Although the survival horror genre is definitely not made for everyone, it is a staple in my gaming library. There’s just something so … exhilarating about being scared. I don’t know if it’s that spike in adrenaline when I can sense that something’s going to go wrong in a dark hallway, the extreme panic when the sound of whatever that’s been hunting me draws near, or it’s just the fact that I willingly put myself in the perfect scenario for my fight or flight instinct to go wild. Survival horror is one of the most - if not the most - stimulating game genre.
If you’re also into survival horrors as much as I am or you want to get into it, here are some of the best games that I have played over the years. If you haven’t played them, you should definitely consider setting up a thorough play-through on one of these quiet, cold nights.
The Blair Witch Project Vol.1: Rustin Parr
Platform: PC
Blair Witch Project (1999) is the film that started the beloved found footage horror movie genre. And even if you don’t like the movie, don’t worry, the game’s completely different in spite of the similar title.
Although the game comes as part of the series, the first volume Rustin Parr is the only game that’s good. But that’s enough for us, you don’t need to bother with the rest of the series. In The Blair Witch Project Vol.1: Rustin Parr, you’ll be fitted into the shoes of agent Elspeth Holliday who’s part of the paranormal investigation bureau known as the Spookhouse. As expected, Holliday embarked on a fateful trip to the now infamous town Burkitssville. When you first arrive at the quiet backwater town, it seems quite normal. Still, you definitely can’t shake off the sense of it being plain … wrong: Something sinister is at play within the heart of the town hidden amidst woodland and endless fog.
It all came out in the night. Though much of the game is horrible (And not the good kind): The voice acting and the combat mechanic, for example. You cannot fault the way the townspeople transform into strange beasts at nightfall. With the way they twitch as if in perpetual seizure and the echoing voices bombarding your senses, the game could become frightening at times regardless of its numerous faults.
Manhunt
Release date: November 2003
Platform: PC, PS2, Xbox, Wii
Plenty of conflicts can spark with me simply mentioning Manhunt as a survival horror game. A lot of people consider it to be a stealth-action game but I disagree, you’re running away from quite literally the worst kinds of people to inhabit Carcer City.
The protagonist is one James Earl Cash, someone who has narrowly missed the death row only to be casted into a bloodied series of snuff films. The targets? Everyone from deranged and violent gang members to law enforcement officers.
The game revolves mostly around the gory action, some elements of stealth, a bit of jump scares here and there but overall: Constant adrenaline from the beginning to the end. The most memorable scene on top of all in Manhunt is the face-off between the player and Piggsy. A completely nut serial plus cannibal killer who’s psychotic enough to wear a severed pig’s head as a hat. To finish the ensemble, he also wields a chainsaw to boot, promising the most visceral of death to those who dare to stand in his way.
It’s easily one of the most terrifying scene in a video game, elevating the position of Manhunt on my list.
Siren
Release date: November 6th, 2003
Platform: PS2
You may have heard of this game before if you were there during the PS2 era. If you haven’t, Siren is probably one of the greater horror games period to ever exist on the platform. The game has plenty of unique mechanics that haven’t been done before it with any other games, and I haven’t seen it being replicated on any modern games, either.
The game follows multiple perspectives from different characters. In the game, your sole mission is to avoid and survive the relentless pursuit of the townspeople who had fallen to a dark force in the town and converted into horrific monsters.
But the thing about the game is that the horror expands beyond just the atypical hide and seek style gameplay. Here’s where the most unique mechanic sets in: The ability to see through the eyes of the monsters. While it might sound as if a useful ability, it’s a type of scare unlike anything else when you see your character haplessly standing around at the same time as you see the monster quickly approach.
Cold Fear
Release date: March 15th, 2005
Platform: PC, PS2
Cold Fear, in the grander scheme of things, isn’t a great game per se. But it’s got its own uniqueness that dragged it all the way into this list. It’s one of the first games that utilised deeply environmental factor as a gameplay feature (The rocking and swaying of the ship the protagonist is stuck on). It gives the game a great departure point from the ordinary zombie/monster-shooters that are plentiful on the market. It’s one thing trying to shoot a hellish creature into bits, it’s another thing to try and cap it while your aim is rocking back and forth all over the place.
It can give you quite some nostalgia that could be appreciated even today and it has enough scare materials for you to at least give it a try.
Clock Tower 3
Release date: December 12th, 2002
Platform: PS2
Clocktower 3 is the kind of game that scares you over its theme rather than its gameplay.
The game revolves around our young protagonist - Alyssa Hamilton - who got a letter from her mother cryptically explaining how she must go into hiding until her 15th birthday came to pass. Of course, there would be no game for us to play had she actually done what she was told. Instead, Alyssa ventured back to the family’s mansion hoping to find an answer. Soon enough, she found herself in a hair-raising, twisted journey through time down the hidden passageways all throughout the mansion. With each turns delivering her back to a specific time period.
The mansion sent her back to places reminiscent of serial killers throughout the ages. Her job was to uncover the mysteries surrounding them and to deliver peace to the victims. Though there are plenty of scares scattered throughout the game, the climax of horror is when you have to face down a axe-wielding maniac aptly named The Chopper. The scary thing is that he tends to materialise from out of nowhere and charge at Alyssa with a breakneck speed that can give you a heart attack just by looking at him approaching.
Outlast 2
Release date: April 25th, 2017
Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
Outlast - the first one - set a pretty high bar for modern horror games. The sequel, however, gathered all of the essences of the first game and kicked everything up several notches. The first game dealt with mostly an evil corporate’s failed experiment in the decrepit bowels of an asylum. The second one brought even greater risks to the life of the player (And the character we control) from untold horrors within the wilderness.
Blake Langermann and his wife Lynn are investigative journalists who were on their way to uncover a mystery in Arizona when their helicopter was brought down by an unknown force. When our protagonist - Blake - awoke, he had to venture through the No Man’s Land between the bloodied conflicts of two cults trying to find and rescue his wife.
You not only have to deal with absolutely bonkers cultists, you’ll also have to deal with Blake’s traumatic past which was highly exaggerated by his stress. Although Outlast is generally liked by all players, Outlast 2 players have pretty polarised opinions: You either love it, or you’ll hate it. But one thing you can’t deny is that the multitude of chase scenes peppered throughout the game can really get your blood running towards an early fatal heart attack.
The Thing
Release date: August 20th, 2002
Platform: PS2, Xbox, PC
The Thing (1982) is a pretty phenomenal sci-fi horror for its time. It’s got an atmosphere and a premise the video game port of the same name - The Thing for the PS2 in the early 2000s - tried to replicate. The message for the game is pretty similar to the movie: Be careful of the humans you met in your journey. They might not be humans after all.
It’s filled with a healthy amount of jump scares to keep you on your toes. The plot and the setting is more or less similar to the movie itself and the plot is built well enough for you to wonder every second in the game who will emerge alive. And the most important question of all: Who are real humans, and who are parasitic aliens beneath the convincing human skin?
The unique point of the game that differentiate it from games at the time was a panic meter. If you don’t manage it well enough, your squad mates may find escape by ending themselves or turn their guns away from the monsters and to their own friends.
Dead Space
Release date: October 13, 2008
Platform: PS3, Xbox 360, PC, IOS, Android
No contest on this one, Dead Space is seriously one of the best survival horror games ever made. In Dead Space, you took on the role of the quiet and unassuming engineer Isaac Clarke who’s stationed upon the ‘Planet Cracker’ USG Ishimura. Things start to go wrong when the ship unearthed an alien artefact that turned everyone into horribly disfigured and bloodthirsty monsters called Necromorph. You’re on your own and cut off from everyone else, trying to navigate the darkened and monster-infested corridors of the doomed space ship.
Necromorphs will keep on coming at you unless you cut out enough of their limbs to put them down for good. But the thing is that they rarely come as one single monster. Instead, they tend to come in large packs and waves that can make you sweat and anxious trying to hold back. And when you’re not fighting for your life, the unsettling, visceral carnage of the ship following the incident can raise every hairs you have. It’s easy to see that the foreign dark forces that descend upon the ship took it over so fast, the crews barely had time to prepare.
But don’t keep your guard down. Corpses rarely stay down for long in Dead Space.
Clock Tower
Release date: September 14th, 1995
Platform: PC, PS1, PS2
Clock Tower is the only point-n-click game to make it onto this list, but for a very good reason that it did. The game, which came out on the PS1, hasn’t aged well a decade later after it came out. However, it still retains much of the original creepiness that put me on edge when I first played it.
The trick of the game isn’t anything fancy: It’s actually all in the soundtrack. The soundtrack of the killer was a quick-paced tune and highly reminiscent of the vintage slasher genre of the 80s. Although it’s quite cliche, you won’t have time or the heart to think that when the music rose.
Silent Hill 2
Release date: September 24th, 2001
Platforms: PS2, PS3, Xbox, Xbox 360, PC
Silent Hill 2 is the type of game that if you haven’t played, you’re missing out on a big portion of the creme-de-la-creme of the horror genre. But if you plan on playing it, I recommend you to take up the original and forego the entirety of the HD remake: It was a disaster, and not the good kind.
The second game to the rather legendary horror series follows the footsteps of one James Sunderland as he returned to the mystical town of Silent Hill in search of information about his dead wife. As the world all around him got trapped in a dense layer of unnatural fog, the darkness within the quiet Maine town emerged in a nightmarish, twisted version of reality. He tried to follow all clues and paths, and he’d often meet others in his wander.
If the numerous monsters and the unsettling scene of Silent Hill hadn’t creeped you out just yet, remember that you’re closely watched by the infamous Pyramid Head. His only job that he took very seriously with the massive sword he dragged behind him was to punish all those in his domain: You, unfortunately.
The scariest segment of the game must be in the prison, where everything became so dark that even the torch you held in your hand gave little reprieve. There are the constant patrols of monsters, the suffocating atmosphere, the clanks of the metals, the dripping of soiled water, and the dried bloods on the walls … everything came together to scare you witless. And it did it for me, plenty of times.