While Scorn and Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed releasing on Xbox in October 2022, you may not feel like you need any more horror games this month. However, there’s already a plethora of horror games to give you nightmares as Halloween fast approaches. We’ve picked the best of those games, both older classics and those that are new this year, to get you in the mood for the spooky season.
The top 10 scary Xbox horror games
10. Dying Light 2: Stay Human
While not the scariest of games on the list, Dying Light 2 will certainly give many hours of gameplay. Aiden Caldwell faces the deadly infected as a virus decimates the City and sends human civilization back to the Dark Ages. Combining parkour, special abilities, and brutal melee combat in an open world, can Caldwell change the fate of The City without becoming one of the infected himself?
9. Evil Dead: The Game
Ash Williams and three other survivors seek revenge against the zombie-like Deadites who killed Ash’s girlfriend at a remote cabin in the woods. Together they must explore the area and find the artifacts that will reseal the door between the two worlds, but the asymmetrical multiplayer game also puts a fifth player in the role of the Kandarian Demon trying his best to stop them. Survival is far harder when your fate lies in the hands of an unpredictable human rather than AI.
8. The Quarry
Horror specialists Supermassive Games took a break away from The Dark Pictures Anthology to do a standalone game with their take on a summer camp gone wrong. Every decision can be vital in deciding which of the teenage counselors lives and who falls victim to the murderous locals. Of course, everything feels so much worse when you’re at least partly to blame for someone’s death.
7. Dead By Daylight
Another asymmetrical multiplayer game, this one pits four survivors against a single killer but the same tactics rarely work twice. Featuring crossovers from many different franchises, there are many survivors and killers to choose from, each with their own unique abilities. Survival all depends on communication and the cooperation of teammates, but that’s hard to do when panicking.
6. Outlast
The first of the more traditional survival horror games, players head to Mount Massive Asylum, abandoned for years until it was reopened for secret research. When journalist Miles Upshur breaks in and snoops around, he finds himself in a fight for survival against all kinds of abominable creatures that are the result of botched human experiments. And his night-vision camera can only help so much, especially when batteries have an infinite lifespan.
5. White Day: A Labyrinth Named School
This Korean survival horror game tells the story of a new Yeondu High School student, Lee Hee-min, who sneaks into the school to leave a gift for his girlfriend and gets trapped overnight. At night the school turns into the haunting place of killer janitors and troubled souls of the dead. There are no weapons, few supplies, and very little room for error as the discovered secrets decide which ending the player will receive.
4. Alien Isolation
When completely helpless against a powerful Alien, it’s impossible to relax and the beep of the motion detector can lull you into a false sense of security. The creature is still alive 15 years after the events of the Alien movie and Ellen Ripley’s daughter Amanda is investigating her mother’s disappearance. Staying alive is a challenge, and escaping is a luxury when your foe won’t hesitate to rip you apart.
3. Little Nightmares II
There’s nothing worse than the constant threat of harm or even death for a tiny figure in a world full of dangers much larger than he ever will be. Mono’s almost completely defenseless against the perils of a disgusting world and the repulsive creatures who still live in it. Instant death is a frequent recurrence during this stealth platformer, but those dangers must be overcome if he’s to escape with his life and take his silent companion with him.
2. MADiSON
There’s not a lot scarier than the feeling of helplessness while locked in a dark room, covered in blood with a “possessed” instant camera being your only weapon. In this first-person psychological horror game, MADiSON, the ghost of an evil murderer, wants Luca to complete a gory ritual started decades ago with a series of abominable acts like the massacre of his sister and mother. Can he connect the human world to the beyond and find a way out?
1. Resident Evil Village Gold Edition
A quiet life thrown into disarray? Check. A missing person? Check. An isolated location? Check. Scavenging for supplies and managing resources? Check. A bunch of threatening enemies, including mutant creatures and a very, very tall lady? Check. There couldn’t be a list of horror games without the inclusion of the Resident Evil franchise, and Village is certainly not a disappointment. Those wanting another perspective on the story can even make use of the DLC expansion due to be released this month.
