Scariest Horror Games of All Time and Where to Play Them

Horror games scare people in different ways. Some never let you fight back, some give you a gun and too few bullets, and some get under your skin with a story you only understand at the end. This list picks the scariest games of each kind, explains what actually makes each one frightening, and says where you can play it today, because several classics are hard to find.

A game ranks higher if its fear comes from design you can name (a stalker you cannot kill, a sanity system, a camera you have to point at the thing you are afraid of) and still works today. Where a classic has no current release, the entry says so and names the closest thing you can buy. Availability changes, so check the store before you buy.

James Sunderland comes to the town of Silent Hill because of a letter from his wife, Mary, who died three years earlier. Konami's Team Silent built the scares out of fog, radio static that rises when monsters are near, and Akira Yamaoka's industrial score, and the monsters (Pyramid Head most of all) turn out to say something about James himself. The ending you get depends on how you played, down to how often you examined certain items.

• Where to play it now: the 2024 remake by Bloober Team on PS5 and PC. It keeps the story and adds an over-the-shoulder camera and heavier combat.
• Who it suits: players who want dread and a story that rewards a second play more than jump scares.

Capcom rebuilt the 1998 original from the ground up with an over-the-shoulder camera. Leon and Claire each have their own route through Raccoon City's police station, and the station is a puzzle box you unlock room by room. The fear is Mr. X: a giant who follows you through the building, whose footsteps you hear before you see him, and who cannot be killed. Ammunition is tight enough that every zombie is a decision.

• Where to play it now: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC.
• Who it suits: players who want horror with action, and anyone new to Resident Evil.

Frictional Games gave you no weapon at all. You can hide, run, hold doors shut and avoid looking at monsters, because looking drains your sanity and makes the screen warp. That simple rule changed the genre: Outlast, SOMA and much of the indie horror that followed are built on it.

• Where to play it now: PC, and in the Amnesia Collection on PS4, Xbox One and Switch.
• Who it suits: players who find fighting back makes horror less scary.

Twin sisters Mio and Mayu are lost in a village where a ritual went wrong. Your only defence is the Camera Obscura, which damages ghosts when you photograph them, so the game makes you look straight at what frightens you and wait for the best moment to take the shot. Its Japanese folk setting and ghosts that pass through walls still unsettle people who have seen everything else.

• Where to play it now: the original is on PS2 and Xbox. The series' remasters on current consoles and PC are Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water (2021) and Mask of the Lunar Eclipse (2023).
• Who it suits: players who like slow, atmospheric ghost stories.

Creative Assembly built the whole game around one alien that hunts you by sound and learns where you hide. You have a motion tracker, a flamethrower that only scares it off, and save points that take seconds to use while it may be in the room. It is the most faithful Alien game, and tense for 15 to 20 hours.

• Where to play it now: PS4, Xbox One, Switch and PC; mobile versions came in 2021.
• Who it suits: fans of the 1979 film, and players who like stealth.

Kojima Productions released P.T. as a free "playable teaser" for Silent Hills, a game that was later cancelled. It is one L-shaped hallway that loops and changes a little each time, and it is still talked about as one of the scariest things in games. Konami removed it from the PlayStation Store in 2015, so you can only play it on a PS4 where it was already downloaded. Indie games such as Visage (2020) carry its looping-house idea forward.

• Dead Space (2008; remake 2023) - sci-fi horror where you shoot off limbs, not heads; the remake is on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.
• Outlast (2013) - you film an asylum through a night-vision camera and can only run and hide.
• SOMA (2015) - Frictional's underwater sci-fi horror; the fear is as much about what you are as what is chasing you.
• Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017) - first-person, set in one Louisiana house, and playable in VR on PlayStation.
• Visage (2020) - a psychological horror house in the tradition of P.T.

• New to horror games: Resident Evil 2.
• Want the best story: Silent Hill 2.
• Want to be truly helpless: Amnesia: The Dark Descent or Outlast.
• Love the PlayStation era: our best PS1 horror games and the games like Parasite Eve list.

For a lighter scare, see the best Halloween games, and the horror genre page for more picks.