With the constant shock-til-you-drop of mainline horror games, it’s always refreshing to take some time and try something new. While there are quite a few ways to experience the genre in new and interesting ways, story-driven games like Until Dawn are always a safe bet when looking for something unique.
With creators like Telltale and David Cage bringing the genre to a new audience, and pushing the envelope with new mechanics and storytelling techniques, there will always be something for everyone. Whether gamers want romantic visual novels, tense global adventures, or thrilling mysteries, there are hundreds of options available on almost any platform. For anyone looking for something a bit more horrific, these games have got them covered.
10 Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy
David Cage’s second game after Omikron: The Nomad Soul, Fahrenheit was a big pick-up for the creator’s company Quantum Dream. Fahrenheit follows the aftershock of a man who commits murder while under supernatural possession, and the two police detectives investigating the case.
The game was fairly popular, with its variety of story choices and talented crew of actors. The story has three possible endings that change with player decisions, as well as dynamic button prompts that shape the outcome of certain events.
9 Darkwood
Polish horror game Darkwood was easily one of the best games of 2017, even if it was heavily overlooked by audiences after having been put through Steam Early Access in 2014. Darkwood dumps players in the middle of a horrific expanding forest after unexplainable events have decimated the environment, leaving its inhabitants horribly malformed, insane, or more fortunately dead.
Don’t judge Darkwood by the screenshots, it’s a much more beautiful game than can be expressed through images. Its purposefully difficult gameplay and unforgiving consequences work perfectly in synch with the dark, twisted world-building to pull players into the most perfect survival horror experience. Add some truly heart-pounding scares and a constant sense of dread, and most will barely make it through their first night.
8 The Walking Dead
The zombie genre got old fast for quite a large audience, especially considering the overstayed run of The Walking Dead TV show and its many inspirations. Enter Telltale, formerly a small studio only really known for its productions of the Sam & Max and Strong Bad games.
Back in the early 2010s, The Walking Dead Telltale series was well ahead of the game when it came to triple-A storytelling. It introduced players to a diverse cast of characters and a deeper-than-ever system of make-or-break choices that would haunt people to their very core for the entirety of the game’s run time.
7 Paratopic
Paratopic is one of the most underrated horror games of the modern era. Having released in 2018 on Steam, and again recently on Switch, Paratopic is a surrealist gem only describable as if David Lynch and Cronenberg were to write a conspiracy theory story with a vague, weaving narrative.
The game is relatively short, consisting of a handful of seemingly isolated storylines in which players take control of a hitman, drug runner, and nature photographer. They all skirt around some sketchy business involving VHS tapes and the suspicious organization distributing them.
6 The Last Door
In the fashion of old point-and-click adventure games, The Last Door (developed by the creators of Blasphemous) is a psychological horror experience akin to the works of Lovecraft and Poe with a touch of Monkey Island.
The Last Door brings players through an occult mystery surrounding a manor in Victorian England after the protagonist receives a letter from an old friend with a cryptic message attached. The game released to near-perfect Steam scores and won its fair share of Game of the Year awards.
5 Corpse Party
The Corpse Party series is a classic staple of PC horror, made back in 1996 with the original RPG Maker software, and continuing through its most recent release in 2019. The games, as a general standard, all received relatively good scores and are worth a play for fans of games like Yume Nikki and Danganronpa.
The game follows a group of classmates as they are teleported to an otherworldly plane, a-la Silent Hill, during an after-school meeting. The game plays more like a haunted house simulator than a traditional RPG, as the player explores the school in an attempt to find their way out with their classmates before a worse fate befalls them.
4 Detention
Red Candle Games’ first production (developers of the recently snuffed Devotion), Detention is a fantastically realized experience, exploring the unique world of Taiwanese horror.
Taking a side-scroller approach, Detention takes place in 1960s Taiwan with a similar set-up to Corpse Party. Students find themselves trapped in an otherworldly version of their school, which has been cursed and haunted by evil creatures, now stalking them as they attempt to uncover the mystery of where they are.
3 Death Mark
With a setup reminiscent of The Ring, Death Mark looks like a perfect tribute to, and adaptation of, classic J-horror. The game is a beautifully illustrated visual novel, with some of the most original and appealing horror designs of recent years and an intriguing story to boot.
The plot is centered around a mysterious rumor involving bodily disfigurement and a “mark” that leaves its victims dead of unknown causes after only a short time. The game incorporates an interesting battle mechanic that requires players to deal with their opponents in a more ritualistic way, to ensure they don’t come back. In order to successfully navigate encounters, the game requires clever thinking and a keen eye, not just brute strength.
2 Yume Nikki
Readers will undoubtedly be familiar with this title thanks to its popularity in the YouTube crowd in the early days of the platform, along with its high praise among horror fans for its unique approach to the genre.
Yume Nikki is another RPG Maker classic that follows a non-RPG format. The game takes this a step further, as there’s no action or even dialogue to, well, speak of. Instead, the game uses a more dreamlike setting to establish the gameplay loop, which consists of visiting dreamscapes, checking the characters there, and collecting “Effects,” which change the appearance of the main character. There are also a handful of sequels, both official and not, that are worth a look for fans of the premise.
1 Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
One of the only entries in the series to find its way onto a Nintendo console, Shattered Memories uses the Wii’s distinct mechanics to its advantage in an interesting way. The Wiimote implements not only the expected motion controls, but also conveys messages through those tiny speakers in the form of broken, distorted voicemails, and allows in-depth item investigation with a more hands-on feel than normal controllers. The handling of the plot is also unique to the series, with multiple outcomes stemming from mid-game therapy sessions (very much like Until Dawn), as the story unwinds based on player input.
Shattered Memories was also ported to the PS2 and PSP with a few changes to the gameplay, but the Wii version remains the preferred experience for most players.
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