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Horror Games: A Killer Six-Pack for Halloween
Here are six lesser-known but excellent horror games that frame Halloween as perfectly as skeletal hands frame a portrait of Nosferatu. No bald-headed bloodsuckers this time, though. Instead, expect mental disturbances, mysterious silkworms, and haunted-campus folklore.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Gaming websites publishing horror game recommendations just before Halloween has become a rather tired tradition. After all, plenty of gamers spend Halloween playing horror games—and gaming websites need... what was it again? Oh, right. Clicks.
But why do I call it a tired tradition? Well, because far too many recommendation lists just wheel out the usual suspects. Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Amnesia: These franchises have certainly earned their special status in the horror genre. Trouble is, that's also why everyone already knows them.
So instead, here are six of my personal horror game recommendations. I've either finished these games or spent a good amount of time with them over the past two years. And every single one has stuck with me, thanks to either some seriously cool gameplay mechanics or horror that doesn't pull its punches. Ready for a break from the same old horror routine? Then the very first game might be right up your alley.
Abyss School
- Genre: Horror, Adventure
- Developer: eTIRUe
- Platforms: PC
- Release date: January 19, 2024
- Price: $3.99
Oh yes, Abyss School (Steam page / GOG Dreamlist) was one of my favorite horror surprises of 2024. And that's despite being sick to death of zombies ever since DayZ. So what makes Abyss School different? I'd say this third-person horror game from eTIRUe isn't afraid to be an actual game—with clearly defined rules and limitations that make it fun rather than frustrating.
You play as Yuhee, a schoolgirl who finds a mysterious purple seashell on the beach. Later, she falls asleep on the school bus with the shell in her hand. When she eventually wakes up, she's in a bizarre parallel world. Her school has sunk to the bottom of the ocean, and creepy zombie girls with—hooray for anime fan service!—ridiculously oversized busts are roaming the classrooms.
To find a way out, Yuhee has to solve plenty of puzzles. Not particularly original on paper, sure. But here's the twist: The female zombies patrol cleverly designed routes marked on the floor, and they're not allowed to stray from them. They also move at a fixed speed. Add obstacles such as desks and chairs, and suddenly dealing with enemies becomes a very different proposition. The inventive puzzles are cleverly integrated into this system, too. Abyss School certainly has its spooky moments, but if pure scares are your top priority, keep reading.
Bureau of Contacts
- Genre: Horror, Investigation
- Developer: Mirowin
- Platforms: PC
- Release date: April 12, 2025
- Price: $7.99
This one's especially worth checking out if you're a Phasmophobia fan. Bureau of Contacts (Steam page) is another "realistic" ghost-hunting simulator, but it doesn't just shamelessly copy its inspiration. The basics are certainly familiar: As an agent of an organization investigating paranormal phenomena, you explore a variety of deeply unsettling locations—mostly buildings—from a first-person perspective, identifying and exorcising whatever's haunting them.
Just like in Phasmophobia, you can do all this solo or in co-op. But compared with Kinetic Games' indie hit, here's what I find more interesting:
- According to the developer, the ghosts are controlled by neural networks that adapt their behavior to players' actions and spoken words.
- The dearly departed can listen, talk, respond to what you say, and display different behaviors.
- Besides various ghost-hunting tools, there are also spells, exorcisms, and a progression system.
- The ghosts aren't the only threat—the locations themselves are full of traps.
And another thing: The spirits you're sent to exorcise felt a little more individual and tangible to me—if "tangible" is even the right word for restless souls.
The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication
- Genre: Survival Horror, Adventure
- Developer: Softstar Entertainment
- Platforms: PC
- Release date: May 9, 2024
- Price: $24.99
In my opinion, The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation (2022) is one of the best cinematic horror games around. If the rather different sensibilities of Asian horror—Taiwanese horror, in this case—don't fry your Western brain, consider the original wholeheartedly recommended. Naturally, I also devoured its sequel, The Extrication (Steam page / GOG).
Does it live up to the original? Not quite, if you ask me, largely because it brings fewer fresh ideas to the table. But when it comes to enemy design and terrifying moments, this sequel still wipes the floor with plenty of its genre peers. Once again, The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication owes much of its intensity to how closely it resembles a horror movie. And that's its greatest strength, because the premise itself belongs squarely in the rather worn-out teen-horror category.
Once again, the setting is Wen-Hua University, a campus notorious for its creepy legends. A group of film students decides to shoot a horror movie inside the supposedly cursed Da-Ren Building—only for the production to turn into a real nightmare. You play in first person as four different characters, including reporter Sue Lian, each facing a different fate. The mix of exploration, stealth, and puzzles doesn't break any new ground, but it certainly delivers plenty of shocks and entertainment.
Up for some serious space horror, too? Then check out our review of Routine.
Hollow Cocoon
- Genre: Psychological Horror, Adventure
- Developer: Nayuta Studio
- Platforms: PC
- Release date: December 6, 2023
- Price: $14.99
Alongside The Bridge Curse 2, Hollow Cocoon (Steam page / GOG Dreamlist) is the scariest game on this list. At heart, its psychological horror is just the familiar one-on-one stealth chase, but I've rarely encountered a pursuer quite this menacing.
Why? Hollow Cocoon takes place in a remote Japanese village in the 1980s. Developer Nayuta Studio has recreated the setting with remarkable authenticity; at times I almost felt I was looking at a real village. The environment is also more interactive than average, including the game's main location: a medium-sized house built in the traditional Japanese style. Stalking you inside is a dark, misshapen, vaguely female creature with a taste for headless chickens—and a habit of removing their heads itself.
Now imagine being alone with that hyper-aggressive thing in a dark, realistic house. You're practically too scared to leave your hiding spot, yet you still have to explore the place and solve a series of puzzles. That sums up Hollow Cocoon rather nicely. And the sometimes confusing story surrounding your grandmother's fondness for silkworms has plenty going for it, too. If you enjoy slightly surreal stories that take their time revealing what they're really about, this one's for you.
Withering Rooms
- Genre: Horror, RPG, Action Roguelike
- Developer: Moonless Formless
- Platforms: PC
- Release date: April 5, 2024
- Price: $24.99
Do you like your horror sickly, sinister, and just a little cute? Did you play American McGee’s Alice and love it? If you answered yes to that second question, Withering Rooms (Steam page / GOG) is very likely your next favorite game. No, it definitely isn't a 3D platformer. It's a 2.5D adventure with RPG elements. But it shares a similarly dark, twisted fairy-tale aesthetic, and heroine Nightingale bears a suspicious resemblance to Alice.
Nightingale awakens in Mostyn House, a Victorian mansion crawling with supernatural horrors. The place is beautiful but deeply morbid, and it changes every night, making her escape attempt even harder. Most corridors and rooms are home to undead creatures, ghosts, witches, and all sorts of bizarre beings—but not all of them are hostile. Some NPCs offer advice or quests; others help Nightingale improve her abilities.
In terms of gameplay, Withering Rooms combines tactical real-time combat, stealth, spells, and equipment crafting. It also gives you a fair amount of freedom, since there's often more than one way to deal with an enemy. For example, say a zombie-like foe is too powerful to take on head-on. You whack him over the head with Item X, sprint to the shower stall at the far end of the room, hop inside, and pull the curtain shut.
Because the guy's thick as a brick, he promptly loses track of you. You wait for him to wander over to the shower, pop out at just the right moment, and give him another friendly smack from behind. You get the idea: Withering Rooms lets you experiment, and that's when games are at their best.
Shinonome Abyss The Maiden Exorcist
- Genre: Roguelike, Horror Action
- Developer: Wodan, Inc.
- Platforms: PC, Mac
- Release date: March 25, 2026
- Price: $14.99
Withering Rooms has already set the stage a little for my final recommendation, because Shinonome Abyss The Maiden Exorcist (Steam page / GOG Dreamlist) also blends the cute with the creepy. But don't be fooled by those cuddly pixels: There's a genuinely spooky atmosphere here, and more importantly, a ridiculously fun little game underneath.
First, a bit of background. The story follows shrine maiden Yono as she searches for her missing brother, an onmyōji—a traditional Japanese practitioner of rituals and divination. The trail leads to a cursed mansion infested with yōkai and vengeful spirits known as mononoke. But instead of unleashing raw little-girl violence, Shinonome Abyss puts tactics front and center.
Yono needs to observe enemies, locate them by sound, and often lure them into traps. You can turn the environment against them: Fireplaces incinerate especially dim-witted foes, others fall through damaged floors, or you can use noise to lure them into pits lined with spikes. A nice touch: If you hear a monster's footsteps behind a closed door, wait until they're at their loudest, then blast through the door with an old pirate pistol. It works every time, though it can also alert any other monsters nearby.
The game has three different modes: "Harai" with predefined levels, "Misogi" with randomly generated maps, and "Gyou," a challenging survival variant. So, found one or more games that catch your eye? If not, here's one more horror game I've personally got my eye on for this Halloween: BrokenLore: Low.
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