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Best Survival Horror Games

The best survival horror games have two things in common: they scare you and they scare you.

By Patricia SarkarPublished 7 years ago 18 min read
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While there are numerous great games with horror imagery like Bloodborne, Castlevania, and Doom, none of them are scary. None of them make you feel vulnerable. At no point do you feel as though you can't defend yourself.

Good survival horror games make you feel uncomfortable. Great ones make you question how you're going to keep playing. The best? They make you want to shut your console or PC off, set up a CCTV system in your house, and never leave your room again.

Okay, I exaggerate. These games won't threaten the sanctity of your mind, but if you're tired of Five Nights at Freddy's and Outlast, here are a few of the best survival horror games ever.

One of the first great survival horror games, Alone in the Dark takes a page out of HP Lovecraft's book by showing us a world in which humanity is a tiny speck in the eyes of the truly monstrous horrors lurking just out of view.

Our protagonist (either a male or female, depending on your preference) is locked inside a creepy dark house that is full of strange puzzles, mysteries, and monsters emerging from every crook and cranny. The only way to break out is to solve the mystery of the haunted home of Derceto.

For the time, this game was pretty scary. Yes, the polygon-heavy graphics and weird colors might conjure up more snickers than screams nowadays, but, again, for its time, this was one of the best.

No game before this one combined puzzle-solving skills and genuinely scary monsters. You could fight the enemies in-game, sure, but there is always a better, safer way. This sense of both intellectual stimulation and physical weakness made the game a little smarter than your average game, but, at the same time, made you, the player, feel far weaker.

But yes, this and its two immediate sequels are among the best survival horror games around. Just don't play the 2008 game of the same name, and really don't watch the Uwe Boll film adaptation, commonly cited as one of the worst video game movies ever. That's scary.

Another precursor to the modern survival horror game, Clock Tower utilizes the limited game development abilities of its era to create a truly dreadful experience where you can die at literally any second.

You are orphan Jennifer Simpson, recently adopted and whisked away to a great mansion. One night, you wake up to find a bunch of dead people and a mysterious young boy wielding a pair of oversized scissors. As you're chased by the mysterious Scissor Man, you're forced to unravel the mystery of what's happening around you—all the while trying to escape this hellish site.

This point-and-click adventure game puts a heavy focus on mystery and puzzle solving over combat. You really can't fight the threat of the Scissor Man. You can hide, run, and evade—but if you try to fight, you're as good as dead. While it is light on gameplay, it is heavy on dread, as at any moment, something can kill you.

It borders on the unfair how many things can kill you, though. Any number of seemingly innocent things can lead to your demise. It borders on the insane.

While the game is a little dated by a modern perspective, for those with a little patience, it remains one of the best survival horror games of yesteryear.

Another point-and-click game like Clock Tower, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is possibly the most disturbing horror game of the 90s (yes, even more so than the original Silent Hill).

Based on the short story by science fiction writer Harlan Ellison, the story tells a future where the whole of the planet has been destroyed by a computer named AM (voiced in the game by Ellison himself). AM hates humanity. AM hates humanity so much that he has kept a select number alive just for the express purpose of torturing them. One day, he lets them free for the sake of torturing them in a labyrinth where each one will be forced to confront their personal Hells.

What's so horrific about this game is hard to explain. There are no scary monsters jumping out at you or atmospheric halls like in Resident Evil or Silent Hill. No, what makes this one of the best survival horror games around is something else.

It's disturbing. It really is an exercise in dehumanization and humiliation. Each character is broken down and exposed for their flaws. After awhile, it feels like a genuine violation of their souls. And if you don't solve the puzzles right or do every individual thing right, you will get the "bad ending," which, let me assure you, lets you learn first-hand why the title is I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.

Which Resident Evil game? All of them. Every core game in the series is worthy of merit and acclaim (except for 6, which is awful). When you think of survival horror, what other game can come to mind except for this classic video game from the Playstation era?

Okay, Silent Hill, but we'll get to that series later.

Unfortunately, while the original game was revolutionary, it has not aged well. Ignoring the hokey acting, the series has lost something of its fear factor over the years (save for that jump scare with the dogs, which remains horrifying). I urge you to play the updated remake of the game, as it improves upon just about everything.

But how can we talk about the original game without discussing the improved sequel, or the third game which brought us Nemesis? Or Code Veronica, and the creepy Lannister-esque Ashford Twins? Or even the most recent entry into the series, Resident Evil 7?

But undeniably, the high point in the series remains Resident Evil 4, which masterfully integrated the action-focused gameplay of modern games with the claustrophobic horror of the original series—with intelligent enemies added to the mix.

The point is that this video game saga contains several of the best survival horror games of all time, and to talk about each one individually would be needed to fully explore this saga's role in the survival horror genre. Take my word for it: Play these games. Now.

Except for Resident Evil 6. Forget that one exists.

After hitting it big with Resident Evil, Capcom hoped to strike gold a second time. Of course, unlike the classic survival horror masterpiece, rather than throw zombies at the player, this time they'd throw dinosaurs at them.

Enter Dino Crisis, a game that, for all intents and purposes, has been overshadowed by its more popular cousin, Resident Evil. However, Dino Crisis–and this is going to be highly controversial–might be better in some ways than the original Resident Evil.

Okay, that's a bold-faced lie. Resident Evil is one of the greatest video game franchises of all time. But I will say that, in terms of enemies, zombies may be scarier, but dinosaurs are a lot cooler. The plots to the two games are pretty much the same. You're trapped in a location, and enemies are out to get you. Only now instead of zombies, you have dinosaurs.

For a kid in the 90s, Dino Crisis was the closest we ever came to playing a good Jurassic Park game. Only the best survival horror games make you feel as though you are living through a great horror film.

It is a shame that the series died early, since this series had a ton of potential for some incredible dinosaur fighting sequels. I'm sure if a fourth game came out, this series would be as fondly remembered as Resident Evil.

Released a month after Dino Crisis and a month before Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, many horror fans overlooked System Shock 2. Granted, it was a PC game in a console era, but System Shock 2 managed to masterfully create a space-oriented survival horror game that truly left players profoundly disturbed.

You play an amnesiac soldier, awoken in a cold, sterile space colony. Another survivor tells you to meet her deep within the facility. Along the way, you learn that the whole place has been overtaken by mutated monstrosities and a God-like AI known only as SHODAN.

This game proved highly influential to gaming as a whole, despite being something of a commercial disappointment. The developers who made this game would later produce Bioshock, which is in many ways a spiritual successor to System Shock.

I think the scariest part of this game has got to be SHODAN. Never before or since has an evil computer program been this bone-chilling. Everything about her just leaves you shaken up. In many ways, she's reminiscent of AM, only–if possible–more bone chilling.

Of all the Silent Hill games, Silent Hill 2 is by far the best one (though a case can be made for 3). What makes the franchise one of the most consistently great in the survival horror video game genre, however, is just how deep the horror goes. The Silent Hill franchise was never content to just present a scary visual or leave a hallway deathly quiet. It's the ideas behind everything that gets under your skin, burrows there, and leaves a chill in your very spirit.

James Sunderland has received a letter from his wife to meet in the town of Silent Hill. His wife died three years before. He finds a town overflowing with mist and strange monsters, each more disturbing than the last. The few human beings present leave him at once confused and disoriented. All the while, a mysterious figure with a pyramid for a head pursues him, ever present and ever armed.

The game is regarded as one of the best survival horror games for a reason. The town is dominated by dark halls and white mist that obscures everything, leaving players aware of how alone they are. But you know that at any moment something horrifying can jump out at you to kill you.

And this is where the real spark of horror comes in: you are the weakest character around. Even the weakest enemies can take more hits than you can, and you have next to nothing to fight back with. It's this sense of powerlessness that puts you at a disadvantage.

On top of that, the game's Freudian monster designs really add a deeper layer to the plot. While the gameplay and creepy visuals are scary, it's the deeper meaning behind it all–and the statements Silent Hill 2 makes about humanity's hidden cruelty–that gives the game a lasting edge that truly cuts deep.

When you think of the best survival horror games, the Gamecube isn't exactly the first console that comes to mind. Of all of Nintendo's consoles, the Gamecube might be the most family friendly (even the Wii had the incredibly violent No More Heroes and Madworld on it). Yet, lo and behold, not only is Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem one of the best horror games on the Gamecube, but it may very well be among the best survival horror games ever on any console.

The plot of this game spans over 2000 years, but centers around the investigations of main character Alexandra Roivas who, going through her grandfather's belongings, discovers The Tomb of Eternal Darkness. As she reads, she learns of others who have come into contact with this book throughout the ages, coming closer to some cosmic horror beyond the realm of her understanding.

The game draws heavily from HP Lovecraft's cosmic horror, specifically his famous short story "The Call of Cthulhu." This throw-back plot to the master of horror's work is pretty amazing, giving the plot of the game a true sense of intensity, emphasizing everyone's small presence in the scheme of the world. The fact you play as so many separate characters over the course of time really expands the scale of this threat, as though, no matter what, you're dealing with something larger than any one of you.

But that's not why this is one of the best survival horror games of all time. The reason why people love this game is because, eventually, the game starts messing with you, the player! Your character has a sanity meter. When it goes low, scary things start happening to your character. They start to hallucinate and all that. But if it goes too low, then strange things start happening to the game! The game tells you that you just deleted your save file, that the television's settings are being altered, or that your Gamecube has literally broken. This sort of stuff is enough to terrify any player into a state of absolute horror.

For awhile in the early 2000s, J-horror was commonly accepted as just being better than American horror. In an era full of remakes and rehashed ideas, Japanese horror movies offered viewers a truly unique and new scary movie experience.

A lot of survival horror games attempted to capture the scary ghosts and hauntings from the world of Japanese cinema. Siren, Haunting Ground, and several others tried. But the Fatal Frame series managed to really capture something creepier.

Of all the series, Fatal Frame II remains the creepiest of the bunch.

Mio and Maya Amakura are off in a ghost town, trying to solve the mystery of the Crimson Ritual Sacrifice, a ritual that led to the town's death many years prior. Along the way, you find clues, meet ghosts, and get scared. Really, really scared.

The gameplay is very simple: you are out to capture photos of ghosts. The only way to stop these spirits from killing you is to take their photo. This game takes a degree of skill, as it is beneficial to take photos at certain moments to inflict extra damage to them. But if you fail, then you may die. This makes the game a far more technical experience than many other survival horror games, which might be why it never achieved mainstream success like Resident Evil or Silent Hill.

But all that results in a genuinely unsettling experience that is both subtly creepy and genuinely kind of depressing.

Saya no Uta is unique on this list. It's part of a genre of Japanese games known as the visual novel, which is reminiscent of the point-and-click adventures of the old days of gaming—only you have far fewer choices, and most of the game plays out more like an ebook than a traditional video game. So, while it may not be a survival horror game in the traditional sense of the word, the survival of the other characters depends on your choices.

But as for horror, don't worry. Saya no Uta is one of the most horrific things you can ever experience.

The main character of Saya no Uta, Fuminori Sakisaka, suffers a horrific accident that kills his family. His brain is damaged so that everything around him looks bloody, gory, and grotesque—save for one girl, who he befriends and becomes close with. But if normal things look grotesque, what does the only normal person really look like...?

Saya no Uta is a profoundly disturbing experience. It is unique in the world of gaming. It's one of the few Japanese visual novels to really make it to an English audience, in part because the writer, Gen Urobuchi, later found international success through his anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which starts off looking like a Sailor Moon knock-off before veering into cosmic horror.

One of the earliest horror games to hit the Xbox 360 generation, Condemned took a very different approach to survival horror. While many other games drew more from either Lovecraft or popular horror films, Condemned drew its horror from real-crime films like Silence of the Lambs or Se7en. Though, toward the end, it starts feeling like the survival horror game equivalent of Twin Peaks (more so than the similar [and stupider] horror game Deadly Premonition, which stylized itself after Twin Peaks).

You are a detective, investigating a string of murders. People are losing their minds from some unknowable presence lurking in the urban sprawl around you, and it is up to you to solve the mysteries around you.

Condemned is a game grounded in realism (for the most part), and most of the story is spent searching crime scenes for evidence. That may not sound scary, but the problem is that each crime scene is incredibly disconcerting and bizarre, leaving you feeling disoriented. You always feel like something is going to come out and attack you—which, in all fairness, sometimes happens.

The game, upon release, didn't get all the love it probably deserved, but has developed a cult fanbase over the years who really appreciate its off-kilter, surreal feel.

Of all the games here, Manhunt 2 remains the most controversial. To this day, it is still banned in several countries. Several politicians, including Hillary Clinton, tried to remove the game off shelves upon release. And, in all honesty, I can't blame them for feeling repulsed by this game. It is repulsive. It is horrific. It's hard to sit through and play through.

Which is why it's one of the best survival horror games around.

In Manhunt 2, you play an escaped mental patient with a forgotten past. It's up to you to figure out what happened to you while evading countless guards, prisoners, and nightmarish scenarios around you.

But the plot isn't what's controversial. What's controversial is the killing. This game is one of the most realistically violent games you will ever play. While the graphics are a little dated now, the violence is still, at times, a little hard to watch. And harder to listen to. Just the sound design for this game is unpleasant.

It's a great survival horror game the same way that Cannibal Holocaust is a great horror movie. It's hard to watch and listen to, but it is really good at disturbing you, so it has to be scary. It's immoral, but it's really terrifying.

And, for its time, it was just too much.

The first two Dead Space games are among the scariest survival horror games around. In an era where big-name developers have produced less and less genuine horror content, Dead Space proved that AAA games can still offer some genuine scares.

You are Isaac Clarke, a run-of-the-mill engineer, who answers the distress call of a mining vessel. Upon boarding the ship, Isaac learns that the derelict ship has been overtaken by an alien species known as the Necromorphs, and it's up to you to stop them.

The developers of this survival horror game clearly loved sci-fi horror movies. The game draws heavily from Alien, The Thing, and Event Horizon to create a truly terrifying experience. In order to stop the Necromorphs, you have to dismember them, which offers a very precise, calculated gameplay style with fast-paced monsters who won't hesitate to eviscerate you.

What makes the game frightening is a combination of long stretches of silent, abandoned halls, broken up by sharp and immediate action. Although the hall is quiet right now, at any second, a Necromorph might just jump you, and claw you apart. It's that sense of dread that leaves you at the edge of your seat the whole way through the game. Undeniably, Dead Space is one of the best survival horror games ever.

For awhile, survival horror games became too action oriented. Resident Evil 4, I think, is to blame for that. Players became too powerful in the game, which killed any sense of dread. How can you be afraid of the monsters all around you if you could just mow them all down? Wouldn't it be scarier if you were absolutely powerless?

Enter Amnesia: The Dark Descent, the single game that altered horror gaming for the next seven years. It took away all the power the player had, emphasizing the cold powerlessness players felt when playing games like Silent Hill and Alone in the Dark.

You wake up in a mysterious castle, with no memory of your life before. In order to figure out who you are, you investigate your castle—but you soon discover you are not alone.

The game returns to survival horror's Lovecraftian roots in order to present a truly unnerving experience. You have no weapons to fight any of the enemies in the game, forcing you to use your wits and puzzle solving skills to escape dangerous enemies. This game masterfully incorporates a less-is-more approach by leaving most of the horror either out of sight or enigmatic. You don't need to see the boogieman to fear him.

The best survival horror games make the player the weakest character in the game. Amnesia: The Dark Descent does this masterfully.

One of the best horror movies of all time led to the creation of one of the best survival horror games of all time. Alien: Isolation is not the first game inspired by the Alien franchise, but it remains the best adaptation of the franchise.

You are Amanda Ripley, Ellen Ripley's daughter, who, like her mother, is stuck with a bit of a xenomorph problem. You can't kill the thing. You can't stop the thing. The only thing you can do is hide, and hope to God that thing doesn't find you.

Alien: Isolation masterfully creates an atmosphere of dread. The environments are quiet and still, which only makes the presence of the xenomorph even scarier. You know he's near—but where?

While there are other enemies in the game, they are less frightening than the xenomorph, who not only is unkillable, but also incredibly intelligent. This creature will figure out where you are, and will kill you, unless you can move fast. Few horror games will test your wits quite like this game, and—trust me—it's hard to make good decisions when you are overwhelmed with a sense of absolute terror.

Also fun is the DLC, which essentially recreates the original Alien film for you to play.

Which leads me to another reason this is such a good game: everything in game is lovingly detailed. You can tell the devs put a lot of effort into recreating the world of Ridley Scott's original film. It really is an authentic experience that you have to live through to fully get. It's quite amazing.

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About the Creator

Patricia Sarkar

Raised on a steady diet of makeup and games. Eager to share my experiences with the world and make a difference, article by article! :)

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