There’s nothing better than sitting down in front of your screen, knocking off the lights, donning a pair of headphones, and starting up a good horror game at Halloween. The fact that the life of the character on-screen is your responsibility to take them through their horrific journey against all kinds of foe as you take them down with guns and weapons. Do you know what’s scarier? Horror games where you can’t utilise weapons to fight back, just run and hide for the most part.
Outlast
Outlast is a game built on its contemporaries. You are a journalist set to check out an asylum. Using your camera’s night vision, you can see what awaits you in the dark as you run, hide, and evade the “monsters” that are found within. It’s filled with suspense and tells a decent story, that is, if you can actually get through the game without become a withering heap on the ground.
Slender: The Arrival
A character that was created in online forums, Slenderman was a tall (believe it or not but some would call his build slender) being that wore a suit and had a face with no features. It would follow you and take you away. So basing a game on it wouldn’t be hard. What is surprising though is just how horrifying it is when he comes for you. You must collect eight pages and with every page you collect, he plays with you that little bit more, waiting for his moment to strike. Jumpscares galore, this is one to play with friends rather than alone.
P.T
Okay, so this isn’t technically a game nor is it even available any more but the Playable Teaser for now cancelled is simply terrifying. Deep, mysterious, and consistently scary. The familiarity of a single hallway only made things more uneasy when something wasn’t quite right. Visually stunning, atmospheric as hell (literally), and hiding amazing secrets, P.T. was a special release that even though it was never available technically as a game, was one of the best horror games in recent years. Says it all really.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
The horror game that made the genre popular again, Amnesia was one of the first games to make you feel helpless against the things that lurked around the corner. Your health was your sanity and you could feel your own slip away as those things came looking for you. Hiding in a wardrobe and peeking out to see it right there in front of you is what stopped hearts and soiled pants. The game lived on for many years and was one of the games that made the “Let’s Play” a viable avenue for people to make money from, Amnesia: The Dark Descent did a lot more than you may realise.
Project Zero/ Fatal Frame
Although Amnesia may have brought back horror games, Fatal Frame has been the only game I have traded in solely because I couldn’t take it anymore. The game features a young girl that enters a haunted mansion in search for her brother. It may seem like I’m cheating here by saying that the main character has a weapon but it’s a camera. Terrifying ghosts roam the halls and come after you. It’s only by taking pictures of them can you hurt them. It’s incredibly creepy, atmospheric, and mentally breaks you down. You want to go back but you always leave feeling distraught. I had to trade it in simply because it scared the shit out of me that much and traumatised me even when the computer was no longer on. When I slept knowing it was still in the room, it actually gave me nightmares, like it was almost haunted itself.
Jason Redmond
