Halloween Thrills: 15 Of The Scariest PC Games Of All Time

Posted 10/31/2011 at 10:05am | by Brad Chacos

Halloween means different things to different people. For some, it means taking the kids out trick-or-treating; others use it as an excuse to dress like Lion-O and Cheetara and drink excessive amounts of alcohol. This gallery isn’t for them. No, this gallery is for you, our fellow PC gamers, for whom Halloween is the perfect reason to turn off the lights, jack up the volume, and try not to pee your pants as angry demons, hungry aliens and the troubled ghosts of psychic children try to turn your virtual character’s insides into your virtual character’s outsides.

Below you’ll find 15 of the scariest, spookiest, downright most horrifying games we’ve ever played, ranging from first person shooters filled with cheap scares to scripted adventures that include some of the most intensely troubling scenes we’ve ever seen. Sorry, Eternal Darkness and Clock Tower fans; this article’s PC only. No doubt we’ve missed a hidden gem or two – including Dead Space, which narrowly missed the cut – so be sure to share your favorite scary games in the comments.

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The game might have been remade recently, but our hearts lie with the original Alone in the Dark, which for all intents and purposes started the survival horror genre. It may be dated now, but there was nothing like it at the time. Edward Carnby, we salute you! (And yes, the screenshot is from Alone in the Dark 2.)
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Yeah, the whole "flashlight or weapon" thing didn't make much sense, and you got used to the game's tricks after a while, but the first hour or so of Doom 3 made us jump and squeal like frightened children. Hours later, the darkness and monster closets still got us from time to time.
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System Shock 2 was a tense ride the entire way through thanks to Shodan, killer animals and former crew members who have been turned into the terrifying bioengineered groupmind called the Many. Running away from a Horde of apologetic Many with a stupid broken gun in hand is an experience in sheer terror. "Do you not trust the feelings of the flesh? Our biology yearns to join with yours. We welcome you to our mass."
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The Penumbra series' stealth-based game play and dark world offer up some of the tensest moments you can find in a video game. Sure, it's a bit awkward in combat, but the writing and atmosphere more than makes up for it. The second title, "Penumbra: Black Plague" made things even more immersive by requiring gamers to act out on-screen actions, like turning wheels and opening doors, with mouse movements.
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Condemned: Criminal Origins and its sequels would earn a place on this list for the dark and brutal combat on its own. But the creepy mannequin scene -- why do they keep appearing RIGHT BEHIND YOU? -- seals the deal.
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It's hard to top the thrills and scares in the Penumbra series, but Frictional Games did just that in Amnesia: The Dark Descent. You don't get any weapons, but you do get a sanity meter that causes you to hallucinate the more it decreases. Standing in light stops it from draining -- but the fast, aggressive monsters can see you in the light, and as we've said, you don't even have a knife. Oh, man, is it tense. The story is also extremely dark.
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Like Alone in the Dark, Alien Versus Predator was recently remade, but it's the original that made us crap our pants. Playing as an Alien or Predator was fun, but playing as a Space Marine was just SCARY -- especially when your blipping radar showed Aliens all around, but you couldn't see anything moving. Being the bottom of the food chain sucks.
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All right, the STALKER series is more atmospheric than scary, we'll admit. But YOU have to admit that inching forward through the dark underground bunkers is an exercise in tense terror -- especially when uber-mutants like the frequently invisible Bloodsucker get the jump on you in Agroprom Underground.
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Some people hated the video game adaptation of The Thing. Some people loved the video game adaptation of The Thing. We're in the latter camp. As if battling a mutating alien that could assume the form of one of your teammates at any time wasn't tense enough each member of your squad had separate sanity meters that could cause them to snap and start either vomiting or SHOOTING YOU IN THE FACE in the midst of combat. You can't trust anyone, and they don't trust you, either.
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FEAR. The name says it all. We could spout off about several things that make the game a scare-fest, too, but we're only going to say one thing: Alma.
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Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth brings Lovecraftian horror to the FPS genre. The game eschews a HUD and communicates status indicators through breathing and heart rates, grunts and groans. Seeing weird crap drops your sanity and causes you to see, hear and feel things that aren't there. To top it off, most of the time you don't have a gun. This is easily one of the most terrifying games ever created.
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Edgar Allen Poe gets the digital treatment in The Dark Eye, a 1995 point-and-click adventure that featured super creepy claymation characters. Spoiler alerts: The scariest moments of the game involve coffins; in one scene, you play out being buried alive, and in the finale, where you find that your brother's presumably dead fiance wasn't actually dead and has clawed out of her coffin -- and clawed out her eyes. The rest of the game is just as bleak.
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The Little Sisters were creepy enough, but the riff-raff -- aka the Splicers -- made the game. One early highlight involved a Splicer mother singing lullabyes to her child in its stroller. After killing the Splicer (this is a video game, after all), you find out that her baby is, in fact, a revolver. The game is chock full of suspenseful scares and tension.
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Thief: Dark Shadows isn't normally a scary game, but it features one of the scariest levels we've ever played: Shalebridge Cradle. A former orphanage/asylum/experimental treatment facility -- great combo, right? -- Shalebridge is a haunted house that whispers clues to its story in your ears while simultaneously trying to kill you. Creepy visual and audio oddities abound, as do whispering shadows of dead children. PC Gamer dedicated 10 pages to its haunted awesomeness back in 2005.
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The Left 4 Dead series may not be the first games that springs to mind when you think of horror, but take a trip down memory lane to your initial experiences with the game. You know, back before you spent 200 hours popping heads in multiplayer. The first time you traveled through a light-less room or the Dark Carnival, it was scary -- even more so thanks to the randomly generated zombie horde that can appear at any time. Go on, you can admit it. We won't judge you.
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Sometimes you don't want scary or spooky; sometimes, you just want to plop a Blanka mask on a zombie's head and cut it in half with a paddle-axe. Dead Rising 2 is the perfect Halloween title who want to slay the horde, but not in a scary way. Don't complain -- we've already given you 15 terror-filled games. This here's a bonus for the combat-oriented.

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chiragdaryanani

November 02, 2011 at 12:46pm

Call of Duty: Black Ops - Zombie Mode.

Zombie Murder.

TechLarry

November 02, 2011 at 7:36am

I know it's old, but The 7th Guest is still a classic.

JohnJSal

November 01, 2011 at 10:05pm

My vote is for the remake of the original Resident Evil. I never played it before the GameCube version, so that may have something to do with it, but I can say that I was anxious and scared nearly every second of that game. Extremely scary atmosphere.

Ridnarhtim

November 01, 2011 at 2:13pm

I found the first two Thief games much more terrifying than the third. Cradle included.

ashinms

November 01, 2011 at 9:24am

Has everybody forgotten about Dead Space?

h e x e n

November 01, 2011 at 2:37am

FEAR was scary as hell. First time playthrough was damn intense. Great game. Still play it.

Bioshock? A really crappy game maybe (prepares for lashing) but scary?

And yeah, Deadspace 1 or 2 should have had a mention. Play on the highest difficulty with only the pistol for your first playthrough. You'll lose count of how many corners and doors you SLOWLY traverse, how every monster becomes terrifying. Great games.

Painkiller should have had that last spot. ;)

Thanks for turning me on to Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth. Never even heard of this game. Amazing what kind of greatness you can miss.

Dubya_Tea_Efff

November 01, 2011 at 11:18am

I couldn't agree more about F.E.A.R., that little girl just got under my skin. I never finished it, but I'll never forget that creepy girl.

MrGeek

October 31, 2011 at 9:21pm

Phantasmagoria, By Sierra, way back when.... scary

louisalfieri

November 02, 2011 at 3:02pm

+1

The end sequence was killer.... I was like "WTF is going on!?!?! Is this the same game I was playing last night?"

I thought I was playing a regular Sierra point and click adventure (albeit a scary one)... but it kept morphing into something else. Seamlessly it would suddenly evolve into a game with 360 degree enviornments, then you begin to walk through it. The play mechanics continue to evolve with the tension and before you know it you're knee deep in an action game with fighting, hiding, and running. Lots of running. King's Quest this was not.

I won't spoil it, here. Let's just say that way back in the day, Phantasmagoria had me scared from the beginning. Then, it kept topping itself. For me, personally, it is the single most scary game I have ever played (and I've played most of them on this list)... and that was *before* the sh1t starts to the fan.

I've been searching for a game to duplicate the wonderfully intense fear and surprise of Phantasmagoria; after almost 20 years I still haven't found it.

Holly Golightly

October 31, 2011 at 8:28pm

I must admit, Comdemned was my favorite game in that list. I would have loved it if they could released part 2 onto the PC though. Part one is just a dream, and I enjoy it till this very day of course.

I feel you missed a very important title that should have not been missed. I feel that Cryostasis should have been somewhere in there. Especially when he would get those flashbacks in how the slaves got infected and cause the boat to become a total fright fest.

I love S.T.A.L.K.E.R. so damn much, and am glad to see it make it on the list. Metro 2033 was one hell of a scary game when those demons would jump out of the train tracks. Of course, this is just my opinion.

level1paladin

October 31, 2011 at 7:13pm

The ocean hotel in Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines is missing from this list. It should have definitely bumped a couple of these games out.

mattman059

October 31, 2011 at 6:45pm

Condemned series = awesome
Call of Cthulu = awesome
FEAR = awesome

scarry games = awesome.

Deanjo

October 31, 2011 at 5:45pm

How can you have a horror game list without Clive Barkers Undying?

cokebabies

November 01, 2011 at 1:57pm

Yeah, I was rather surprised to see that not on here. One of the only games to make me physically uncomfortable while playing.

Also, The Suffering had a really great, scary vibe throughout.

Ghok

October 31, 2011 at 8:22pm

Agreed. First time I ever stopped playing a game because it freaked me out too much.

Marthian

October 31, 2011 at 5:12pm

Not sure anyone else would agree, but Minecraft is kind of scary.

I don't think it's so much as pee pants or such, but rather you're just minding your own business in your mine, then suddenly sssssssssBOOM! and you lose all your stuff and take awhile to get there...

XoRn

October 31, 2011 at 4:46pm

Great article but I'd love to see a rewrite using the SCARIEST LEVELS. Ravenholm was nearly as frightening as anything Doom 3 did and Far Cry had some very scary locals in the underground science labs. Also I'm suprised one of the Dead Space games didn't get on here. Also Metro 2033 had it's moments.

noobstix

October 31, 2011 at 2:48pm

Personally, L4D kinda got to me a little bit (mostly due the Hunters) but I got used to it since you still have the cooperative element of the other 3 characters (either player-controlled or computer-controlled). Doom 3 and Dead Space were ones that got me jumping a bit (almost to the point where I would get startled when one of my family members would suddenly call for me). But Amnesia was the one that I didn't have the courage for after a few minutes since I found out about the "survivor" appeal of it. I probably would have literally pissed my pants if I got to the part where I was being chased by monsters and all I had were wits and some candles. I also would've had nightmares that would scare the hell out of me (I actually did have a few nightmares after playing Doom 1 and 2 when I was a little kid).

blimpboy3

October 31, 2011 at 12:39pm

I honestly thought Metro 2033 was pretty scary at times, or at least startled me. Maybe I was just high...

bocephus88

October 31, 2011 at 12:24pm

I will admit I haven't experienced many of these games, but I remember playing Silent Hill when I was younger and it scared the hell outta me and I am sort of shocked it is not on here.

bocephus88

October 31, 2011 at 12:31pm

Wow, I am dumb. Completely skipped over the PC part...

Damnlogin

October 31, 2011 at 12:09pm

Left4Dead is still epic lol

L0rDT1On

October 31, 2011 at 11:41am

Painkiller! I loved playing that game but didn't want to go through it a second time, some of the single player maps were pretty creepy.

Caboose

October 31, 2011 at 4:13pm

The Asylum, and in the expansion to Painkiller where you're in an orphanage. Those 2 areas still scare the crap out of me!

iceman08

October 31, 2011 at 11:25am

I preferred dead space series

skywyze

October 31, 2011 at 11:11am

Awesome that The Dark Eye is on the list. This is the first title that I recall actually scaring me, giving me nightmares and that chilled spine feeling. Awesome game!

Brad Chacos

October 31, 2011 at 8:53pm

Man, with those clay-mation faces and that incredibly crazy/weird story, The Dark Eye will always be near the top of scary games for me. Even now, I dare anyone to play through the game and not have super disturbing nightmares for a week or seven.

ThunderBolt

October 31, 2011 at 11:09am

Wolf 3D (it was scary when I was 9)
Doom 3
Resident Evil: Nemesis
Quake
Unreal
Dead Space 1 and 2

I didn't find Bioshock scary.

Danthrax66

October 31, 2011 at 10:48am

Why would you use Dark Carnival as an example of the first time we played L4D it wasn't in the original? And the first game's maps were a lot scarier than the new ones and the game overall felt more like a horror movie since it was set at night. And don't get me started on blood harvest.

TommM

October 31, 2011 at 10:31am

Glad to see Bioshock made the list. Those screaming splicers jumping out from dark corners, or mumbling their psychotic babble as you stalked them had me switching to adult diapers on a regular basis.

Brad Chacos

October 31, 2011 at 8:58pm

It was the level that introduced the Houdini Splicer that did it for me in the original Bioshock. I was hooked long before then, but following that guy around sold me completely -- and now I'm looking forward, somewhat apprehensively, to Bioshock Infinite.

AETAaAS

October 31, 2011 at 10:36am

Play Amnesia : Dark Descent with the lights off and headphones on and you will be on edge every second of the way. :p

I loved Stalker and Doom 3 but I think I played those more like shooters rather than horror games. xD

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