While a not so subtle horror games rely on blood, guts and body parts to deliver scares, these titles take a subtler approach by diving into the human mind. A cursory glance at the internet proves that the human psyche can be a dark and dangerous place, capable of conjuring up all sorts of heebie jeebie inducing frights. These games cast a light on the dim thoughts of the paranoid and the deranged – though it’s not actually paranoia if there really are things out to get you! In the 10 best psychological horror games ever made, you can be certain that there are lots of things out to do the getting.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
A groundbreaking genre classic, Amnesia: The Dark Descent took gamers completely out of their comfort zone – the monsters in this title can’t be defeated like in most games, they can only be evaded. The player takes control of Daniel, a man who awakens within the walls of a gothic castle with not memory of how he got there. After finding a self-written note that tells him he must kill the castle’s baron and evade the “Shadow” hunting him, Daniel sets out on his murder adventure while trying not to get got himself. The castle is haunted by potato sack headed, evil Squidward looking creatures that erode your sanity at a glance. No, really – the game was one of the first to feature an actual sanity meter, and allowing Daniel to become too traumatized will lead to a total game over on the hardest difficulties. All you can do is stay in the light, hide in the closet, and pray the sack Squidwards don’t find you.
P.T.
Short for “Playable Teaser,” P.T. is a demo developed to tease the never-developed game Silent Hills. Despite the fact that it’s technically unfinished, P.T. was so profoundly terrifying that it established itself as one of the best horror games in existence. Developed by Hideo Kojima (the genius behind Metal Gear and Death Stranding) the game takes place in a hallucinatory house haunted by a ghostly woman. The player is tasked with completing puzzles in a claustrophobic hallway to reveal the story. When a puzzle is done, the hallway changes – and the ghostly woman changes with it. If a player fails, the ghost attacks, and the loop resets. Head-scratching and heart-stopping in equal measure, P.T. delivers more scares in a bite-sized demo teaser than some games do across an entire franchise.
Silent Hill 2
Arguably the greatest horror game franchise ever made, the Silent Hill series carved out a niche for itself in the psychological horror subgenre, and Silent Hill 2 is perhaps the most sophisticatedly terrifying of the bunch. The player takes control of James Sunderland, who returns to the town of Silent Hill after getting a letter from his dead wife. As James navigates the creepy town, he’s haunted by monsters that are manifestations of his own psyche. Unsurprisingly, James has some ugly feelings surrounding his wife’s passing, and some equally ugly apparitions are happy to help him work those feelings out – though he might not survive the process. The most famous monster of all? Pyramid Head – the geometrically craniumed, sword swinging torturer that has become a thing of horror game infamy.
Mouthwashing
The horror/sci-fi title Mouthwashing proves that you don’t need a AAA studio to create AAA terror. The game takes place on a Pony Express spaceship that had an unfortunate meet-cute with an asteroid, leaving its crew stranded on the now-derelict craft. The game trades standard combat encounters for light puzzles and heavy dialogue, as players piece together the details of the crash through a non-linear story. There are no heart pounding battles or jump scares, the game doesn’t need them – the fates of the sanity-deprived crew members are horrifying enough. The game feels like a sci-fi Stephen King novel, where human evil is far more terrifying than any monster. In this case, that monster is space itself – and the crushing despair that comes with the realization that help is not on the way.
Observer
Another psychological horror/sci-fi, Observer takes place in the near future cyberpunk dystopia that was once Krakow, Poland. After a devastating plague wiped out swathes of the population, a megacorporation established a totalitarian regime to hold the nation’s disintegrating society together. You play as Daniel Lazarski, a member of the cybernetically augmented “Observer” police unit meant to control the populace by hacking into their minds. In first person perspective, you facilitate Daniel’s effort to track down his estranged son Adam – who has apparently been keeping a decapitated corpse in his apartment. It’s a downright eerie game about the depths of human depravity, depths that you the player are given the task to plumb. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.
SOMA
SOMA is the psych horror cousin of horror-adjacent shooter Bioshock – something about decaying underwater cities really just heebie one’s jeebies. The game takes place on PATHOS-II, a nearly derelict ocean research station in the North Atlantic. The player takes control of Simon Jarrett, a car crash survivor who finds that he has been reawakened on the research station with no memory of how he got there. As you navigate the glitched out facility, you encounter equally glitchy robots horrors that believe themselves to be human. SOMA tricks you into a false sense of psych-horror security, before finally revealing the cosmically horrible cause behind the facility’s current state of existence. It’s a deeply disturbing exploration of the nature of human consciousness, left to rot at the bottom of the deep sea.
The Cat Lady
The Cat Lady is game that is as simple as it is horrifying. And trust me, it’s horrifying. Using only the four arrow keys on the computer, you take control of Susan Ashworth – a lonely middle aged woman whose only companions are the stray cats that she cares for. After committing suicide, Susan is resurrected by the mysterious “Queen of Maggots,” who tasks her with eliminating five “Parasites” that haunt the living world. Initially believing her experience to be a hallucination, Susan’s subsequent encounter with a serial killer proves that the Queen of Maggots, and the murderous Parasites she warned of, are terrifyingly real. The Cat Lady proves that you don’t need complex gameplay to deliver a complex story – or explore the complex, ugly emotions beneath.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is an unusual psychological horror game – it’s totally action packed. A cross between God of War and Silent Hill, the story follows an ancient Pict warrior named Senua who travels into the underworld to recover the soul of her dead lover. Haunted by intrusive, fourth wall breaking voices that she calls “Furies,” it becomes clear that Senua is suffering from psychosis, but the ancient warrior is entirely unaware of that modern diagnosis. Shifting between cerebral puzzles and claustrophobic combat encounters, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice plays out like a downward spiral into a dark fantasy abyss.
Pathologic
Don’t let the slightly goofy looking plague doctor fool you, Pathologic is one of the most emotionally difficult games ever made. The action takes place in a remote town that has fallen to the grips of a strange plague – exactly the sort of thing a historical healer like you is semi-qualified to tackle! While the game tasks you with saving others, it’s hard enough to keep yourself alive over the twelve in-game days. As time passes and the bodies start piling up, you realize that you can’t save everyone. To make moral matters even grayer, saving your resources for some people means letting others die, and there’s no clear answer for which choice to make. The dread of standard video game monster encounters has been entirely replaced by the dread of decision making – and the consequences of your actions.
Doki Doki Literature Club!
How could a sweet little high school dating sim become a thing of terror? Don’t let Doki Doki Literature Club‘s looks fool you, it’s psychological horror to its core. You take control of a shy protagonist who has been invited to join your school’s literature club in order to make some friends. After meeting the tsundere Natsuki, the soft-spoken Yuri, and the confident club president Monika, you begin to think forming close relationships won’t be as hard as you thought! Maintaining them, however, proves to be a nightmare. As you get to know your fellow club members, the darker parts buried deep within their psyches soon come kicking and screaming into the light. The game subverts common dating sim tropes, giving disturbing explanations behind each character’s seemingly innocent quirks. Natsuki’s emotional volatility might just stem from a traumatic home life. Yuri’s self-effacing demeanor hides a desire for self-harm. Monika’s confident attitude might just be a symptom of budding megalomania. The red flags were waving the whole time in this dating sim, you just didn’t notice until it was too late.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
