Top 5 Horror Games to play in October

Listen, any time of the year is a good time for scary games. However, what better time than October than to go back and get yourself creeped out. So here are a couple of games to get you in the Halloween mood. Please note that most of the games have a lot of mature content, so if you’re sensitive to certain types of trauma, these might not be good for you.

Until Dawn

Now, stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A group of college kids go out into an old, semi-

abandoned ski lodge and find themselves stuck between a killer hunting them down and an ancient evil slowly creeping upon them. It’s up to the player to keep as many of the characters alive as they can…wait for it…UNTIL DAWN.

On top of that, the story of Until Dawn’s release is as good as the game itself. Consistently pushed back since the PS3 era, it was released by Sony with no fanfare. For most people, it flew under their notice and, if it weren’t for a lot of game journalists and streamers singing its praises, it would’ve just disappeared. Instead, what we got was a prime example of how to do a narrative-driven adventure game with a malleable story. It’s deliciously cheesy, looks great and has some solid scares.

PT

You wake up in an empty room. You open the door in front of you and see that you’re in a house. You follow the side hallway around to the front door. Unfortunately, the door is locked, so you follow the hallway, go down several steps and open the door into…the same hallway you just stepped through. You

walk back around and repeat you descent the stairs to open up a door…into the same hallway again, only this time, you hear a news report about a grisly murder. And what was the blur that quickly shut the bathroom door in the hall? Whelp, you better keep repeating this loop until you can figure out what’s going on…

This is the one title on the list that is nearly impossible to get now without a fair bit of technological shenanigans, but it’s too damn good to not include. Famous for being the Playable Teaser (get it?) for the cancelled Silent Hills, this…I’ll call it mood target…for the future title is nearly perfect for what it strives for. It looks gorgeous, it has excellent sound design, it is obtuse as FUCK and, most importantly, is immensely unnerving. Trying to figure out the precise actions you need to achieve before the front door opens is infuriating, but the ways that P.T. plays with the expectations of the player is fantastic. Knowing the talent that was supposed to go into the final product of this teaser just makes it hurt more that we’ll never get it.

Eternal Darkness

Hey everybody, you ever heard of this Lovecraft guy? Seems like he was pretty good at making spooky stories about ancient dead gods attempting to re-enter our world. Well, Eternal Darkness takes that idea and spreads its story across several generations of characters. You start off as a Roman soldier who has

a no good, bad day that ends with eternal servitude to several nasty eldritch gods. From there, you jump into the present where a woman has inherited an old, creepy house from a relative. There, she uncovers the story of how humanity has fought back against these old bastards and the machinations made to bring them back into our world.

As a head’s up, Eternal Darkness doesn’t really hold up from a gameplay perspective. This came out at the tail of survival horror’s popularity, so it doesn’t control great and it makes some pretty sketchy gameplay choices through out. However, the Insanity Effects were and still are unique and really keep players on their toes. If you want some weird shit to go on, let you sanity meter get low. I’m sure you’ll have an unexpected event or three in any given area.

Dead Space

The love-child of Aliens and Event Horizon, Dead Space takes place on the Ishimura, an abandoned mining ship that has definitely seen better days. You guide engineer Isaac Clark as he tries to find out what exactly happened on the now alien-infested trip and, hopefully, find out what happened to his girlfriend.

The game plays like Resident Evil 4, so it is more slow-paced and deliberate than most other modern horror games. But let me tell you, there are some pretty low resources available. Your “weapons” are mostly mining equipment that’s been quickly re-purposed to destroy the Necromorphs that will run around and try to rip off your face. To add a twist to the standard bug-hunt formula, various notes implore you to blast of limbs instead of going for head-shots, forcing you to favor accuracy over raw power. It’s one of the few times I stuck with the first weapon through the whole game over more flashy, explosive items. A plasma cutter upgraded is way more effective at removing claws and appendages than a plasma rifle. Some people prefer the more action-oriented sequel, but for pure spooks the original is king.

Silent Hill 2

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a Silent Hill game on a horror list. Now, my personal favorite of the series is Silent Hill 3, but part of it is its connections with the original. For a contained experience, you’ve got to play Silent Hill 2.

After getting a letter from his dead wife telling him that she’s waiting at an old vacation spot, James Sunderland goes back to Silent Hill to find it covered in fog and completely abandoned. As he explores the town, he finds that there’s more to city as it slowly fills with hideous monsters that reflect his fears and insecurities. What few other people he finds there are also haunted by their demons, sometimes directly affecting James as he searches for his wife.

So, if you’re going into Silent Hill 2, you’d best be prepared for some old-ass bad controls. The Silent Hill series was never known for being a smooth experience and let me tell you, that’s quite apparent here. Combat is awkward and ineffectual, leading to either death or a quick escape. When you play, I’d recommend turning the combat and puzzle difficulty to its lowest, as neither are great. What you’re here for is the story and the atmosphere, which are second to none. This is, in a lot of ways, the pinnacle of the series and the survival horror genre as a whole. It has a mindfuck a story and the way the game is structured around that story is great as well. It’s definitely worth your time and effort.

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