The best scary games, all in one list. Dare you read on?
What makes a video game scary?
Is it the blood-drenched, tentacled abomination lurking just around the corner? The ravenous zombie shambling towards you?
Or is it the sense of powerlessness that comes with finding yourself alone, shrouded in darkness, with nothing but a dim flashlight and a dinky blade to defend yourself from horrors unseen?
Horror games are a special kind of peculiarity in the gaming industry. While other games are equipping you with laser swords and arm cannons, horror games strip you of confidence and the means for self-preservation, introducing you to uncomfortable concepts such as uncertainty, isolation, and vulnerability. And this is what makes a good horror game scary – the sense that everything is meaningless, and nothing you do can save you.
Listed here are our top picks for the 10 Best Scary Games to Play in 2015 – scary games we believe will disturb, startle, and frighten even the bravest of gamers.
10. Slender: The Eight Pages
Descent into madness
Born in the darkest corners of the internet, Slender Man’s presence in popular culture has grown exponentially to become a figure of folklore. He has taken up residence in our minds, where he continuous to watch… and wait…
Slender: The Eight Pages tasks you with finding eight pages scattered across an isolated woodland area. It’s dark, and all you’ve got is a sputtering flashlight. Slender Man, the tall, faceless creature of myth, is stalking you. Occasionally appearing in your peripheral vision, stare at him too long, and you’re dead. Take too long to find those pages, and you’re dead. And as the night deepens, the closer the Slender Man comes to wrapping his long, spindly arms around you…
It’s this lesson in helplessness that earns Slender: The Eight pages rank #10 on our list of best scary games to play in 2015.
Our rating – 4/5
9. Five Nights at Freddy’s
Peekaboo!
Something’s going on at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Rumors of horrid deaths and unusual accidents abound. It turns out the restaurant’s animatronic animal mascots like to roam around at night, and they’re in the habit of forcibly stuffing employees into a spare mechanical costume – to horrific, bloody effect.
As a night shift security guard, your only protection includes the two doors keeping the robot monsters out of the room you’re stationed in, as well as the cameras you use to observe their behavior. Problem is, operating those things requires power. Which you don’t have much of. And there are still three hours to sunup…
Will you survive to see another day? Or will you end up another casualty in the restaurant’s ever-evolving legend? If you’re up for a nerve-wracking, jump-scare-heavy experience, Five Nights at Freddy’s is your game.
Our rating – 4/5
8. The Evil Within
Buckets of viscera
House of slaughter
From the mastermind behind the Resident Evil series comes The Evil Within, a third person survival game where gore and madness go hand in hand.
Detective Sebastian Castellanos and his colleagues are called to investigate a gruesome massacre. But upon arrival at the crime scene, things go immediately downhill. Pursued by ghastly creatures known as the Haunted, Castellanos must fight not only to survive, but to keep himself from going insane.
Praised for its horror elements, including its monster designs and a world in constant, supernatural flux, The Evil Within is at spot #8 on our list of best scary games to play in 2015.
Our rating – 4/5
7. Outlast
Found footage horror
Murder most foul
Outlast deposits you in an abandoned psychiatric hospital that’s been overrun by – you guessed it – deranged mental patients. As an investigative journalist biting off more than he can chew, you’re armed with nothing but your camera, whose green infrared mode allows you to see in the dark. Of course, using the camera leaves you vulnerable to dangers skulking around you. The gadget is also in constant need of batteries, so you’ll have to scrounge around for them unless you’re fine with groping around in the shadows.
The game has wowed critics and fans alike, thanks to its eerie, “found footage” atmosphere, and its pervasive sense of creeping dread.
Our rating – 5/5
6. Alien: Isolation
If this ever happens, you're as good as dead
Stalking nightmare
You are trapped in a sprawling, mechanical labyrinth. No friends, no weapons – just your wits, and the cold enveloping shadows.
But you aren’t alone. And in space, no one can hear you scream.
Alien: Isolation is as Alien as an Alien game can get, featuring visual and sound design directly inspired by the movies. Playing as the daughter of Ellen Ripley, you’re lost in the derelict space station, Sevastopol. Hot on your heels is the iconic Xenomorph – an unstoppable force of nature that knows nothing but to butcher all that crosses its path.
Isolation is survival horror in the truest sense of the word. The Xenomorph is a relentless hunter who will appear when you least expect it, and gets smarter as the game progresses. You’ve got limited items to help you, such as the motion tracker and a mostly useless gun. The best you can do is hide, and hope the beast hasn’t picked up on your proclivity for concealing yourself in closets...
Definitely one of the best scary games to play in 2015.
Our rating – 5/5
5. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
Ghostly mirage
These old walls hide the darkest secrets...
Horror adventure game The Vanishing of Ethan Carter takes inspiration from classic tales of the macabre. As a detective with the supernatural gift to see a crime scene as it happened in the past, you wander around a large, open world in search for clues regarding the eponymous character’s disappearance.
It’s a game steeped in the occult, one that will have you communing with the dead, and exploring some of the spookiest, most beautifully disturbing environments in gaming. It sits cozily at #5 on our list of best scary games to play in 2015.
Our rating – 5/5
4. Alan Wake
Peaceful and beautiful by day...
... A shadowy hunting ground by night
Inspired by the books of horror master Stephen King, Alan Wake stars a writer who retreats to the mountain town Bright Falls to deal with his writer’s block. Only things take a turn for the tragic, and he wakes up a week later with parts of his memory erased.
To solve the mystery, he returns to a town now ruled by dark forces. The night comes alive with specters driven to kill Wake. They have one weakness: light.
As Alan Wake, your best defense against the Taken is your flashlight. By shining its beam at them, you burn away their coating of darkness, leaving them vulnerable to conventional weapons.
Thanks to its unique gameplay that centers on the power of light against the darkness, and an unsettling ambiance that will chill you to the core, Alan Wake is one of the best scary games to play in 2015.
Our rating – 5/5
3. Resident Evil HD Remaster
Murder mansion
A taste for flesh
The ghoul has seen you; it is dragging its feet towards you, it arms raised, the fingers grasping, ready to tear at your flesh. You pull away, only to find your back against the wall. You are cornered.
You raise your gun, stare down its sight at the monster lumbering towards you.
In Resident Evil HD Remaster, you are trapped in a gargantuan mansion infested with zombies and an assortment of other nightmarish creatures. As either Jill Valentine or Chris Redfield of the S.T.A.R.S. police force, you’ve got weapons and ammunition to defend yourself with.
But nothing lasts forever, and evil is a rising tide – relentless and immovable.
Will you take the shot, and save yourself now? Or will you take your chances and save the bullet for later, knowing that the worst is yet to come?
The game that started the survival horror craze, now in glorious HD – easily deserving of rank #3 on our best scary games to play in 2015 list.
Our rating – 5/5
2. Amnesia: The Dark Descent
The light won't save you
Windows to hell
You awaken, with no memory of your past, in the shadowed halls of an enormous castle.
You are literally weaponless in Amnesia: The Dark Descent, with nothing but your lantern to chase away the suffocating darkness. But be cautious as you plumb the depths of your prison and uncover its many, bloodcurdling secrets; there are things prowling the corridors seeking your blood.
Sound plays an important factor. Make too much noise while opening that door, and they will know where you are. The interplay between light and shadow is also another key feature. Stay in the darkness for too long, and your sanity drops, drawing the monsters to you; but keeping your lantern lit can also attract the attention of those same monsters. It’s a lose-lose situation, further homing you in on the reality of your hopelessness.
A surreal atmosphere thick with Lovecraftian undertones, and the feeling of total impotence in the face of implacable evil; The Dark Descent masterfully combines both elements, earning it spot #2 on our list of best scary games to play in 2015.
Our rating – 5/5
1. P.T.
Corridor to hell
A house that's not as empty as it looks...
Silent Hill is one of the most terrifying, psychologically harrowing series in the history of gaming.
Enter P.T., the playable teaser for the now defunct Silent Hills.
It starts off simply enough. You’re in an empty house filled with lonely corridors. There are portraits on a table. A telephone. Normal, everyday stuff.
Then you hear the whisperings. You see the shadows taking on human shapes. And the doors that you thought were leading you nowhere? Oh, they’re leading you somewhere, all right. The question is: will you like where they take you?
The game includes a puzzle so complicated it took the entire internet to solve. Together with unnerving lighting effects and sound design, creepy fetuses rotting in bathrooms, a gradual descent through hell, and one heck of a tortured soul, P.T. wins itself rank #1 on our list of scariest games to play in 2015.
Our rating – 5/5
So, will you spend the night curling up with one of the games on this list? Which horror games have you played, and which do you think deserve to be on this list? Let us know in the comments section below!
