Source (from left to right): Frictional Games, CAPCOM, Red Barrels
To celebrate Halloween, GosuGamers is highlighting three horror games that’s perfect for a night of spooks and scares galore.
When done right, a horror game is quite the experience when you’ve got the right title in your hands. Be it kooky and campy, slow and psychological, or just outright bloody and adrenaline-pumping, the right mix of atmosphere, story, and music lets certain horror games stick with players long after they've finished their playthroughs.
With that in mind, here are our favourite horror games that we think will fit the bill!
Amnesia: The Bunker
Recommended by: Anna Bernardo
There’s a huge difference between getting chills from a horror movie and a horror game — with most horror games pulling you right into the setting and putting you in the protagonist’s shoes. Amnesia: The Bunker by Frictional Games is a great example of that. It combines the horrors of World War I with Lovecraftian imagination, pinning you to a corner and building a relentless sense of fear and despair.
And it’s not just a mix of jumpscares and running for your life, with some puzzles on the side — the game also has a certain depth that others in the genre lack.
The game is intensely focused on delivering a concise, compelling story with no unnecessary filler, which feels incredibly refreshing. It’s a true showcase of dense, purposeful design that keeps you hooked from the opening moments through to the credits. On top of this, adding combat mechanics and resource management to the game makes it more interesting, allowing for more interaction with the game world and its dangers.
While the game’s runtime is on the shorter side, it still offers plenty of replay value. Each new playthrough shuffles key items within the bunker, and higher difficulties add modifiers that change the gameplay, so you can keep coming back to it for fresh challenges.
Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster
Recommended by: Tim Augustin
Halloween can be petrifying and eerie, but it can also be downright campy and silly. That’s the magic of this season: it’s filled with ghosts and monsters, but also candy and pumpkins – a little sweet and sour to keep things from getting dour. On that note, Capcom’s recent Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster feels like a microcosm of everything I love about Halloween: a deliriously surreal time during which everyone gets to play dress-up and eat all the candy they want. Trade that candy for a shopping mall but keep the costumes, and you’ve got a fun zombie game on your hands.
Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster marks an entertaining return to a classic Capcom game, and right off the bat, it makes one thing very clear: this is not your average zombie game. The game follows a photojournalist named Frank West, who gets trapped in a zombie-infested shopping mall and has to survive three whole days before a helicopter arrives to rescue him. That timer actually works against the player, as they must also uncover the outbreak’s mysteries and complete the story before Frank’s three days are up.
Dead Rising does not take itself seriously whatsoever. It’s far more of an action game than it is a zombie game, allowing players to use almost anything they find in the mall – from chairs to gas tanks – to beat back hordes of the undead. It’s a silly, whacky, and downright unhinged videogame. Perfect for Halloween!
Outlast 2
Recommended by: Arianne Blanco
I adore it when horror games have a really compelling narrative, the kind that sticks with you even years after finishing. And one such title that still haunts me to this day is Red Barrels’ Outlast 2.
Outlast 2, released in 2017, is the sequel to the critically acclaimed survival horror masterpiece Outlast. But what allows Outlast 2 to differentiate itself from the sci-fi horror that the original introduced was its shift to dabbling with the concept of religious trauma and its negative effect on an individual and society as a whole.
The game is notably inspired by the tragic Jonestown Massacre, which saw a cult in 1970s America commit mass suicide at the direction of their leader Jim Jones. Outlast 2 focuses on investigative journalists Blake and Lynn Langermann, who in pursuit of unraveling the mystery behind the death of a Jane Doe, are left stranded in a rural cult reservation within Northern Arizona after their helicopter crashed.
Now separated from Lynn, Blake must survive against hostile cult members, disease-ridden heretics, and a morbid scientific conspiracy, all while experiencing bizarre and horrifying hallucinations about a certain, traumatic incident in his youth.
Outlast 2 still retains its camcorder mechanic from the first game, but refreshes its use with gimmicks that can make you question the sanity of the character you’re playing as, leading to an unsettling, eerie experience. The player still also can’t fight back, only being able to run, duck, and hide, pulling you into a desperate helplessness as the people you encounter are nothing short of bloodthirsty.
Although the influence of the morphogenic engine is still present in Outlast 2, the story takes a more humanistic approach by delving deeply into Blake’s psyche. You’re brought into his innermost thoughts and feelings, his greatest regrets and fears. The way Blake’s story is shown is incredibly unsettling and uncomfortable to sit through, making it a definite highlight to consider if you’re into playing games that will relentlessly assault your mental faculties.
Whether you're drawn to the psychological torment of Amnesia: The Bunker, the chaotic thrill of Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, or the unsettling atmosphere of Outlast 2, each of these games brings a unique flavor of horror that’s perfect for Halloween. Try them out… if you dare!
Happy Halloween from GosuGamers, may your gaming be as spooky as the season!