital utopia.
The biomechanical monsters are terrifying, and their tragic concept only adds to the overall sense of gloom. However, the true scariness of SOMA comes from the suffocating sense of dread through the narrative and philosophical themes. The more realizations that the player experiences, the more psychological terror takes over them, building into a heavy weight of darkness when the credits roll, proving it is a video game with no flaws. —Lucas Kloberdanz-Dyck
8
‘Alien: Isolation’ (2014)
Alien: Isolation is a survival horror game that casts you as the daughter of Ellen Ripley, making her way through a chaotic space station in search of answers about what happened to her mother. The station has been split up between factions of humans, so you’ll have to deal with Mad Max-style scavengers and crazed androids while trying to make as little noise as possible to avoid attracting the alien. When the alien shows up, you can try hiding in lockers and beneath tables and such, but be warned: The alien is a psychic and will find you before too long regardless of how quiet you’re being.
The tension and atmosphere are pitch-perfect for fans of the 1979 Ridley Scott film (it even features DLC where you can play as the crew of the Nostromo in a mini-mission). It’s a little too long for its premise to sustain, but when it’s at its best, Alien: Isolation is a satisfyingly scary experience that will make even the toughest players panic. —Tom Reimann
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