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The spooky season is at last upon us, making the next couple of weeks the perfect time for a healthy helping of horror. There's no shortage of options out there these days, but those looking to make the most of their October will need to choose their games carefully. To help narrow it down, here are a few titles that are certain to evoke at least one good cold shudder and/or horrifying jump out of their players.

Resident Evil: Village

The eighth numbered entry in the Resident Evil series is more action-oriented than its more suspenseful predecessor, but that doesn't mean that there aren't good scares to be found within. Ethan's arrival in the mountain village, his initial wanderings in Castle Dimitrescu and the hallway sequence in House Beneviento are all hair-raising experiences and do a good job of keeping the game from leaning too far into the action side of things like Resident Evil 5 and 6 did.

There's also the well-timed Winters' Expansion coming to the game on October 28. With it, players can enjoy Rosemary's epilogue in "Shadow of Rose," take out hordes of enemies in Mercenaries mode as Lady Dimitrescu and experience the original story in a newly-added third person mode. All of that together should make Halloween weekend the perfect time to either give RE8 a try or jump back in.

Dead Space

Dead Space Op Ed Screenshot

The Dead Space remake may only be a few months away now, but that doesn't mean one should count the original out just yet. For one, it's been confirmed that the remake is going to be bringing some changes with it, so it's not going to completely invalidate the original version. For another, Dead Space 1 still holds up quite well for a fourteen-year-old horror game. The Necromorphs are just a disturbing as they always were; the Ishimura is still fascinating to explore and its dark spaces still make one tense up involuntarily.

There might not be any true surprises left in Dead Space considering how long it's been around, but perhaps they aren't needed anymore. The game has become a true classic of the genre, making it an archetypal horror experience on the same level as Silent Hill 2 or Resident Evil 4. Even if there were no remake coming, it's a game worth revisiting for the experience alone.

Outlast

While the initial novelty has worn off by now, horror fans would do well not to count Outlast out just yet. Both Outlast games offer decent horror experiences, but the original gets the edge thanks to its setting: Mount Massive Asylum. Trying to survive that madhouse is a harrowing experience, both because players cannot fight their enemies and because of the genuinely horrifying ideas at play. Gamers have seen plenty of stories about big corporations doing horrible things, but those usually involve the player directly acting against such organizations and either terribly damaging them or bringing them down outright.

In Outlast though, players never get a chance to do that. The best case scenario is escaping Mount Massive Asylum and blowing the proverbial whistle on the Murkoff Corporation. Unfortunately, though, that's not exactly what happens and things take a decidedly terrible turn. Instead of stopping horrific tortures of the asylum, one may just wind up spreading them to the rest of the world instead. Even in the horror genre, such poignant bleakness is a rare find indeed. Here's hoping the multiplayer sequel, The Outlast Trials, manages to capture some of it.

The Suffering

The Suffering - Intro

Originally released for the PC, PS2 and Xbox in 2004, The Suffering is unfortunately not as readily available as other entries on this list. In fact, aside from the original versions, the only place it's available right now is at GOG.com. Still, taking the effort to download it or find a disc is worth it because this is a rather under-appreciated horror classic. It's not the slow-burn survival game that something like Silent Hill 2 is, but it's still very much on point in the psyche department.

The Suffering puts its players in the shoes of Torque, a death-row inmate incarcerated in the Abbot State Penitentiary on Carnate Island. Even though he has no memory of the crime, he's nonetheless been convicted of murdering his ex-wife and two children and has been brought to the island to await his fate. After it gets rocked by an earthquake, though, Carnate Island becomes a hot-bed of supernatural activity, challenging both inmate and guard alike to fight for survival against creatures symbolizing different means of execution.

Most of the game is spent fighting these creatures with various weapons and even a powerful monstrous form for Torque himself, but there are also moments where players are asked to make a choice. Some are obvious (help someone or not), while others are more grey (kill a guard to end his suffering or just leave him be). These all culminate in one of three endings for Torque and determine what kind of person he actually is. His isn't the only story playing out on the island though; its entire past quite literally comes back to haunt it, so players wind up bearing witness to all manner of horribleness. Nothing quite like a reminder of man's inhumanity to man to put a proper chill into the Halloween season, eh?

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly

Fatal Frame II - Sisters

Even more scarce than The Suffering is Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly. At the moment, it's looking like the only way to legitimately play this game is by tracking down an actual PS2 or Xbox disc, which is a shame considering that this is widely considered to be one of the most chilling horror games ever released. This is probably because it's more interested in deeply unsettling its players than in just outright scaring them.

The story follows twin sisters who find themselves trapped in a mysterious village that seems to the host of some sort of malevolent force. Worse still, it seems that one of the twins is slowly being overcome by that force; so it's a race against time to figure out what's trapping them and get out. Fatal Frame's signature mechanic, the Camera Obscura, pulls double duty as the player's means of defense and the main vehicle for scares. Defeating ghosts requires that players look straight at them for a few seconds each time, which is plenty of time to take in their eerie designs and watch them carry out their attacks.

What brings it all together is the village itself. As the twins venture further into it and discover why things are the way they are, they'll slowly and horribly realize that the ghosts are the least of their worries. Something far worse plagues the place, something ancient, unknowable and not interested in letting anything get out alive. If one can get their hands on a disc, then Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly might just be the best way to make one's Halloween a truly spooky occasion.


As gaming continues to grow older, so to does the amount of excellent horror games. Really, these are only a few of the truly scary horror games out there, and it looks like even more will be coming in the next couple of months. Horror fans will soon be able to enjoy the likes of Scorn, The Chant and The Callisto Protocol among many others, so make sure to check back soon to see how they stack up against both these classics and your own personal favorites.