The history of horror games is filled with classics. Here’s our list of the best survival horror games you can play right now, including Alan Wake 2, Dead Space, Signalis, and more.
There’s nothing quite like a good ol’ horror game to get the blood pumping. While the majority of games out there pivot around the idea of empowering the player with a growing assortment of weapons and abilities with which to overcome enemies and obstacles, a good horror game is all about tipping the scales of any scenario to put you at a disadvantage against the many terrors that go bump in the night.
A great horror game does all that and more, crafting an experience that plunges deep into the player’s psyche, probing at themes and concepts that drive at the heart of our most primordial collective fears. With that in mind, we’ve pulled together a list of some of our favorite survival horror games that’ve made our blood run cold and kept us on our toes.
Honorable mentions go to such venerable classics as Silent Hill 2 and 3, which, while crucial to the artistic and commercial history of the genre, remain frustratingly inaccessible on modern hardware.Alan Wake 2
Where to play: PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox Series X
Alan Wake 2 hit like a bolt of lightning when it came out last year. The sequel to Remedy Entertainment’s 2010 action-adventure game about a beleaguered writer haunted by his own horror story brought to life took the fundamentals of the original and turned them on their head. Introducing a new protagonist in the form of FBI agent Saga Anderson, Alan Wake 2 offers a bifurcated story that follows the parallel journeys of Saga’s investigation into the mysteries of Bright Falls and Alan’s desperate attempt to escape the Dark Place.
The result is a survival horror masterpiece that keeps players on their toes, all the while pushing the boundaries of the medium itself. There’s literally 13 years’ worth of innovative and iconic surprises bursting at the seams between Alan Wake 2’s dual storylines, culminating in a final act that puts a bow on the entire experience while leaving the door open to a universe of yet more horrifying and exhilarating possibilities. It’s not just hype; Alan Wake 2 really is that good, and you owe it to yourself to experience it firsthand if you somehow haven’t already. —Toussaint EganAlien: Isolation
Where to play: Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One
The Alien franchise has had a lot of ups and downs (to put it lightly), but underneath the machinations of androids or fights with the Predator, it’s a haunted house story set in space, where the monster is an unknowable, constantly evolving alien. It doesn’t understand classic human weapons; it only knows how to attack, grow, and reproduce. That simplicity is what makes the original Alien so impactful, and developer Creative Assembly ingrained this philosophy in Alien: Isolation, which continues to terrify players nearly a decade later.
Isolation stars Amanda Ripley (Ellen Ripley’s daughter) as she tries to evade a xenomorph and other enemies on a space station. She has to complete objectives to progress, and while she gets access to various weapons, none of it matters with limited ammo. The player is challenged to evade enemies as much as possible with the help of a motion tracker that can track the alien’s movements, often in the ceiling ducts. However, as in many stealth games, using your tools might alert enemies to your presence. The motion tracker is an ingenious addition that ups the tension of trying to crouch your way through a space station. Once it starts beeping, you know you’re going headfirst into a one-hit kill. It’s the first time the Xenomorph has felt truly dangerous in a long time, and it’s not even in a mainstream film release! Future Alien entries, take note. —Carli VelocciAmnesia: The Bunker
Where to play: PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
The Amnesia series is the survival horror franchise that put Frictional Games on the map, an intense, supernaturally fraught experience wherein a disempowered protagonist is forced to evade an onslaught of horrific creatures and fighting back is simply not an option.
The fourth and latest installment in the series, Amnesia: The Bunker, inverts that entire dynamic, transforming what would otherwise be a linear story-driven horror experience into a semi-open-world immersive sim where players are trapped in a WWI bunker with a mysterious creature waiting for the opportunity to strike.
