Fans of horror gaming have always had a special privilege when it comes to online gaming, with many of the genre’s most famous titles (Five Nights At Freddie’s, Slender) starting as free-to-play indie titles. Aside from the bigger names, there’s an endless stream of horrific (and not so much) content from indie creators on sites like Itch.io and Gamejolt.
While Steam is a slightly more complicated platform for publishers, that doesn’t stop developers from showing off their latest and greatest small-form projects, many of which are disturbing and horrific explorations in experimental media, or just fun exercises in terror a la “YouTube bait games.” These are a handful of our picks from the expansive free-to-play tag on Steam, curated from experience.
10 The Supper
To be completely fair to the developer, all of Octavi Navarro’s games (Midnight Scenes, The Librarian) are worth playing for the same reason as this one. Navarro, in his time as a creator, has become famous for his “short but sweet” approach, further appealing to adventure game fans with a classic point-and-click style.
The Supper is a grisly, atmospheric short focused on the “darkest side of the human soul.” As the protagonist collects ingredients and begins cooking up a delicious feast for her distinguished guests, players will unwind a deeper and more provoking story than one might expect from such a simplistic premise.
9 Tiny Bunny
Saikono’s Tiny Bunny is a non-linear visual novel composed of five episodes, the first of which follows Anton after his family moves to a desolate village in the Siberian forests. Anton, while acclimating to the new environment, begins to witness and involuntarily participate in a chain of disturbing happenings as his nightmares begin to meld into a dark and twisted reality.
Tiny Bunny features beautiful hand-drawn frames, a haunting original soundtrack, and an immersive story reminiscent of classic folk tales and supernatural crime thrillers. With the second episode having just released, and the remaining three on the horizon, now’s the time to hop onto this gripping horror narrative.
8 Doki Doki Literature Club
A late contender to the YouTube horror fad, Doki Doki Literature Club became an instant classic as its unassuming facade of “raunchy fan-service visual novel” quickly broke down into something a lot more disturbing.
For fans of Japanese horror cinema, Doki Doki is comparable to a supernatural take on Audition’s shocking romance plot. The game doesn’t rely on shock factor to get by, however, and is an intriguing experience for those looking for more psychological horror media after the recent surge of Silent Hill–inspired games. It’s also noted by critics and players alike as a refreshing take on visual novels, a genre that’s admittedly become more or less the modern equivalent to dollar-store romance novels.
7 Unfortunate Spacemen
Before Among Us hit the multiplayer gaming crowd by storm last year, New Blood’s Unfortunate Spacemen was akin to The Thing as an online party shooter. Now, the more fitting description taken on by the developers is “Among Us with guns.” Really, using other titles to describe the game does it a bit of a disservice, seeing as Unfortunate Spacemen has been around for quite a while in Steam’s early access, only just releasing (conveniently) around the same time as Among Us last year.
While the game is entirely free-to-play, it also features quite a few fun cosmetic options for fans who want to pitch in a little more support to the dev team.
6 Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion
Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion is another internet classic taking a similar approach to the genre as Doki Doki. SJSM starts off as an adorable haunted house simulator, and ends up as a genuinely disconcerting walk through 1000 rooms of terror. A good amount of the initial audience thought this would be yet another joke game that deployed cheap mechanics over clever ones, but SJSM is actually a genuine labor of love on the developers’ part, and it shows.
An HD “Renovation” is also available on Steam for a higher price, and fans of the original will be happy to see higher resolutions, 3D fixes, VR support, and several other requested features from the game’s early access days.
5 Shrine I/II
The Shrine games will be immediately recognizable to shooter fans as modern Doom clones, with a stylistic twist. The games follow Doom‘s inspirations, bringing players into a retro gothic Lovecraftian world filled with eldritch enemies and a diverse arsenal to dispatch them.
Shrine isn’t just an average Id Software clone, as may appear. The games feature hand-drawn graphics with colorful environments and surreal enemies. The developer also has a few other free-to-play projects in the same vein, including Lycanthorn and the upcoming Vomitoreum.
4 The Devil Haunts Me
Lum, a developer gaining quick traction in the horror community for their stylistic top-down survival horror games, released their first game in 2018 with much acclaim. The Devil Haunts Me is a short survival game about accruing resources and exploring the forests around the player’s home while uncovering dark tidings between the trees.
As players go about their routine, gathering wood, water, and food for the day, secrets begin to reveal themselves in the forests. These secrets, while enticing at first, begin to make the forest much less inviting as the game goes on, and it soon becomes apparent that something else in these woods has an agenda, and the player is little more than an intruder on this land.
3 My Friend Is A Raven
In bereft land, the raven cries, and with it comes a calamity that wipes the world. My Friend Is A Raven is a short adventure with visually striking hand-drawn graphics that follow the player as Lutum, the last survivor of a devastating plague.
As Lutum, the player returns to their old apartment in search of a sickened raven who tells the truth of why the calamity has come. The game features intriguing puzzles and an enticing and atmospheric story that unfolds between four different endings, all of which center around the apocalyptic setting.
2 Cry Of Fear
One of the most popular games of all time for its unique combination of Silent Hill and Half Life, Cry of Fear is objectively one of the better free-to-play games around. The game boasts a triple-A adjacent experience, with an 8 hour campaign and multiple ending scenarios, on top of a co-op experience and diverse modding community that satisfies anyone left wanting more.
Cry of Fear takes the premise of Silent Hill‘s otherworld and puts it into a first-person survival shooter. While the addition of heavy weaponry feels like it might dampen the horror experience, CoF does a fantastic job at making the player feel helpless nonetheless, with limited resources and unsuspecting scares lying around every corner.
1 The Designer’s Curse
Within the first paragraph of the Steam description, readers are informed “this was made by a 15-year-old.” Don’t let that alter any perceptions, however, as this quickly becomes more of a bragging point than a caveat to what the game has to offer.
The Designer’s Curse actually has quite a bit of renown, with composer Mikko Tarmia (of Amnesia and Soma fame) on board, and a lot of genuine nods to other classic works like Penumbra in terms of gameplay and visuals. Much like us, the game’s Steam audience was pleasantly surprised to find that The Designer’s Curse offers a good amount of content for its nonexistent price tag, and promises more to come with future chapters and updates. The story and puzzles are also well-thought-out, and the whole package becomes a lot more impressive when remembering the designer is half the age of most industry beginners.
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