Over the course of the past two decades, gaming has evolved and so has our need for tales of horror. Just seeing Jill Valentine getting turned into a sandwich and devoured by a bunch of zombies doesn’t cut it anymore. This prompted developers to ditch more obvious horror and instead look for deeper and more personal fears. The change allowed them to unlock never-before-seen nightmares that power the most powerful nightmares you can experience in and out of video games.
Soma
Soma provides the perfect introduction to the genre since it’s as great at inner horror stuff as it is at just plain ‘ole horror.
It pulls off classic horror very well, but its biggest strength lies in both the literal and figurative deep dives it does into the concepts of altruism and the self. The real horror here is the monsters, yeah, but also you.
Oh, and the fact that it takes place entirely in a claustrophobic underwater facility doesn’t help make it any less horrifyingly awesome.
Silent Hill 2
Silent Hill 2 remains, for many, the gold standard of psychological horror. This is the rare sequel that wondered if it could do more with less, and yeah, it did.
Silent Hill 2 does away with the grander theme of a zany cult trying to give life to a god and just makes it all about one man’s grief.
Why does it work? Well, because this man, James Sunderland, has a lot of grief in him, and a lot of good reasons to feel said grief.
The game also introduces a cast of secondary characters who are all battling their inner demons, demons more powerful than any monster in the game — yes, even when taking Pyramid Head into account — because he’s one of them.
Earthbound
Earthbound aka Mother 2 is a cute and psychological horror-free game for the most part. When you get to the final boss, however, it becomes one of the most harrowing experiences in video game history. I think you should really play the game, but you can just watch the final battle on YouTube. I can’t guarantee that you won’t regret it, but I promise that it’ll be an experience that you won’t forget.
The game’s shocking ending spawned various conspiracies regarding its meaning, but it inspired something even better. Because of Earthbound, we have a plethora of seemingly cute games that turn into straight-up horror out of nowhere. That’s more than enough to make Earthbound a classic in my book.
Cry Of Fear
Cry of Fear began life as a Half-Life mod, but it found so much cult success that it ended up becoming a standalone game. It might look a bit dated by today’s standards, but the horror within remains very up-to-date.
The vision of the team behind Cry Of Fear was so powerful and well-realized that no budgetary constraints could stop this one. Play it once and you’ll immediately realize why such a small cult hit managed to make it into so many lists such as this one.
Silent Hill 3
For the longest time, a lot of players discarded the themes of Silent Hill 3 as inferior to those of Silent Hill 2, but most women have always been aware that it is a poignant portrayal of the horrors that so many girls go through. If you really try to get into the shoes of Heather, SH3 is sure to provide one of the most horrifying experiences in all of gaming.
It’s almost unbelievable that SH3 manages to be one of the darkest games of all time despite it also being one of the most beautiful games on the PS2.
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
A game about a vengeful AI torturing a bunch of people trapped in a Hellscape can only be a psychological horror game — even if it plays like a comfy classic point-and-click adventure game.
It has a great story, features great characters, and achieves the incredibly hard task of adding material (and a slight hint of much-needed hope) to the classic short story by Harlan Ellison that it’s based on.
I’d recommend this one to anyone looking to have a bad time.
Doki Doki Literature club
Oh, how did this one end up here? Doki Doki Literature club is actually just a completely harmless dating sim!
Spoilers: It does indeed start as another cute dating sim, but it quickly turns into an absolute nightmare that players cannot really wake up from without deleting actual system files.
This game’s unexpected turn into absolute horror territory made it an instant cult sensation. Play it, but don’t let the cute looks fool you — this book club pulls no punches.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
The GameCube escaped Nintendo’s label of being too family-friendly in style with this one.
Eternal Darkness is a Lovecraftian tale that features actual monsters out there to murder the player, yes. Still, ED’s true horror lies in all the nasty moves it game pulls on the player to try to make them feel like they’ve lost their minds.
When discussing horror in the GameCube era, we tend to think about the phenomenal Resident Evil 1 remake and Resident Evil 4. Still, Eternal Darkness is just as good — and much more original.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
The studio behind Senua’s Sacrifice worked with various mental health professionals to give players the most realistic portrayal of anxiety and paranoia in a video game. They succeeded
This isn’t a psychological horror game. It’s a psychological horror simulator. Senua’s Sacrifice does a perfect job of deconstructing the idea of a badass hero and of confronting players with the realities of mental illness — but never without taking away their hope.
Omori
If a good rule of thumb for psychological horror is that less is usually more, then a great advice I can give you is to always keep an eye out for unassuming indie titles.
Omori is, I believe, the best example of one of those cute games that veer into horror territory. Much like Senua’s Sacrifice, it provides a deep dive into the realm of depression and anxiety, something that’s a sad reality to many kids out there.
Lots of people out there claim that Omori has legitimately helped them with their struggles, so I really couldn’t recommend this one enough.
Devotion
Nothing is scarier than a media property that crosses over into reality, like Samara from The Ring. Okay, Devotion didn’t cross over that hard, but its themes were still strong enough to cause some IRL problems.
Its developers got into hot water for including an easter egg that seemingly made a joke around Chinese president Xi Jingping, causing storefronts to drop the game (though it’s now available for sale through the developer’s site). This debacle naturally became the reason why most people talked about Devotion, but that’s unfair.
The relatively small number of people who actually got to play it have nothing but good things to say about this horror tale told from a non-Western perspective. Our own Eric Van Allen says it’s a haunting, fascinating tale about inter-family tensions and the pressures those put on children, as well as religious trauma.
P.T.
P.T. might be the best interactive experience in psychological horror that Konami has offered players and is definitely the one that haunts the company the most.
No matter how much the company will try to erase it from memories and storefronts alike due to a sad falling out with director Hideo Kojima, fans will never forget just how many nightmares you can live in just one single hallway. We want more and our greatest collective nightmare is that we may never get more P.T.
Still, even though it might be dead as a game, its mark in projects such as the new Resident Evil games and in our own nightmares is undeniable.
