There are a lot of games in the horror genre. There are fewer good horror games. And very few games, after which you still do not want to turn off the lights for a few more nights. Having studied the reviews in Russian and foreign editions, we selected the scariest games on PC. The list includes both fairly old and very recent “horror stories”.
Top 10 scariest games sorted by year of release on PC.
10. Silent Hill 2, 2001
When it comes to the game embodiment of real horror, one cannot help but recall the cult game Silent Hill 2. This is an alarming and psychological journey in the thoughts of the protagonist and the tormented souls he encounters along the way. The creators of Silent Hill 2 embodied emotional tragedy, guilt, anger, love and sexual violence in their creation with tremendous grace and skill.
A considerable role in creating the paradoxical and psychedelic atmosphere of the game was played by musical accompaniment, as well as strange elements, such as vertical corridors, traffic lights operating in an empty city, red squares, doors to the floor, etc.
9. Doom 3, 2004
On the 9th place in the top of the most terrible PC games is the old, but by no means useless game, which can still scare you to a trembling knee.
It focuses on the rapidly growing arsenal of weapons, with which you can kill an army of a wide variety of evil spirits attacking a player from an ambush or sneaking in the shadows.
The atmosphere of most levels is intentionally made as dark as possible, and the creators of the game paid considerable attention to lighting effects to create a suitable mood for the players.
Better not to play Doom 3 at night, your screams of horror can wake others.
8. Dead Space, 2008
Like all the scariest PC games, Deep Space often tests the player’s psyche for strength, subtly mixing violence and paranoia, creating atmospheric and inexorably gloomy pictures of what is happening.
The character will act on board the Ishimura spaceship with dark corridors and a large number of corners in which you can hide from creepy necromorph monsters. But there are still more monsters in Dead Space than shelters from them. And, unlike opponents in other games, these guys are not so easy to put a bullet in the brain - sometimes their heads are not even where they should be.
7. Amnesia: The Dark Descent, 2010
On the seventh line of the list of the worst games on the computer is a project full of tension, panic and anxiety. He manages to refrain from the cliche a la "monster jumping from around the corner." Instead, the game scares the satiated gamers thanks to the competent use of sound and its unique atmosphere. The inability to fend off pursuers, combined with a sanity system that prevents the player from looking directly at disfigured monsters, makes every encounter with an adversary extremely undesirable.
As the game progresses, safe areas become less frequent, and the narrative changes from simply dark to frankly nightmarish. After all, something (or someone) tirelessly follows the main character.
6. Outlast, 2013
The action of this game takes place in an abandoned psychiatric hospital, filled with insane and disfigured patients, as well as bloodthirsty personnel, which the player must in every possible way avoid. Unless, of course, he wants all the internal organs of his character to become a complement to the local surroundings.
To find your way in the dark corridors of Outlast, you need to use a video camera with a night vision device. This gives the game a distinctly eerie visual appearance, making the player feel vulnerable to villains crawling behind.
Igromania magazine called Outlast the best horror game of 2013.
5. Alien: Isolation, 2014
One of the scariest computer games of the 21st century will force the player to be alone with the monster in the dark and dark corridors of the huge Sevastopol space trading station.
A deadly, cunning and completely devoid of pity creature that can appear at any time, without warning: what else can you expect from an antagonist in a horror game? It is impossible to escape from him in the open, and it remains only to move slowly, carefully thinking through each next step. However, sooner or later, the Alien will find its prey.
In numerous reviews, users note the excellently selected audio sequence of the game, nice graphics, as well as vintage surroundings, reminiscent of the very first Alien movie.
4. SOMA, 2015
This game can be called intellectual horror. Unable to attack enemies, the player is forced to covertly navigate the underwater research station PATHOS-2, shrouded in an atmosphere of loneliness and fear. Beautiful and gloomy underwater landscapes, robots that claim to be human beings, the last words of the station’s now-dead employees sounding from “black boxes” - all this allows SOMA to achieve the full effect of immersion and play with the imagination of the gamer, trying to put more pressure on fear of death.
This is not the horror that takes the player by the handle and shows where to go and what to do in order to survive. First of all, you have to think up by trial and error.
Separately, it is worth noting the unusual theme of the game and its excellent soundtrack.
3. The Evil Within 2, 2017
This exciting, challenging and action-packed game is a worthy successor to the traditions of the first part of The Evil Within. Now, detective Sebastian Castellanos has to save his daughter, in the city of Union, created within the STEM system.
The developers took into account the mistakes made in the first part, and significantly improved the gameplay, making character management more convenient and adding a simple and well-functioning stealth.
A world full of monsters with unpredictable patterns of behavior, repulsive scenes (although there are fewer of them than in the first The Evil Within), and the need to save each cartridge will give the player many unforgettable moments.
2. Darkwood, 2017
The plot focuses on a mysterious man cooking mushrooms in a house right in the middle of a plague-infected forest. In the daylight, the player can freely roam around the neighborhood full of poisonous mushrooms, fight off rabid dogs, deer and other infected animals, collect resources and try to find out how his character ended up here. But at dusk, the only reasonable option is to return to your home, barricade all windows and doors. And hope that on this night the creations of darkness pass by.
Darkwood has a wonderful ability to scare, without even showing monsters nearby. The rustling sounds, inhuman screams and creaky doors are constantly kept in suspense, and with the development of the plot, the darkness thickens, and it is already difficult to distinguish where reality is and where illusion is.
1. Resident Evil 7, 2017
Inspired by the popularity of claustrophobic horror games such as Amnesia and Outlast, Resident Evil 7 locks the player in the house of the crazy Baker family. The house is not just dozens of corridors with hidden enemies, but a huge puzzle that requires the player to search for keys to unlock new zones. The atmosphere of horror and claustrophobia is complemented by a flashlight that illuminates only a small area in front of the character and the wooden floors of the house, which give out both the player’s steps and the steps of his pursuers.
Replacing zombie legions with ruthless antagonistic people is perhaps Capcom's smartest solution in the more than a decade of their flagship Resident Evil series.
