Summary
Do you ever get the sense that some games aren’t necessarily trying to be horror games and don’t have the genre tag attached to them, yet certain design choices make it seem as though they’re full-on horror regardless? You’re not alone. Some video games have inadvertently become horror game gems, whether the developers intended for that or not.
Most of the time, it’s rated E for Everyone or E10+ titles meant for younger audiences, but it should be secretly for far more mature audiences. Below are some classic games along with newer puzzle and story-driven titles that should definitely get a new review from the ESRB for the shocking horrors they bring.
Publisher(s)
SEGA
While Ecco the Dolphin might be Rated E for Everyone (itself a surprising ESRB rating) and catered more to children who enjoy movies like Free Willy or have a general interest in dolphins and the sea, it’s still quite an unnerving underwater adventure. Even with its retro 16-bit aesthetics, the game continues to prove just how scary the ocean depths are.
As the titular dolphin character, you’ll explore the vast areas under the sea to reunite with your pod which you were separated from in the beginning. The setup sounds like Stray andthen quickly turns into underwater horror games like Silt. You’ll have to survive ravenous sharks and other strange sea life, eat, and catch air. Then,there are final bosses, like the H.R. Giger-inspired fish hybrid The Vortex Queen, which will only get scarier in design as the series progresses.
Management Sim, Adventure
ESRB
All Ages for Mild Cartoon Violence, Mild Fantasy Violence, Crass Humor
Scott Cawthon
If you’re unfamiliar with the story, Chipper & Sons Lumber Co. launched in 2013 as a free-to-play mobile game developed by designer Scott Cawthon. Yes,thatScott Cawthon of Five Nights at Freddy’s fame. Well, it turns out a sweet little management game about human-like beavers working with lumber can fall into extremely creepy territory and be the inspiration to go the full horror route with FNAF.
Chipper & Sons Lumber Co. was a horror birthed by accident, as Cawthon had absolutely no intention of creeping players out and faced a lot of mental health consequences as a result of the way people felt about it. The main characters, though cutely named Chipper and Tyke, were said to give off the vibe of being creepy animatronics, and Cawthon always makes sure to include some Easter egg nods in the FNAF series.
Body horror in gamestypically consists of something very gory, grotesque, and disturbing, like the monsters in Still Wakes the Deep, Amnesia, Dead Space, and even Resident Evil 7. You’d never expect a cute game about creatures made of food to fall into that category, but it certainly does, and that title is well-earned.
The game in question is Bugsnax, and the premise sounds exactly as it is worded in the title. It’s supposed to be a cozy and fun adventure game where you capture food-shaped bugs, like cinnamon bun snails (Cinnasnails), french fry spiders (Fryders), and pineapple tarantulas (Pineantulas). The different snack bugs are traumatic enough, but then you also have the odd townsfolk of Snaktooth Island called Grumpuses, whose bodies transform into the features of the Bugsnax they eat.
Launched on Nintendo’s N64 consoles in 1996, Super Mario 64 probably has one of the eeriest and bone-chilling atmospheres of the entire beloved platformer series. Just think about it. You’re all alone as Mario on an isolated chunk of land entering an ominous giant castle with mysterious doors and hallways that lead to paintings you’ll have to portal through, not knowing what horrors await on the other side.
The castle interior can be very chilling, particularly that feeling of isolation and uncertainty, and then there’s also Bowser’s laugh and his scary portraits to follow you as you move down certain hallways and staircases. You also have levels like Hazy Maze Cave, Jolly Roger Bay (not-so-jolly), Big Boo’s Haunt, and Snowman’s Land that don’t help its case either.
The Witness invites you to a seemingly tranquil island withgorgeous foliage and landscapesand a couple of hundred puzzles in between areas.It’s a game meant to serve as a cozy puzzle game, allowing you to enjoy the scenery and fill out the precise line patterns without having much of anything to worry about, but some elements say otherwise.
There are all these creepy and mysterious statues all around the map, as though people were in the middle of something and got frozen by Medusa. You also have a very Alan Wake 2 and Immortality moment with live-action movie clips of interviews featuring acclaimed scientists and philosophers and Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia playing on TVs, also unlocked via puzzles.
This Zelda title should be renamed to ‘Ocarina of Horror,’ because it’s genuinely the one that comes with the most frightening dungeons and monsters residing within them. Enemies like the mummified Gibdo, giant skull spiders called Big Skulltulas, and even giant flying skulls with bat wings that seem straight out of the Doom series are just a taste of the kind of terrors Link is dealing with.
Combine that with the eerie soundtrack and atmosphere permeating as you traverse the unknown in these dungeons, and Nintendo has unequivocally madea very compelling horror game for kids. Even the game’s innocent premise of learning musical notes and melodies won’t be able to sugarcoat these things.
Islets is a stellar indie Metroidvania gamethat goes for a cuter, more “wholesome” fantasy aesthetic than the darker themes the genre is known for. Again, you have a beautiful island platforming environment, but there are some creepy undertones to it. Similar to Hollow Knight, some of the enemies and character designs here might very well make you uneasy.
In Islets, you’ll be playing an adorable warrior mouse named Iko whose goal is to battle enemies across a series of floating islands in hopes for them to rejoin. The game is Tails of Iron meets Hollow Knight meets Disney Illusion Island but with a far more sinister and disturbing tone underneath all that vibrant color.
505 Games
Last Day of June is a poignant narrative-driven walking simulator from indie developer Ovosonico that deals with loss. While a game like What Remains of Edith Finch is meant to be spooky, Last Day of June leaves you with essentially a similar atmosphere but also with an added layer of Layers of Fear and Tim Burton, since the animator on 2012’s Frankenweenie, Jess Cope, lent her talents to the game.
The project sets out to reimagine the music video of Steve Wilson’s Drive Home (also animated by Cope), and the faceless 3D clay models of the characters are a nod to that. The story follows Carl as he’s gripped by grief in the wake of his wife’s death from a tragic car accident. You get to see other characters' memories of that day by interacting with portraits and can change the outcome to try and save June. This game has a sweet and soulful message, haunting as it may play.
Playdead’s Inside is a harrowing puzzle platformerthat will go down as one of the downright masterpieces of the horror platforming genre. But what if you take the faceless protagonist of that 2016 game along with the mind-controlled NPCs, create massive hordes of them like the zombies from World War Z, and have them fly, climb, swim, battle, and complete puzzles? You get a title like Humanity.
The aspect that shreds a bit of the horror is that you’re actually playing a dog in this game, an adorable Shiba Inu breed to be exact, and you’ll be guiding the horde of faceless humans through every platforming level. But you’ll also encounter a hostile, less-colorful group known as the Others, and conflict will ensue. Still, it’s a little unsettling to see so many faceless NPCs populating the screen at once.
Unless it’s Undead Nightmare, horror has no business being in a Red Dead Redemption game, and certainly not the sequel. Despite its action-adventure component, Red Dead Redemption 2 is ultimately a grounded emotional tale about the final years of Wild West outlaws, and a character study on Arthur Morgan and his relationships with the members of the eroding Van der Linde gang.
If you follow the main story, you’ll get just that out of the game. However, if you choose to go out looking for trouble by exploring the stunning and expansive open-world wilderness of the areas you’re camped in every chapter,some creepier things will come to light. Maybe you’ll find the Saint Denis vampire in the night, spot UFOs, hear eerie calls from ghosts, encounter Night Folk, and, of course, pay a visit to the Aberdeen Pig Farm.
