(And if you need a break at any point, head over to our Polygon’s Halloween Countdown: 31 Days of Horror for the internet’s best spooky movie recommendations.) Alien: Isolationīefore PSX-like graphics and P.T. So turn off the lights, grab your headphones, lock the door, and make sure you have enough batteries for that flashlight. This list largely focuses on 13 horror games that you can play now (plus one more that most of you probably can’t) to get you in the right mood for Halloween. With all of these projects on the near horizon, along with Halloween itself, now is as good a time as any to take a wider look at one of video games’ most intense genres.

What’s more, the genre is coming into yet another burst of promising titles: Resident Evil 4 and Dead Space are getting remakes next year, while Scorn, The Callisto Protocol, Saturnalia, The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me, Alan Wake 2, Signalis, and Slitterhead are only a few of the dozens of games we’ll be seeing this year and the next. Whether it’s a dark, empty room waiting for me to step inside, a creature chasing me down labyrinthine corridors, or the mere sense that I’m being watched, horror games, by definition, can demand a lot from the player.Įven so, there’s nothing quite like the thrill of a well-crafted horror game, whether it’s geared toward survival, jump scares, or creeping terror.

I grew up reading Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King, and have had many nights of sleep after watching Pet Sematary and the Goosebumps TV show. On one hand, I love exploring the genre in all of its forms. I’ve always had a conflictive relationship with horror.

Scary games to play on mac