Have you noticed video game companies are getting better and better at making really freaky horror titles? Whether set in a mental asylum, abandoned mansion, or dark creepy forest, 5 minutes with any of these games is enough to send me running and screaming every time.
Sound like your kind of thing? Perfect – Look no further than this list of the most chilling, disturbing and downright scary games we’ve ever played.
This game famously set off dozens of Youtube videos recording adult men being reduced to quivering masses within minutes. Amnesia is a horror survival story and played from a total first-person perspective. You play Daniel, a man who awakens in an enormous, dark castle with no memory of how he got there or why. You discover a letter to yourself revealing that you’ve intentionally erased your memory. Clues are placed to help you piece together what has happened at the castle, and what you must do to escape. The whole time you are followed by a shadowy, paranormal creature and must also avoid the monsters that roam the halls. The scariest element by far is that you have no way to fight back. You can only run and hide from your pursuers while you try to maintain your sanity. In Amnesia, if you spend too much time in the dark, Daniel literally goes insane.
You can download and play Amnesia online or from your Steam client.
The premise of this minimalist horror game is pretty straightforward. You’re stuck in a forest in the dead of night and your only other company is a paranormal creature named simply, “Slender”. Your goal is to find 8 manuscripts that are located around the forest while avoiding being killed. You are equipped with only a flashlight, which will die if keep it on for too long. You also need to preserve precious energy as jogging or running away tires your character much more rapidly than walking. Take too long and you’ll start hearing the telltale steps and static on your screen that precede a Slender man appearance. Here’s the best part: you can’t hit ESC to pause or quit when Slender approaches or appears. Good luck with that.
You can download Slender online. It’s also completely free! (But even paying me would not be enough).
In what is undoubtedly the scariest game released on PS4 so far in 2014, in Outlast you play Miles Upshur, a journalist who receives an anonymous tip about a secluded psychiatric asylum located high on a remote mountain. Upon entering the institution, you immediately realize your mistake once you see the dismembered bodies of military and asylum personnel. Your mission is now to escape the building equipped with only a night vision camera (that doubles as your only way of seeing in the dark). You come across some truly disturbing scenes with the asylum’s insane patients and grotesques. In every sequence, you have to decide whether you want to keep your camera, giving you precious awareness of what is happening around you, or to turn it off to preserve your battery and lower the risk of detection. Once again, your character can’t fight back. Your only defense is being able to hide under beds and narrow spaces. Of course, that might not help as some Outlast players have reported the terrifying experience of being dragged out from a hiding place by their ankles.
You can download and play Outlast online or through your Steam client.
To all the brave souls who will be trying these games out, have fun with the screaming, heart palpitations, nightmares and all that nonsense. I’ll be on Hello Kitty Online.
