Our favorite horror video games to play during Halloween

Movies aren’t the only time honored tradition for October and Halloween. We have to give a shoutout to our favorite horror/scary games that helped shaped the genre and kept our heart racing. Let us know what you think of the games below and some we may not have mentioned!

What’s the scariest games we’ve ever played?

Resident Evil 7– It takes a lot to scare me, but this new rebooted style of Resident Evil takes the cake. The Barker Family is absolutely terrifying and Jack’s relentless pursuit of you brings the same tension as a Tyrant or Nemesis did in the older games but on a whole other level. To top it all off, you get RE from the 1st-person perspective for the first time in the series which amps up the scariness.

Honorable Mention:Dying Light 2, but specifically at night in-game when the volatiles come out and you are too scared to even move.

Silent Hill 2– Atmospheric as hell and super dark, Silent Hill 2 was as creepy an experience as you can get. The first time I ran into Pyramid Head I yelled, “What the fuck is that!?” Silent Hill 2 just leaves you with a feeling of dread as you walk through this mysterious town trying to understand what the hell is going on. Oh, travel down this dark well? Are you serious right now? No thanks.

The most fun horror game we’ve played

Left 4 Dead 2– I loved the series overall and its criminal that Valve never had the guts to make more games but I digress. A game where you could play co-op or with up to three other friends as you navigate different iconic areas of a fictional New Orleans while fending off hordes of running zombies. The combination of teamwork and terror made this an enjoyable experience. There were also special super powered zombies that you could take control of if you felt like playing as a baddie!

Honorable Mention: I’ll echo Steve’s sentiment and also choose Resident Evil 4. Perhaps the most perfect Resident Evil game in the series.

Resident Evil 4is so much fun. It took the franchise in more of an action direction, that would ultimately be to its detriment, but RE4 is just a blast to play. It’s funny, it’s scary, it’s just awesome. To this day, I think about the merchant who opens up his coat in a very…uhhhh, sus…fashion to ask what you’re selling or buying.

Honorable mention: Read Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare is a blast in a way that desperately wants Rockstar to do the same thing for GTA. Shooting zombies and chasing cryptids in the old west is such a cool experience. I would love for a PS5 remaster.

Most underrated horror video game

Prey (2017)– Think “Bioshock but in space”. This game isn’t talked about enough like say as…well Bioshock because it is equally as good. Between the gameplay, gunplay, and scariness it fits the bill. The enemies in the game are called Typhons. There are a variety of enemy-types that include: ones that can mimic common objects strewn throughout the environment, poltergeists that are INVISIBLE, possessed humans with unique powers, and an unkillable entity known as Nightmare that stalks you throughout the game. You get to use both guns and special abilities to take them all down as you try and escape the overrun space station.

Honorable Mention: I nearly put EternalDarkness: Sanity’s Requiem for the N64 here as it’s been criminally slept on as the years have gone on. For years we begged for a sequel but unfortunately never got it. I loved being able to take control of a dozen different characters as you visit different locations through time as you battled evil.

This might be a controversial pick here, but I am going with Death Stranding. It’s more of a sci-fi game at the end of the day, but Hideo Kojima packs Death Stranding with some truly horrifying images and sequences. The Beached Things (BTs) are this black goo that rise up and try to drag you to your death. You have to struggle to get away from them. Every sequence with Mads Mikkelsen is a nightmare. Death Stranding is one of the weirdest games I’ve ever played, you’re basically a courier and doing logistics. The characters have some of the goofiest damn names I’ve ever heard (there are characters named Deadman, Heartman, and Die-Hardman for fuck’s sake). But, Death Stranding has some scary horror elements that absolutely stay with you throughout the journey.

The best zombie game

Resident Evil 2 (Original) – This feels like an impossible question, but I kept landing back to this game which I replayed relentlessly in my youth. It feels a little dated now, but the controls and fixed camera only added to the tension as you tried to mow down or evade the zombies and various creatures in the game. It had the best environment and setting of an overrun police station. Ask me again tomorrow and maybe I pick the Resident Evil 1 Remake, Dying Light 2, Days Gone or one of The Last of Us games.

Honorable Mention: Perhaps not true “zombies”, but I’d be remiss to mention both Dead Space 1 & 2. Both are masterpieces in their own right.

How can I possibly answer this? Resident Evil 2 is awesome – one of the best of all-time. I guess I’ll take this space to talk about Resident Evil 1. This was such a scary experience, even if it looks ridiculous by modern standards. That first zombie image scared the shit out of me as a teen when horror games were not really a thing. The first Resident Evil was truly ground-breaking and helped define the horror genre. Zombie dogs? You’ve gotta be kidding me! Obviously, we have come a long way from that. But, at the time? Truly terrifying.

Our favorite jumpscare

Two come immediately to mind with Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem and F.E.A.R. With Eternal Darkness, it is the infamous bathtub scene where Alex pears into it only to see a dead version of herself. No matter how many times I played it, it always got me. F.E.A.R. you are constantly bombarded with visions of Alma, but there is one in the beginning of the game where you are climbing up a ladder and she immediately greets you as you reach the top.

Weirdly the first one I think of is Manbat in Batman: Arkham Knight, which decidedly is not a horror game. You’re just innocently ziplining to the top of a building when GAHHH this half-man / half-bat creature appears randomly to scare the shit out of you. It is truly jarring.

The scariest villain in a game

I think the scariest villains are the ones that pursue you and can’t be defeated. That only leaves a few on the list, but the best of those is the Xenomorph from Alien Isolation. It tracks your patterns, can hear your voice through the microphone on your controller, and simply cannot be killed. Heart pounding terror every time you see it.

Honorable Mention: Crimson Heads from Resident Evil 1 Remake, the Stalker from Dead Space 1, Mr. X from Resident Evil 2, and Jack Barker from Resident Evil 7.

I’m going to go with the Rat King from The Last of Us Part 2. Good god, is that thing disgusting. The Rat King is a bunch of infected that have been melded together to make one super strong horrifying creature that Abby has to face in the flooded basement of a hospital. It’s a fight where you are just constantly scrambling and trying to find any supplies to keep you alive. 

Honorable Mention: Nemesis from Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. I know I have to play the remakes at some point, but Nemesis was such a pain in the ass in the original on the PS1 way back when. Nemesis would track you down and basically take every acid grenade you had to just go away. I remember running away from Nemesis yelling quite a bit.

Our pick for best overall horror game

I’m going to cheat here and say both The Last of Us Part 1 and The Last of Us Part 2. While I love the first game’s story a bit more, it’s the latter’s gameplay that sets it apart. At this point though, I look at both games like one continuous story.

Oh I just had to mention The Last of Us so that Jason could swoop in and steal it! They are two of my favorite games of all-time and tell the most emotionally crushing story that I have ever experienced in a game. You encounter horror in The Last of Us in both the creatures that you have to face as well as the awful acts that are inflicted by (and you have to inflict on) your fellow man.

I’m going to throw Silent Hill 2 in the mix here. I haven’t play the remake of this either, but this was a game that I was scared to play alone. The original Silent Hill games were so great about providing the player with a spooky atmosphere with constant fog, creepy staticy radio, and dark, dingy atmospheres. Silent Hill also gives you hopeless odds, as your weapons are limited, and your character isn’t even a very good shot. Silent Hill 2 expanded on the first one, adding villains like PYRAMID HEAD and even gives the player 6 possible endings.