Survival Horror Games Scarier Than Resident Evil, Ranked

Within the past few years, we’ve seen the survival horror genre absolutely take off in popularity. No franchise is as prevalent in the space as Resident Evil, a pioneer of the genre with a slew of terrifyingly good titles under its belt. The genre is a specific one, forcing players to hoard their resources, then plan their route and execute a play that’ll get them to safety. It’s all about making the most out of what’s given, whether that be three measly bullets or a breakable steel pipe, fending off enemies with quick wit and what you have on your person. Most Resident Evil games are downright terrifying, with notable entries like Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Resident Evil Requiem holding down the fort as some of the scariest horror titles around.

With that being said, there are other survival horror games out there that can and have surpassed Resident Evil in scare-factor, leaving me and those who dare to play them with lifelong nightmares. As a major fan of horror games, I am aiming to share some of my favorites that have kept me up wondering how I managed to get through them without a full-blown panic attack. These aren’t your average jump-scare romps. I’m talking about games that make you pause and reflect, games that have you seeing things out of the corner of your eye long after the console is off and the controller is put down.

7

Haunting Ground

A Dog Is Your First Line Of Defense

Capcom is clearly a master of survival horror. The developer has maintained a streak of excellent horror games for years, creating nightmare fuel for generations. Haunting Ground for the PlayStation 2 is a survival horror game created by Capcom that has stuck with me since its 2002 release. The title serves as the spiritual successor to the Clock Tower series, creating a heavy, eerie atmosphere like its predecessor.

To set the scene, the game’s young protagonist, Fiona Belli, is awoken in a prison cell following a car crash that took the lives of both her parents. With no aid in sight, the 18-year-old is forced to break free and find her way out of a gigantic gothic castle chock-full of winding halls and confusing puzzles. Eventually, Fiona manages to make friends with a loyal German Shepard companion named Hewie, who helps players create distractions and solve puzzles. A few baddies are lurking within the castle walls, including the lumbering Debilitas, who can crush Fiona with a simple squeeze, and a robotic maid named Daniella who grows jealous of Fiona’s humanity, stalking her armed with a glass shard or fire poker.

When enemies give chase, there is no way of stopping them. The castle has no loading-screen barriers between major rooms, meaning the stalkers can hunt you across the entire map without a true safe zone in sight. Players are helpless, at the whims of the castle and its inhabitants, forced to be on guard no matter what. Haunting Ground is so terrifying because players are essentially unarmed. With no traditional weapons on hand, threats become tangible, posing a real danger to innocent Fiona and her doggie friend. Players are stalked and harassed around every corner, which spikes her Panic Meter, which must be managed by players if they want to keep Fiona alive and sane.

Hewie can stop pursuers with a bite, but that’s pretty much it for self-defense. Since he is really the players’ only lifeline, they need to protect him and be kind to him as if the dog were their own. If he is hurt, Hewie will cease listening to commands, which strips players of their only protection. You do have an alchemy machine, which allows you to craft special stun items, traps, and defensive tools that help against enemies. The best defense you have is your wits, outsmarting assailants by hiding under beds, setting traps, or creating distractions that keep enemies at bay for just enough time to get a puzzle solved or a door open. A game that plays on fears of being without protection while being stalked around a massive castle? Pretty creepy.

6

SOMA

The World Has Ended, And You’re All Alone… Kind Of

SOMA is a game that presents players with one question: what makes you human? It is a sci-fi romp that took me to places inside my mind that I hadn’t visited before. I was frightened by the happenings on my screen as well as the existential ideas thrown my way, sending me into a tizzy. Simon Jarrett is this game’s protagonist, a man living in Toronto in 2015 who suffers severe brain damage from a car crash. After agreeing to do an experimental brain scan, Simon wakes up nearly 100 years later on PATHOS-2, an isolated, crumbling research facility found deep on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

During his exploration of the research facility, accompanied by a digitized computer scientist named Catherine Chun, Simon learns that the Earth was obliterated by a comet that virtually wiped out humanity. Those left alive in the underwater research base after the comet struck are now long dead, and the base’s governing AI—known as the WAU — has gone rogue. The WAU’s task? To preserve human life, ironically enough. Utilizing a substance called Structure Gel, the AI reanimates corpses, mutates machines, and scans human minds into robotic shells, creating grotesque abominations that will try to kill Simon.

Meanwhile, Simon’s goal is to launch something called the ARK, a solar-powered digital simulation containing scans of hundreds of human consciousnesses, into space to preserve humanity’s digital legacy. Stealth is a big part of this game because there is no combat. Ducking behind objects, crouching and crawling ever so slowly across maps, and distracting enemies with environmental objects is your best bet for survival. Nobody is there to hold your hand, not physically at least, the entire game is spent pretty much alone.

It’s an isolating feeling being the only person left alive, tasked with saving what little humanity is left. When players do meet humans, they are mangled beyond recognition, or their consciousness is trapped in a failing robot body. The game’s atmosphere is largely dark and empty. SOMA‘s focus is on existential dread rather than traditional jump scares, creating fear via the atmosphere and lack of human interaction.

5

Silent Hill: Townfall

A World Where Your Greatest Fears & Doubts Manifest

Screen Burn’s Silent Hill: Townfall is one of the more recent entries on this list that I recently finished playing. This title surprised me, considering many of the games in the franchise are horrifying. As far as Silent Hill games go, this one has to be the scariest in the series. The feeling of dread was instantly palpable upon my first go and carried on throughout my playthrough.

Protagonist Simon Ordell is drawn to St. Amelia, a Scottish fishing town without a soul in sight and hiding some very dark secrets. Players must uncover said secrets in true survival horror fashion, with little to no weapons, a detailed town map, and directional hints via nurse Zoe Ellis and a mystery man named Richard Shaw. The further I went into this game, the more invested I was in what the town was hiding, and how Simon was involved. Despite my better judgment, I kept digging and digging, shutting my eyes and setting down the controller when things got too real. Enemies are quick on their feet, drawn to players who make noise or don’t hide properly, and they are ruthless. Hits are hard, and weapons degrade, leaving players defenseless and hurting.

At times, players are made to take on St. Amelia from Zoe’s perspective. These happen to be some of the scariest parts of the game, and stick out to me because of a certain blind enemy that runs fast and snags players right out of closets if they aren’t careful. A specific area had my sister and I trapped in a home with a narrow chance of escaping. Both of us shrieked and panicked at every turn, clutching each other when things got too scary. Fighting is possible, but running is ideal, especially if you want to hoard your resources.

Silent Hill games tend to focus on fears we cannot see, manifested in environmental challenges that focus on players’ deepest fears. In Silent Hill: Townfall, psychological fears and feelings of guilt are manifested in enemies that are actually threatening and cunning, using sound or a misstep to locate players rather than swinging at nonsense. Some enemies hide and attack when found, while others stalk the streets and lunge violently at unsuspecting passerby. The world around Simon is transformed based on the protagonist’s fears and dislikes, haunting him by digging up trauma from the past and replaying it before his very eyes again and again.

4

Outlast

When Fighting Back Isn’t an Option

Sometimes the most frightening experiences gamers can have are the ones that feel real. Outlast is as scary as it gets, putting players in the position of a person in the middle of chaos with no way out. In this first-person title, journalist Miles Upshur aims to investigate the remote Mount Massive Asylum after a tip-off that some shady dealings are happening there. Equipped with a camera and nothing more, players are meant to run, hide, and survive.

Through the lens of a dying camera fueled by stray batteries, players are attacked by deformed former patients who are extremely violent, stopping at nothing to snuff out the intruder: you. Remember, these aren’t monsters; they are people with a taste for blood, making it all the more frightening. Players are completely defenseless, a common theme on this list, entering a hostile environment that holds a few dark secrets without any weapons. Entering the pitch-black unknown, they must fight to survive by fleeing, or they’ll serve as prey for whatever lurks in the shadows.

First-person perspective makes you feel as if you’re right there in the game, stepping into Miles’ shoes rather than just playing him from afar. The game also lacks a standard gaming interface, which leaves the screen unobstructed, giving you a realistic perspective that cranks up immersion. When playing, expect to be hunted, plagued by jump scares, and extremely stressed out. It won’t be easy, but it is imperative that Miles make it out alive.

3

Alien: Isolation

Engineered For A Frightening Ride

If readers can’t tell by now, I am deeply afraid of being alone, stranded without help where monsters lurk in the shadows, hunting me like prey. Alien: Isolation does a fantastic job of reacting to your play style, utilizing AI to anticipate moves, which really sucks but is totally effective for scaring people. The game takes place 15 years after the events of the 1979 Alien movie. You play as Amanda Ripley, the engineer daughter of Ellen Ripley. Amanda travels to the decommissioned Sevastopol Station to gain some clarity on her mother’s disappearance and ends up stranded.

Things on the station have gone to hell. Xenomorphs have come aboard, they’re causing chaos, and the androids meant to help around the station have turned against the human crew. Remaining survivors will try to kill Amanda due to distrust. With everything against her, players must hide like their lives depend on it, utilize a motion tracker, and craft useful items to help the engineer off the station. Sure, human survivors and the crazy robots you encounter are scary, but no threat is greater than the Xenomorphs. These aliens cannot be killed. They’re fast, strong, and have high-frequency auditory perception, making escape virtually impossible.

Alien: Isolation taps into some insane tech capabilities to enhance the scare factor of the Xenomorphs, tapping into a player’s microphone, forcing them to not make a sound while playing, lest they tip off the alien predators. As mentioned, the game utilizes AI to learn a player’s usual hiding spots or diversion tactics, meaning the Xenomorphs will adapt to the your play style to catch you off guard. Playing this alone, I had to call my sister multiple times to keep me company while I traversed the space station. I had no clue on my first playthrough that the real-world sounds I was making were being picked up by the mic, leading the Xenomorphs right to me. I had to turn the feature off, since I tend to be rather vocal while playing horror games.

2

P.T.

The Horror Demo That Never Was

Hailing from the mind of the great Hideo Kojima, P.T., otherwise known as Playable Teaser, served as a snippet of a Silent Hill game that was eventually canceled. The teaser was launched back in 2014 on the PlayStation 4 and was previously impossible to play unless you already had the game downloaded on an older console. Recently, the teaser was ported to the PC, easily downloadable with a few steps, bringing the nightmarish lost horror demo back from the dead.

P.T. was exceedingly impactful in the world of survival horror, accomplishing so much via a demo with a small looping environment. Players must walk through a creepy suburban home, entering and exiting a door at the end of the hall that starts the loop over again. The setting is the same once you re-enter the home, save for a few chilling environmental differences that keep you on edge. Objects appear out of thin air, a radio on a table speaks directly to you as you traverse the looping home, and a specter named Lisa watches from the shadows before pouncing.

There is no combat, and no in-depth interface. Players are simply meant to walk and open doors, confronting the horrors that wait for them in a seemingly unassuming place head-on. Visage is the first game I can remember capturing this same formula, taking an ordinary family home and transforming it into something sinister. I’ve never really moved on from P.T. since its 2014 release. The demo is a reminder of what horror fans may never have. The magic of the teaser has been copied, but can never really be replicated in modern releases.

1

Dead Space

Necromorphs Will Haunt Your Nightmares

Visceral Games’ Dead Space is one of my favorite horror games of all time. No game better encapsulates the dreadful feeling of isolation and terror, keeping me on my toes and in tears throughout. There were many times that I booted up Dead Space, only to turn my console off soon after. The feeling of fear I felt was too great sometimes to continue. Call me a wuss if you will, but Dead Space has changed the way I digest horror forever.

Isaac Clarke, an engineer, is sent alongside a team to answer a distress signal sent from the planetary mining ship USG Ishimura. Soon after arriving on the ship, Clarke and the crew realize something is amiss. The vessel has become infested with grotesque, fast-moving humanoid creatures called Necromorphs, ready to brutally dismember anything they see as a threat. These bad boys were brought about thanks to something called the Marker, an alien obelisk object that emits signals which, among other things, cause psychological distress, hallucinations, paranoia, and homicidal or suicidal behavior in humans. When I tell you that Necromorphs are the scariest monsters in gaming history, I am not lying. These things uncomfortably resemble humans, with distorted anatomy like dislocated jaws that hang by mere tendons, twisting limbs that drag and hang, and deadly pincers for arms.

See, these beings were once human. Their dead bodies and tissue have been reanimated and mutated by an extraterrestrial infection and subliminal messaging fed through the Marker, causing them to appear this way. When killing them, after the horror subsides, you’ll almost feel a semblance of guilt about it all. Suspense is masterfully crafted through narrow corridors, dim or nonexistent lighting, and excellent sound design that emphasizes silence just as much as it emphasizes abrupt loudness. Mechanical creaks accompany eerie silences broken by the cry of a Necromorph or Isaac grunting while stomping out a baddie. Throughout your journey on the Ishimura, you will be fed eerie, ambient hallucinations and whispered messages from time to time, driving home that Isaac’s mental state is slipping.

I was never not on my toes while playing Dead Space. I quickly realized that even after clearing an area, I could still be attacked at any moment. Necromorphs can spawn almost everywhere Isaac goes. Shop kiosks and tram cars offer little respite before Isaac must hop to it again. I have never quite felt fear like I did while playing Dead Space, and I doubt I will feel that same fear ever again. It’s safe to say that this is a survival horror game best experienced with the lights on and a friend by your side.