Updated on August 6, 2026, by Mark Sammut: Besides adding new images and tweaking the order, I also added two more games: Fear & Hunger and Detention.
Can horror be great if it isn’t scary? Well, these upcoming games don’t have to answer that question, and they embody fear through different subgenres, gameplay styles, storytelling techniques, and eras. The scariest horror games ever get under your skin so much that they force you to turn on the lights in your room, just to provide a sense of safety.
Even though AAA games have become very rare, horror continues to be a juggernaut, something that has been true for roughly three decades. From the early days of Resident Evil to modern nightmares like Alan Wake 2, let’s pick out the absolute best games that will keep you up at night.
VR-only games are not included. The focus is also on single-player games.
20
Detention
Historical Psychological Horror
Although the 2D side-scrolling perspective lessens the immediate impact, Detention sits comfortably among the scariest psychological horror games of all time. Set in Taiwan during the White Terror, Red Candle’s game follows a student who becomes stuck in a nightmare version of her high school, sort of similar to Silent Hill. The hallways are littered with Taoist altars, blood-stained desks, and haunting manifestations of Taiwanese mythology, forcing you to uncover the tragic sequence of events that led to the school’s decay.
Despite being fantastical in places, Detention grounds itself in historical tragedy and the real-world totalitarian paranoia that dominated this era in Taiwan’s history. The point-and-click gameplay reminiscent of Clock Tower might feel a bit outdated by modern standards, but the game uses it to great effect through the design of puzzles and even the survival mechanics, all the while preserving the uncomfortable atmosphere.
19
Doki Doki Literature Club
Breaking The Fourth Wall To Horrifying Results
What starts as a cheery dating simulator escalates into a dark, twisted psychological horror game. 2017’s Doki Doki Literature Club is a visual novel that starts fairly traditional, but eventually transforms into a genre-pushing project that constantly breaks the fourth wall.
The lightheartedness of the story’s early moments should lull players into a false sense of security, allowing the horror elements to hit harder when they arrive. Being able to choose dialogue options to influence the game’s outcome makes Doki Doki Literature Club stand out from other horror games. Especially for those expecting to play a dating simulator, it can be unnerving.
Doki Doki Literature Club is nowadays so well-known that most new players will probably already know the “twist,” which can hurt the game’s overall impact. Nevertheless, it is still quite scary.
18
Darkwood
An Intense Top-Down Survival Horror Game
If there’s one thing that is more horrifying than a standard horror game, it’s a horror game that tests the player’s limits through survival. In Darkwood, the player must try their very best to endure in an incredibly distorted world. They must scavenge and explore the suffocating forest during the day when it’s mostly safe, minus a couple of monsters, but the real danger occurs during the night.
Hunkering down in their base, the darkness will surround the shack the player finds themselves hiding in. Barricading the doors to make their last stand as the nightmares of the forest emerge to see the player’s end. With no way to see outside the room they find themselves in, every night can be a gut-wrenching experience.
17
Little Nightmares
A Surreal Nightmare
There is just something extra unsettling about exploring a sinister world while controlling a small child like Six in Little Nightmares. Taking place on The Maw, the player will encounter various foes that will attempt to capture Six. As a small girl with nothing but her yellow raincoat, the player can only escape these situations.
With an interesting story and a slew of creative monster designs, Little Nightmares gets under the player’s skin, putting them in a constant state of tension without relying on jump scares.
16
Fear & Hunger
The Scariest Horror RPG Of All Time
Even more so than Darkwood, Fear & Hunger‘s perspective is not tailor-made for horror, but the game (and a few others) proved that the RPG Maker engine could very well accommodate the genre. Horror is not merely aesthetic, and some of the greatest games of all time rely on creating systemic terror through brutal difficulty and extreme content. Fear & Hunger does this better than nearly any other horror RPG in history.
Drenched in body horror and incorporating cosmic horror akin to Junji Ito’s work, Fear & Hunger makes players feel consistently powerless while giving them just enough agency to feel responsible when their characters end up without limbs and on the cusp of a grim death. As a single coin flip can spell the end of a playthrough, you always and forever feel in danger, which is amplified by the game’s grotesque imagery and unsettling atmosphere.
15
SOMA
An Underwater Nightmare
SOMA
8/10
- Released
-
September 15, 2015
Created by a developer team known for horror, SOMA excels in its world-building and atmosphere, all the while delivering several intense scares that should get the player’s heart racing. Set in an underwater research facility, the story has a strong sense of mystery since both the protagonist and the player are completely in the dark about their present situation when they wake up in the seemingly abandoned Pathos-2 station. As is always the case, they quickly learn that they are not alone.
Putting aside the story and writing, which are both great, SOMA‘s gameplay is fairly typical for the mid-2010s. Players are mostly defenseless, so they will need to hide and avoid enemies rather than directly confront them. This routine lends itself well to generating tension, and the campaign maintains a pretty consistent level of anxiety.
14
Alan Wake 2
Beware The Darkness
Both Alan Wake games are scary in their own right, but the 2010 original’s strong narrative is let down by repetitive gameplay that, eventually, hurts its fear factor. The long-awaited sequel is an improvement in every single way, and that extends to its presentation of horror. Unlike many titles in the genre, Alan Wake 2 does not try to constantly jolt players out of their seats, instead sprinkling in occasional flashes of terror. However, these moments are executed so flawlessly that they linger in the player’s mind, keeping them constantly on edge.
Although not devoid of conventional jump scares, Alan Wake 2 is arguably at its most terrifying when nothing major is really happening. Stretches when Saga or Alan are trudging through dimly lit environments in search of the next clue, fully knowing that one wrong step into the dark could be their last.
13
The Forest
Survival And Horror Merge
Endnight’s The Forest is a rare example of a great survival AND survival horror game. While its sequel, Sons of the Forest, improves on the formula in several ways, an argument could be made that its predecessor is scarier. Part of that is because most players likely started with the 2018 original, so they know what to expect when they get to the sequel.
However, The Forest features a far more poorly prepared protagonist, and Eric has no background knowledge that could help him navigate a dangerous island filled with intimidating caves and cannibals. This emphasizes the survival aspect, while also heightening the horror as both Eric and players find themselves exploring areas blindly.
12
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Descend Into Hell
This hair-raising survival horror game has inspired games like Slender: The Arrival and Outlast. Being left alone in the dark with the omnipresent threat of murderous monsters, Amnesia: The Dark Descent has left some players so frightened they have been unable to finish the horror experience. Besides the scares, there are also some exciting puzzles to solve, making the game an enjoyable experience overall.
Players will want to play Amnesia: The Dark Descent in the dark for the scariest experience of all. Now, it should be noted that the game’s fear factor has declined quite a bit over the last 15 years, largely due to the ocean of games that copied its formula. Except for maybe Resident Evil, Amnesia: The Dark Descent might be the most influential horror title of all time, but it isn’t quite the scariest anymore.
Click on the game with the higher OpenCritic rating.
11
Alien: Isolation
The Scariest A Xenomorph Has Ever Been
Considering it debuted with one of the scariest sci-fi movies of all time, the Alien franchise rarely seems to focus on pure horror. Most of the cinematic sequels fall short of the original’s high bar or lean into action, while the games are not much better. That said, Alien: Isolation is an exception. Inspired specifically by 1979’s original, Creative Assembly captures the movie’s sense of isolation, abandoning players in an unsettling space station that has a Xenomorph problem.
Rather than focus on quantity, Alien: Isolation aims for quality. For the most part, players are just hiding from a single threat, albeit one that constantly stalks the station and utilizes advanced AI that makes them feel like a living, breathing entity. Eventually, the protagonist unlocks some offensive options; however, she is largely defenseless throughout most of the campaign. The player is the hunted, not the hunter.
