Because there's nothing scary about Sudoku.
Puzzles have become synonymous with horror games. A ghoulish villain will be chasing you one minute, and the next, you’re back to solving how to open the conveniently locked door you have to get past. These moments are all well and good, but sometimes you want something a bit different with your horror. Just because puzzles are usually included doesn’t mean it’s a necessity.
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Horror has many sub-genres, from visual novels to life simulators, to artist-inspired adventures. There’s so much nuance within the genre, many of which feature a lack of puzzles entirely.
Days Gone is an open-world action game following protagonist Deacon as he tries to survive the zombie apocalypse. It’s a story that tackles grief and how someone might make up for past mistakes, even while making some themselves. While drawbacks restrict the story from reaching its potential, this never prevents the gameplay from being a delightful time.
Overall, it’s more action than horror. Although, one of the spookier moments is the horde missions, where Deacon takes on hundreds of zombies alone. They’re challenging, and there’s a decent learning curve to completing each task, but it’s rewarding.
Psionic abilities and dimly-lit buildings are never a good mix. Have you ever seen these two concepts merge without at least a few deaths at the forefront? Well, you won't avoid the trope here, either. Fear takes the idea of a 'young girl' with supernatural abilities and makes her the game's villain. This is where the story begins, while later events may prove otherwise.
You play the role of Point Man, a special forces rookie sent into the city of Fairport to contain the threat of the paranormal occurrences within. Point Man also has supernatural abilities, including fantastic reflexes that allow him to go head-to-head with whoever may be inside.
For an experience that everyone can enjoy, Outlast is your best bet. There aren't any puzzles to speak of, and most of the game plays out as a terrifying walking simulator. You're a freelance journalist who travels to Mount Massive, a psychiatric hospital you believe to be mistreating their patients. Once inside, it becomes apparent that what they're doing is much worse: one of the antagonists, Richard Trager, is experimenting on the patients.
At this point, staying at Mount Massive would be too dangerous, so you spend the remainder of the game evading the perilous beings lurking within while trying to find a way out.
Dying Light is a first-person survival horror game, placing you in the shoes of Kyle Crane, who infiltrates a quarantined city to recover an important document. However, once he gets there, things are worse than he thought. He decides to stay and help out the city's survivors against the infected zombies.
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There’s a lot to see, from the various zombie types (Bombers, Screamers, Volatiles, and Night Hunters), to the many side quests, challenges, quarantine zones, and the multiplayer mode. It’s all here to experience in whichever order you choose.
When Until Dawn was released, it brought something all-new to the table: it was one of the few PlayStation games to use the DualShock controller to its fullest. During these tense segments, a pop-up will instruct you not to move. You'll have to keep your DualShock incredibly still to keep the character you're controlling safe.
The story is set in an isolated cabin where friends reunite after an unfortunate accident the year prior. And, as is the case with horror, strange things begin to happen. You're dealing with much more than the common killer; supernatural beings are involved.
Everyone’s heard of Bloodborne; most have either tried it or wanted to but couldn’t because of console restrictions or an already lengthy backlog. If you’re interested but haven’t gotten around to it yet, take this as your sign to boot up the game and immerse yourself into the world of Yharnam. You play as a Hunter traveling throughout a Gothic landscape, taking on enemies along your path to uncover the origin of the blood-borne disease affecting all the Yharnam residents.
Once you get to the real meat of the game, you can take on the celestial-like bosses, which take inspiration from all types of Eldritch beings. You’ll die a humiliating number of times before getting the fight patterns down and relishing in the pride of defeating another big bad.
Dead by Daylight is an online horror game where players partake in matches to either kill everyone or escape the map; one player is the killer, and the other four are survivors. It's pretty standard stuff. It becomes a lot more enjoyable, however, when playing with a group of friends.
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There are original killers and survivors like The Artist, The Clown, Meg, Claudette, and Dwight, along with the licensed characters including Leatherface, Ghostface, and Michael Myers. And although no longer available to purchase, Stranger Things characters like Steve, Nancy, Jonathan, and the Demogorgon were added in late 2019.
There are two versions of Doki Doki Literature Club. The original, which is free to play, and the re-released version titled Doki Doki Literature Club Plus, with all new content, which does cost money. Both versions are good choices, but you will, of course, be seeing more of the game with the Plus version. Regardless of your choice, you’ll still experience the core point of the game.
Doki Doki starts with your friend Sayori inviting you to join a literature club. Initially, you’ll be fooled into thinking it’s a strange dating sim set in a high school, but the meta nature will start to hit you as you progress through the days. Nothing is ever as it seems.
Phasmophobia is another online game best played with friends. It's also better with a microphone since this ties into the core intrigue of the experience. Every match starts like this: Sent to a suspicious location, maybe the woods or an abandoned school, you have to figure out whichever entity is haunting the place. You can take in crucifixes, EMF readers, 'ghost writing' books, and spirit boxes. Cursed items, such as the Ouija board, can sometimes be found randomly within the area.
The best way to get the attention of these spirits is to say their name into the microphone and use the checklist in your notebook to deduct which type of ghost they are.
Fear of the unknown is a universal feeling; The most frightening thing of all is whatever we’re unaware of. Set your game in an ocean filled with all sorts of dwellers, and you’ve got yourself a claustrophobic nightmare from which you can’t escape. This is where Subnautica comes in. Set on an Alien planet, all you can do to try to survive is explore the vast sea in front of you.
Other aspects come into play, and there’s more to the story than that, but we don’t want to spoil it for you. So, for now, think of the game as a mix of Minecraft, No Man’s Sky, and The Forest, except the only thing around you is the sprawling deep.
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Nico is a List Writer for TheGamer. He has spent most of his life immersed in the worlds of gaming and film, with an aspiration to one day create their own movie. And, of course, trying to spread the word about the beauty of The Witcher Universe.