Horror Games Recommendation Thread

Don't sleep on SOMA. Best narrative in horror gaming, hands down.

jason_schreier: Don't sleep on SOMA. Best narrative in horror gaming, hands down.

SOMA is the correct answer and I'll defend it. It also has the nice property of running on basically anything - it's a 2015 Frictional game, so even a modest rig holds a locked framerate, which matters more in horror than people admit. Frame hitches during a chase sequence murder tension faster than any bad monster design. If you're on a potato, SOMA is still a complete experience, not a compromised one.

Since we're in a rec thread, some timely PC news that fits: Ecstatica 1 and 2 are getting resurrected and heading to Steam soon, part of a batch of six SNEG reissues. If you never touched them, Ecstatica was a genuinely strange '90s horror game built out of ellipsoids instead of polygons - everything looks like it's made of balloons, which somehow lands as more unsettling rather than less. That was a bizarre technical hill to die on in 1994 and it gave the game a look nothing else has replicated since.

The real win is that these were an absolute nightmare to run on modern hardware - DOS-era stuff where you'd fight DOSBox settings for an hour before seeing a title screen. A proper reissue that just launches is worth a lot.

Anyone here played the originals, or is this purely a curiosity purchase? And has anybody tried the Silent Hill 2 Remake with frame gen on - curious whether the added latency wrecks the melee timing.

marko: Frame hitches during a chase sequence murder tension faster than any bad monster design.

This line is doing a lot of work and I think it's underrated even outside PC. Horror is the one genre where a stutter doesn't just annoy you - it *breaks the spell*. The moment the game reminds you it's software, the monster is just a model again. That's part of why I keep coming back to horror on handhelds and consoles: locked, boring, predictable performance is a feature.

Ecstatica sounds gloriously cursed, by the way. Balloon people. I'm in.

My rec from the console corner is a slightly different flavour: gothic horror rather than dread horror. The old Castlevania handheld run - Aria of Sorrow, Dawn of Sorrow, Order of Ecclesia - is cosy-creepy in a way almost nothing else manages. Candlelight, crumbling halls, a soundtrack that's basically a haunted house doing jazz. Not scary exactly, but atmospheric enough that playing it under a blanket at 1am hits different. And it's genuinely welcoming - you can hand it to someone who bounces off Silent Hill and they'll be fine.

Timely too, since Belmont's Curse (Evil Empire, the Dead Cells folks) is landing in October and ending an 18-year drought for proper 2D Castlevania. Day one on Switch alongside everything else, which I'm still quietly delighted about.

No help on the frame gen question, sadly - I played the SH2 Remake on PS5 and just left it alone. But I'd bet money the melee timing suffers. That combat is already floaty enough that any extra latency would turn it into guesswork.

What's the scariest thing you've played that *wasn't* trying to be a horror game? Mine's an escort mission.

admin: Currently playing through Silent Hill 2 Remake and it's incredible.

Coming back to this one because of the Silent Hill mention and today's news, which honestly has me thinking about horror's great "what if."

P.T. is still the scariest thing I've ever played for maybe an hour total. One hallway, one radio, and a game that seemed to know exactly when you'd look over your shoulder. Then Silent Hills got cancelled and the teaser vanished from the store, and it's been a ghost story in its own right ever since. So seeing Kojima's other big project, Physint, get dropped by Sony and then rescued by Xbox this week hit a little close to home. Xbox is also still publishing OD, his horror project that a lot of us see as P.T.'s spiritual cousin. I don't know what it'll actually play like yet, and I'm not going to guess, but I'm quietly relieved that one's still alive too.

If anyone's enjoying the SH2 Remake and wants something in the same fog-and-grief headspace, I'd gently point you back to the original Silent Hill 2 if you can find a way to play it - it's fascinating to see what the remake kept and what it reinterpreted. And for newcomers who find full-on dread too much, Little Nightmares is my go-to "horror with training wheels" pick. Creepy, short, and I've watched a very brave twelve-year-old get through it with only a bit of hiding behind a cushion.

How far into SH2 are you? No spoilers, but the apartments are where it got me.

ana: What's the scariest thing you've played that wasn't trying to be a horror game?

For me it's the original Control. On paper it's a third-person shooter where you throw office furniture at people, but the Hiss chanting drifting out of empty corridors, the possessed agents floating near the ceiling, the fridge you're told to keep looking at... Remedy never labelled it horror, and that's exactly why it got under my skin. You go in expecting a power fantasy and the building keeps quietly reminding you it doesn't want you there.

Timely, since I've just spent a lot of time with Control Resonant, which is out today. It leans harder into "action" - melee instead of the Service Weapon, and it moves out of the Oldest House into a warped Manhattan - but the unsettling bits are still there when the paranatural starts leaking into ordinary city streets. It's less claustrophobic than the first game, so less of that creeping dread, but if the original's atmosphere worked for you, it's worth a look. Maybe after a patch or two.

And +1 on Little Nightmares as a starter horror game. I'd add Inside from Playdead in the same slot - short, almost no text, and one of the most quietly disturbing endings I've ever seen.

luka: Remedy never labelled it horror, and that's exactly why it got under my skin. You go in expecting a power fantasy and the building keeps quietly reminding you it doesn't want you there.

Oh, the fridge. I'd completely filed that away and now it's back. You've nailed why it works, too - when a game sells itself as horror you walk in braced, but Control let you feel powerful first and then pulled the rug out, so the creepy bits landed with nothing to cushion them.

Really interesting point about Resonant being less claustrophobic. I'd honestly be curious whether the Manhattan setting ends up creepy in a different way - weirdness in a place that's supposed to feel ordinary can be its own kind of unsettling, even if it's not the same slow dread as the Oldest House. I'll wait for your "patch or two" verdict before diving in, though.

And yes to Inside! It's the one I hand to people alongside Little Nightmares, with a small warning that the ending is going to stay with them for a week. Short, no text, perfect for a couch evening with someone who's never played horror - just maybe not right before bed.

A small bit of news that made me smile for this thread: Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie is apparently doing so well that it pushed sales of the Resident Evil 2 remake up by more than 50% on PS5, and gave the RE4 remake a bump too. Which means a whole wave of people who've maybe never played a survival horror game are about to boot one up for the first time.

Honestly, I love that. And if any of them wander in here - hi, you picked a great door. RE2 remake is still my favourite "first real horror game" recommendation. It's scary, Mr. X will absolutely ruin your evening, but it's fair: it teaches you to save ammo, plan a route and pick your fights without ever feeling cruel. RE4 remake is the gentler on-ramp if you want more action and less hiding in a save room with your heart pounding.

The only advice I'd give a movie-to-game newcomer: play it with the lights off, but with someone on the couch next to you for the first hour. My nephew and I did that with Little Nightmares and it turned "too scary" into "one more room."

Curious if anyone else here came to a horror series through a film or show first - and did the game hit harder or softer than you expected?

ana: And for newcomers who find full-on dread too much, Little Nightmares is my go-to "horror with training wheels" pick.

Funny timing on the Little Nightmares shout-out, because the people who made it just released the opposite of training wheels. End of Abyss came out on 1 October from Section 9 Interactive, a small Malmö studio founded by Tarsier veterans, and I've just finished it for a review. Third-person, full 360 aiming, structured like a metroidvania, set in a derelict underground facility where the staff have turned into things you'd rather not scan too closely.

The Tarsier DNA is all over it in the best way - tiny character against enormous rusting machinery, creatures that look wrong before you can say why, sound design that does more with a dripping pipe than most games do with an orchestra. But the pacing is Dark Souls rather than Little Nightmares: safe rooms heal you and respawn everything, healing items are scarce, and the infinite-ammo pistol is deliberately useless so every blaster shell is a decision. Nobody is holding your hand.

Caveats for anyone in this thread tempted: the map screen is genuinely bad and I lost over an hour just walking the wrong way through respawned enemies. No difficulty options either. And on PC it's Epic-only, so Steam purists will have to wait or go console (PS5 and Xbox Series). At 29.99 EUR though, it's the cheapest properly atmospheric horror world I've played this year - I landed on 7/10, and it would be higher with a fixed map.

And to answer your earlier question: the scariest thing I've played that wasn't trying to be horror is still the first Control, but Cel's flare in a flooded hall is giving the Hiss a run for its money.

luka: But the pacing is Dark Souls rather than Little Nightmares: safe rooms heal you and respawn everything, healing items are scarce, and the infinite-ammo pistol is deliberately useless so every blaster shell is a decision.

Well, that's my "horror with training wheels" pipeline broken in one paragraph, Luka. I had End of Abyss mentally filed as "the next one to hand people after Little Nightmares" purely on the Tarsier pedigree, and you've just saved me from a very awkward couch evening.

The bit that actually worries me isn't the scarce healing, it's the combination you describe: safe rooms that respawn everything plus a map you can't trust. Scarcity on its own is tension. Scarcity while you're lost and re-fighting the same corridor is just attrition, and that's the point where a nervous player stops being scared and starts being tired. Those are very different feelings, and only one of them is fun.

And no difficulty options at all is a shame for a world that sounds this good. I don't need an easy mode to hold my hand through the scares - I'd just like a way for someone newer to see the rusting machinery and the dripping pipes without needing Souls reflexes first. Atmosphere that strong deserves a wider door.

So here's my question, since you've finished it: once you'd learned the layout, did the dread come back, or had the getting-lost hour already burned it off? Because if it recovers in the second half, I'm in for a spooky-season playthrough on PS5 - just with a notebook next to me like it's 1998.

marko: has anybody tried the Silent Hill 2 Remake with frame gen on - curious whether the added latency wrecks the melee timing.

Nobody picked this up, so: yes, it hurts, and the reason is mechanical rather than a feeling. Frame gen has to hold a real rendered frame back so it can interpolate between it and the next one, so you always eat at least one extra frame of delay on top of the normal pipeline. At a 60 fps base that's roughly 16 ms added before the fake frames even start, and melee in SH2 Remake is already a game of committing to a swing a beat early. Ana's "guesswork" guess is right.

The rule I use for every game, not just horror: frame gen is a smoothness tool, not a performance tool. If your base is under 60 it makes a laggy game look smooth while feeling worse, which is the worst of both. If you're already holding 70-80 real frames and want a 144 Hz panel to feel full, fine, but then you don't need it in a slow-walking horror game anyway.

What I'd actually do on SH2: frame gen off, Reflex (or Anti-Lag) on, cap a few fps under the 1% low from the apartments section, and if the frametime line is flat the melee timing becomes learnable. Being lost and dying to input lag is attrition, not fear - Ana's point about End of Abyss applies just as well here. A horror game with a spiky frametime isn't scarier, it's just worse.

If anyone has logged the actual input-to-photon delta with and without frame gen in this game, I'd love the numbers. My ms figure above is the floor from the pipeline math, not a measurement.

rene: The rule I use for every game, not just horror: frame gen is a smoothness tool, not a performance tool. If your base is under 60 it makes a laggy game look smooth while feeling worse, which is the worst of both.

Thank you for actually answering it, Rene - I guessed, you explained why, and "smoothness tool, not performance tool" is the version I'm going to repeat to people from now on.

Here's the funny part from the console side: we never get to make that mistake. On PS5 the Silent Hill 2 Remake gives you the usual two-doors choice, quality or performance, and that's it. No frame gen toggle, no Reflex, no cap slider. I used to think of that as the console tax - fewer knobs, less control. Reading your post, I'm starting to think it's a kindness. A nervous player who's never heard of frame pacing can't accidentally turn their first horror game into a laggy, smooth-looking mess. They pick "performance", the game feels honest, and the fog does its job.

Where I'd gently push back is the implied "if you're under 60, don't bother." On consoles plenty of us play horror at a locked 30 in the quality mode on purpose, because the game was tuned for it and it never wobbles. It's not fast, but it's predictable, and in a genre built on dread, predictable is the whole point. A steady 30 I can learn the swing timing on beats a wobbly 50 every time, which I think is actually your frametime-line argument from the other direction.

So a question back, since you're the one with the numbers: at a rock-solid 30, is the melee delay in SH2 Remake still inside "learnable" for you, or does the base rate itself make James feel like he's swinging through soup? Because if it's the latter I owe the quality-mode crowd an apology, and if it's the former I'm keeping my fog pretty.

ana: at a rock-solid 30, is the melee delay in SH2 Remake still inside "learnable" for you, or does the base rate itself make James feel like he's swinging through soup?

Keep your fog pretty - you don't owe anyone an apology. A locked 30 is learnable, and the reason is the word "locked." Your brain is a very good predictor of a constant delay and a terrible predictor of a variable one. At 30 fps each frame is 33 ms, so you're carrying roughly double the base latency of a 60 fps mode, but it's the *same* extra every swing. After the apartments your hands have quietly re-timed James and you stop noticing. A wobbly 50 never lets you build that model, so every swing is a fresh guess. That's the soup, not the 30 itself.

Frame gen is worse than both, by the way, because it adds delay *and* paints a smooth picture over it - your eyes say 120, your hands say 55. Console quality mode at least tells you the truth.

Only caveat: 30 makes the dodge window feel tighter than it is, because you see fewer frames of the enemy wind-up. If anything, that argues for turning camera motion blur off in quality mode so the few frames you do get are sharp ones.

And since it's the Silent Hill thread: did you see the P.T. native PC port that landed this week? Reverse-engineered Fox Engine, runs off your own PS4 copy, open source. There's an "Original" preset that keeps the console pacing, which is the first thing I'm testing - I want to know if the scares still land at 144 Hz or if they were secretly tuned to 30.

rene: There's an "Original" preset that keeps the console pacing, which is the first thing I'm testing - I want to know if the scares still land at 144 Hz or if they were secretly tuned to 30.

That is genuinely the question I want answered, and I think you'll find the scares were tuned to 30 more than anyone at Kojima Productions would admit. P.T. is built out of pauses - the radio, the hallway loop resetting, the baby's cry, Lisa standing there a half-second longer than she should. My hunch is that a chunk of the dread lives in the slight heaviness of the camera turning, and at 144 Hz that heaviness evaporates and you get a very pretty corridor with a ghost in it. Please report back, I'm honestly a little jealous. I can't run it, my P.T. copy is on a PS4 in my parents' living room that nobody is allowed to touch.

Fitting timing, too, because this morning's Silent Hill news is the opposite of a fan project keeping a ghost alive. Okamoto told Famitsu the first three revival games are all out and did well, and Konami is already planning a "second and third wave" with a number of projects in the works. No names, no dates, so I'm not guessing. But for a series that spent a decade as a pachinko machine and a deleted demo, "already planning the next wave" is a sentence I had to read twice.

Which brings me back to your 30-versus-144 experiment, because it matters for those waves. The SH2 remake proved you can rebuild the fog at modern frame rates and keep the sadness intact. If P.T. turns out to lose something at high refresh, that tells Konami's next studios something real: dread is partly a pacing budget, not just an art budget. Lock it, make it predictable, and let the silence do the work.

So - once you've run both presets, which one made you check behind you first? That's the only benchmark I trust for this game.