Gamers who enjoy horror experiences can find plenty of thrilling titles that don't require high-end hardware or any cost. In 2025, with updates and new releases, there are even more options for low-end PCs. These games focus on survival, psychological horror, and jump scares, all runnable on systems with minimal specs like 2GB RAM and integrated graphics.

Whether it's single-player stories or multiplayer scares, this updated list provides a variety of free horror games to try.

Table of Contents

1. Cry of Fear

Cry of Fear is a classic free survival horror game set in a deserted town filled with paranormal activities and horrific creatures. Originally a Half-Life mod, it's now standalone on Steam. In 2025, it remains popular for its co-op mode and chilling atmosphere. Players control Simon Henriksson, a young man grappling with depression and trauma after a car accident, navigating haunting urban environments, battling grotesque monsters, and delving into themes of mental illness in single-player or co-op.

Cry of Fear is one of the best free horror games for low-end PC.

System Requirements:
  • Intel Pentium 1 GHz
  • 1 GB RAM
  • Integrated video card
  • 5 GB Space Required

2. Doki Doki Literature Club

This visual novel starts as a cute dating sim but twists into a meta psychological horror masterpiece. Free on Steam, it's renowned for breaking the fourth wall with disturbing twists, file manipulations, and themes of mental health. In 2025, community mods enhance the base game, but the core story remains a chilling exploration of obsession and despair among literature club members.

System Requirements:

  • 1.8 GHz Dual-Core CPU
  • 4 GB RAM
  • Integrated Graphics
  • 720 MB Space Required

3. No More Room in Hell

A cooperative survival horror game set in a zombie apocalypse, emphasizing realism and teamwork. Free on Steam, it's great for low-end multiplayer horror. Players scavenge, complete objectives, and fend off relentless undead hordes in permadeath scenarios, drawing from George A. Romero's Living Dead series for its gritty, unforgiving atmosphere.

System Requirements:

  • Dual core CPU 2.4 GHz
  • 2 GB RAM
  • DirectX 9 compatible with 512 MB VRAM
  • 10 GB Space Required

4. Yume Nikki

A surreal indie game exploring the dreamscape of a hikikomori girl named Madotsuki, filled with bizarre and horrifying landscapes. Free on Steam, this cult classic pioneered atmospheric psychological horror through open-ended exploration, collecting "effects" that alter reality, evoking isolation, depression, and the uncanny without dialogue or combat.

System Requirements:

  • Any modern CPU
  • 512 MB RAM
  • Integrated Graphics
  • 100 MB Space Required

5. SCP: Secret Laboratory

Free-to-play multiplayer horror game set in the SCP universe, with chaotic breaches and role-based gameplay. Players assume roles as Foundation personnel, Chaos Insurgency, or anomalous entities in a facility overrun by SCP objects, blending strategy, survival, and asymmetric horror in round-based matches.

System Requirements:

  • Intel Core i3
  • 4 GB RAM
  • Integrated Graphics
  • 4 GB Space Required

6. Dead Frontier 2

Free-to-play survival horror MMO in a zombie-infested post-apocalyptic world. Players scavenge decaying ruins, craft gear, and battle hordes in a persistent online environment, emphasizing permadeath, skill progression, and tense third-person combat for a gritty, Resident Evil-inspired experience.

System Requirements:

  • Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
  • 3 GB RAM
  • GeForce 8800 GT
  • 8 GB Space Required

7. Paper Lily - Chapter 1

RPG horror game where players unravel a haunting mystery as a troubled protagonist named Lacie, solving multi-solution puzzles in a hidden, cursed world. Free on itch.io and Steam, it blends psychological dread, exploration, and multiple endings exploring themes of rejection, rituals, and the supernatural.

System Requirements:

  • 2 GHz CPU
  • 2 GB RAM
  • Integrated Graphics
  • 1 GB Space Required

8. At Home Alone Final

Casual RPG that turns into a nightmare, exploring cults and unsettling themes from a young girl's perspective home alone. This psychological horror delves into dark family secrets, bizarre visitors, and multiple endings through point-and-click exploration, blending innocence with disturbing revelations.

System Requirements:

  • 1 GHz CPU
  • 1 GB RAM
  • Integrated Graphics
  • 500 MB Space Required

9. BABBDI

Short first-person exploration in a forsaken district with post-industrial melancholy. Free on Steam, traverse a surreal, brutalist Soviet-esque city called BABBDI, using tools like bats and motorcycles to platform and uncover escape routes amid eerie inhabitants and liminal dread.

System Requirements:

  • Dual Core CPU
  • 2 GB RAM
  • Integrated Graphics
  • 200 MB Space Required

10. Trick & Treat

Light-hearted Halloween adventure with puzzles and spooky elements. Free on Steam, play as pumpkin maid Amelia in a cursed vampire mansion, solving riddles, dancing with ghosts, and uncovering dark histories amid comedy, romance, and bad ends in a retro RPG Maker style.

System Requirements:

  • 1 GHz CPU
  • 512 MB RAM
  • Integrated Graphics
  • 300 MB Space Required

11. Pumpkin Panic

Charming farm sim that turns into suspenseful horror with a lurking monster. Free on Steam, manage a cozy woodland farm by day—planting, fishing, and harvesting—but survive night-time threats like deer, clowns, and shadow demons in this tense, time-management survival blend.

System Requirements:

  • 2 GHz CPU
  • 2 GB RAM
  • Integrated Graphics
  • 500 MB Space Required

12. Dead Plate

Restaurant management with sinister secrets to uncover. Free on itch.io, this 1960s French bistro tycoon RPG follows waiter Rody serving under enigmatic chef Vince, blending point-and-click service sim with psychological horror, nightmares, and multiple endings hinting at cannibalism and obsession.

System Requirements:

  • 1.6 GHz CPU
  • 1 GB RAM
  • Integrated Graphics
  • 200 MB Space Required

13. Alpha Polaris

Point-and-click horror adventure set in Greenland's desolate landscape. Free on Steam since 2020, biologist Rune investigates an oil research station amid ion storms, Inuit legends, and madness, blending environmental themes, Wendigo myths, and character-driven paranoia in a slow-burn psychological tale.

System Requirements:

  • Pentium 4 2.0 GHz
  • 1 GB RAM
  • DirectX 9.0c compatible
  • 1 GB Space Required

14. Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion

A cute game that turns into a horror with 1000 rooms of scares, free on Steam. Navigate randomly generated corridors as an unwitting explorer, collecting notes while evading escalating "specimens" from harmless cutouts to nightmarish entities in this parody-turned-paranoid survival horror.

System Requirements:

  • Dual Core CPU
  • 2 GB RAM
  • Integrated Graphics
  • 300 MB Space Required

15. Slender: The Eight Pages

The original Slender Man game, collect pages while avoiding the entity. Classic free horror. This pioneering indie title tasks players with gathering eight manuscripts in a pitch-black forest, flashlight in hand, as the faceless Slender Man closes in, building dread through relentless pursuit and minimalism.

System Requirements:

  • 1.8 GHz CPU
  • 1 GB RAM
  • Integrated Graphics
  • 100 MB Space Required