Games nowadays are pushed to always be bigger, including horror. Bigger maps, more content, and plenty of other methods help keep player's attention. This can distract the gaming community from the wealth of smaller games that lie just below the surface.
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Some of the best games out there can be completed during a lunch break instead of over the course of a month. Horror games especially adhere well to this idea, as a short timeframe allows the scares to stay fresh and suspenseful without overstaying their welcome. Some have even been lauded by the greater horror community as fantastic examples of the genre. Many brilliant best horror games are short, simple experiences that deserve to be seen by the public at large.
10 From The Darkness
There is an inherent creepiness that emanates from places belonging to the old Soviet era. It is that very association that this game utilizes to keep the player on edge throughout. The objective is simple: Get the player's family album out of their deceased grandfather's decrepit apartment.
The hard part becomes leaving that apartment, as players find themselves being stalked by a malicious spirit that hides in the dark. The player will need to explore the small area and solve puzzles in order to make it out alive.
9 SCP-087
A dark pathway can be one of the most subtly unnerving things a person can encounter, especially if they find themselves having to go down it. That is the fear that SCP-087 draws from. The player must descend a seemingly bottomless, dark-infested stairwell as stranger and stranger things start to happen. No one knows what force inhabits the area or why it manifests in the way that it does. All they know is that no one comes back out.
The PS1 style graphics blend wonderfully with the player's low vision and almost nonexistent lighting. Gamers will find themselves struggling to descend further, especially when they hear the cries of an infant down below.
8 PT (Silent Hills)
That which tries to mimic the familiar, but just barely fails to do so, falls into the uncanny valley and deeply unsettles audiences. In this playable teaser, PT, that familiar environment is a hallway in a suburban home. By all means, the hallway is completely normal, at first. The player must to traverse the hallway over and over again, while the environment becomes more and more unsettling each time.
The world descends further into chaos until the player is racing through an endless iteration of the hallway, frantically running from some force they don't understand. The only downside is that this game was canceled and taken off stores before it could become the next game in the Silent Hill franchise. It won't even be playable for PS5.
7 Sacrifices Must Be Made
Dread may come from words not spoken. In this game, players finds themselves in the company of a shadowy figure in a dark room, learning to play a seemingly harmless card game. There are no guns, no action, no secret weapons like in a lot of horror games.
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Players will place creatures down and sacrifice them in order to play stronger creatures. It is easy enough to get lost in the card game aspect of this experience; however, the slow realization as the player comes to truly understand their situation gives this game a horrific edge. Look for the full release coming later, under the title Inscryption.
6 Water Womb World
This title is a psychedelic mix of Lovecraftian cosmic horror and religious fanaticism on par with House Of Ashes. Water Womb World is about a marine scientist's journey to the bottom of the ocean in the hopes of finding the Garden of Eden, and potentially God itself.
The game will have the player journey out into the water to collect specimens, by sifting through the silt and by catching the local fish life. Its retro-style 2D graphics helps place the game just under realism, making the player question just what it is they are seeing. Some things were just not meant for the human mind to witness.
5 Anatomy
In a style reminiscent of classic PS1 games, Anatomy doesn't scare the player with any real threat of violence. Instead, the threat comes from what may be perceived as violence. The player explores a seemingly abandoned house for audio tapes, which they will play on an old tape player.
The tapes show what at first seems to be a researcher's philosophical quandaries about the role of the home. However, it soon turns into a nightmare that will leave the player wondering if their own home is just biding its time before swallowing them whole.
4 Faith: Chapter 1
Each chapter in the Faith series will clock in at under an hour, so might as well start somewhere. The player will take on the role of a priest, returning to the site of a failed exorcism to complete the ritual and lay the spirits there to rest.
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The game takes place entirely within an 8-bit setting similar to old, rare Atari games. Players will need to use all at their disposal to deal with every evil spirit that comes their way. Its more unsettling moments come from scenes where the authentically janky animations are replaced with realistic footage rotoscoped into the 8-bit art style, leaving a truly unexpected impression.
3 Murder House
This game recreates the style of 80's slasher movies, and puts it into the body of a PS1 survival horror game à la the oldest oldest versions of Resident Evil. The player will fill the shoes of a timid intern at a news station. They, and a small group, enter the vacant home of a long-dead serial killer who dressed as an Easter Bunny.
Soon enough, players will find themselves on the run from the killer, doing their best to avoid his wrath while collecting Easter eggs so that they may leave. This game weaves an impeccable atmosphere that will have players on edge throughout.
2 We Went Back
We Went Back is a sci-fi horror set on an abandoned research facility on the Moon. The player must try their best to find their way out of a time loop that has them trapped on the station with a skinless abomination.
Much like an escape room, the player will have to explore their environment in order to find clues to riddles and puzzles. While it is lighter on the horror elements and focuses more heavily on problem-solving, the game still more than delivers on scares when they do occur.
1 The Caregiver
Japanese horror games have their own distinct style of terror that does well to frighten anyone who dares face the horror they provide. This game boasts a beautifully detailed environment under an off-putting VHS filter that adds to its mysteriousness.
Gamers will play as the aforementioned caregiver of an enfeebled old man. It is not long before the presence of a malicious entity makes itself known and starts stalking the player. This game has a self-professed focus on psychological horror, which is sure to give the player nightmares.
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