Horrorgames are never out of trend, and while it’s absurd to assume that there is a specific time to best experience a game, this statement doesn’t apply to a horror title. Under a full-moon sky mottled with wispy clouds moving swiftly in the cold, clammy Autumn breeze that carries the sound of howling wolves in the darkest hour of the night, that’s when horror games transcend the medium they’re restricted to and almost pull you inside their world.
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Every step you take in these horror games takes you closer to the jaws of death and every victory feels like a badge of honor.
While players can’t do much about bringing out the full moon or gathering a pack of wolves and making them howl, what they can do is turn off the lights when they sit to play these horror titles at nighttime that get infinitely more immersive and scary in the dark.
7Blair Witch
Tackling With The Demons Within
Blair Witch
Based on the horror flicks of the same name,Blair Witchputs the players in the shoes of Ellis, a police officer who comes to Black Hills Forest with his loyal, canine companion, Bullet, to join a search party to find a missing boy. The game has no combat, and all the tension comes from the environment and the supernatural happenings that start to occur soon after you enter the woods.
Being a psychological thriller, the game blurs the fabric of reality and intersperses it with moments of supernatural elements, hallucinations, and flashbacks from Ellis’s guilt-ridden past.
6The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope
All About The Witch Trials
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope
The Dark Picture Anthologygames are popular for their narrative-focused and almost movie-like storytelling. Players get to control their character only in certain situations, either when they have to pick an important dialogue choice or a decision, or when they have to explore an area and find out how to get out of there.
Little Hopeis the second installment of the series and out of all the games, this is the one that deserves to be played in the dark the most. Throughout the game, Supermassive Games has tried to create an atmosphere of uneasiness that makes players feel like something is right around the corner, and more often than not, that feeling is correct.
The game follows a group of five people who get stuck in the strange, fog-covered town of Little Hope. As the story unfolds, they realize that the history of this town is much darker than anyone could have ever anticipated.
5Outlast 2
Disturbingly Vivid Visuals
Unlike the firstOutlastgame,Outlast 2opens its world up and puts the players in the shoes of Blake Langermann, who, after a helicopter crash, goes out to look for his missing wife, Lynn, in a remote section of the Arizona forest, who was also with him on the helicopter.
As the story opens up, he soon finds out that the place is overrun by cultists led by a fanatic preacher named Sullivan Knoth, who believes that Lynn will bear the antichrist whose birth must be stopped. Equipped with only a camcorder, Blake uses stealth to make his way through forests, fields, and towns, avoiding encounters with the cultists, and trying to uncover the truth behind the supernatural forces that are present in addition to the cultists in the forest.
The jump scares in Outlast 2 can get extremely out of hand at times, so make sure you don’t throw your controller at your TV or your monitor when playing it.
Dead Space
Improving the originalDead Spacefrom 2008 in every possible way, the remake again throws players in the unfortunate shoes of Isaac Clarke, an engineer sent to investigate and repair the USG Ishimura, a mining ship that has suddenly gone silent. But the crew soon finds out that the ship has been overrun by horrific, mutated alien-like creatures who have taken over the bodies of everyone aboard the USG Ishimura.
Isaac isn’t silent in the remake and has full-fledged dialogue and voice acting that better convey his emotions and his fear. But even more than that, the game flawlessly creates an oppressive and derelict atmosphere that truly shines when played during the silent and darkest hours of the night with all the lights turned off.
3Alien: Isolation
Almost Better Than The Movie
Alien: Isolation
On a note similar to Dead Space but this time without any weapons for the most part of the game,Alien: Isolationis a stealth-focused recreation of Ripley Scott’s 1979 film. Instead of multiple enemies, there is only one alien Xenomorph who’s out for blood on the Sevastopol.
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From 2009’s long-forgotten Saw: The Video Game to 2023’s Texas Chain Saw Massacre, games based on movie titles have unfortunately been far and few.
The game manages to create a terrifying atmosphere of claustrophobia that’s best experienced in the dark. Everything from the flickering lights, dimly-lit hallways, random and eerie ambient noises, and hiding in cramped vents can easily make even the hardiest of players get goosebumps.
2Silent Hill 2
“You Promised You’d Take Me There Again Someday”
Silent Hill 2
Widely regarded as one of thebest horror gamesof all time,Silent Hill 2is a psychological thriller that delves deep into the human psyche and brings out the worst aspects of fear, guilt, and grief. The game follows James Sunderland as he ventures into the eerie, fog-covered town of Silent Hill after receiving a mysterious letter from his deceased wife.
As James navigates the town’s nightmarish environments, he encounters disturbing creatures that manifest his inner demons, forcing him to confront his darkest secrets. The game has combat, but the one aspect it truly manages to nail is the atmosphere of desolation and of a place that’s long been lost to time.
P.T. On Steroids
Being the only indie game on this list and then getting ranked at the top alone says more about Visage than anything else could. The game takes a leaf out of P.T.’s book in terms of presentation and puts players in a house with a horrific backstory, which they must navigate to uncover the backstory of the former resident’s tragic demise through notes and environmental clues.
Once again, there is no stealth involved, and because the story is non-linear, the game gives players control over how they see the events play out. When it comes to creating an atmosphere of tension, mystery, and fear, few games manage to do it better than Visage, and when played in the dark and with headphones on, players can almost feel the unsettling presence of the house closing in around them.
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What if fighting doesn’t work? What if all you can do is run, hide and pray that you make it out alive?
