Relating to new horror video games, there are occasions of feast and famine, and this previous yr we gorged till our bellies bulged and our mouths dripped with ugly grease. In 2024, we obtained a wealthy unfold of darkish experiences from solo creators, indie groups, AA builders and AAA studios in an unlimited array of genres and visible kinds. There was a incredible Silent Hill 2 remake and beefy updates to up to date classics like Phasmophobia, Alan Wake 2 and The Outlast Trials, and there was additionally a gentle cadence of brand-new horror franchises increasing the style in surprising methods.
First, let’s take a second to rejoice a sampling of the yr’s contemporary horror universes. In 2024, we bought the next new titles:
This isn’t a complete record of latest horror franchises in 2024, nevertheless it’s an acceptable demonstration of how huge and different the choices had been this yr. Indie studios are main the cost in relation to contemporary concepts and authentic mechanics, of course, however there are additionally loads of references to early-2000s graphics and PS1- or PS2-era survival horror on this record. The mixture of innovation and nostalgia is especially potent in titles like Concern the Highlight, Crow Nation, Mouthwashing and Hollowbody. These video games infuse blocky 3D worlds with fashionable sensibilities and easy animations, leading to experiences that illuminate the staticky reminiscences of Resident Evil and Silent Hill that lurk in our heads. That is how we wished these video games to really feel, mounted digital camera angles be damned — or, within the case of Hollowbody, lovingly embraced.
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It also needs to be famous that Concern the Highlight marks the debut of acclaimed horror-movie maker Blumhouse as a online game writer. Concern the Highlight is the primary launch in Blumhouse’s lineup — which incorporates future titles from EYES OUT, Half Mermaid, Excellent Rubbish, Playmestudio and Vermila Studios — and it’s a superb exploration of low-fi teenage drama and dread. The horror-game revolution is upon us and Blumhouse is totally going to snag a bit.
The least horror-like sport on the above record could also be Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, and it additionally occurs to be the one title from a AAA studio. I’ve included it as a result of, as a devoted fan of horror video games, I believe Kunitsu-Gami checks loads of containers: It options enormous, disgusting demons and a deadly blight that envelops complete cities in skeletal but surprisingly juicy natural materials. Its monster designs characteristic colourful shows of lechery and physique horror, and there’s consolation to be present in its tense strategy-action gameplay loop. Kunitsu-Gami wasn’t marketed as a horror expertise, and it definitely comprises simply as many scenes of beautiful magnificence because it does grotesquerie, however I heartily suggest it to any horror fan. I believe you’ll be pleasantly stunned.
INDIKA is one other entry that straddles the genres of horror, camp and non secular satire, nevertheless it undoubtedly options a number of scenes of soul-piercing terror. Plus, the literal satan is your pleasant companion all through the sport, and that has to rely for one thing. Amongst scenes of grief, inhumanity and devastation, INDIKA is amusing riot, and it’s a preeminent instance of mature themes dealt with properly in online game type. A further genre-bending standout from 2024 is Simogo’s Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. It comprises extremely satisfying logic puzzles in a lodge made out of mysteries — however phantoms hang-out the hallways, there’s a corpse within the again backyard and each scene drips with palpable unease. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is likely one of the finest and most unsettling video games of the yr, interval.
Nonetheless Wakes the Deep, in the meantime, affords a well-known and delightful model of monster-stalking horror on an oil rig in the midst of the indignant North Sea. It’s a must-play sport for any horror fan, appearing as a vessel for The Chinese language Room to point out off its expertise in constructing genuine worlds and cultivating ceaseless stress with a mystical edge. Plus, it is one of many best-looking video games I performed on PS5 all yr. Slitterhead is one other one for the action-horror gamers on the market, presenting a supernatural thriller in a model of Hong Kong that’s been infested by body-snatching demons, that includes buckets of blood and frantic close-range fight.
The yr started with the discharge of House Security Hotline, a simulation of a Nineteen Nineties name middle the place gamers assist diagnose and deal with family pests, which embody otherworldly threats like Mattress Tooth, Fae Flu, The Horde, Laundry Gnome, Mirror Nymph, Bathroom Hobb, Unicorn Fungi and others. House Security Hotline actually was the amuse bouche of 2024’s horror sport lineup — and Mouthwashing is the dessert.
All of the horror youngsters these days are taking part in Mouthwashing, a polygonal first-person romp by means of a stranded house ship full of doomed crew members steadily dropping their minds, overseen by a maimed captain with a maniacal, bandaged smile. Mouthwashing is unusual and claustrophobic, and it’s a wonderful method to finish the yr in horror gaming.
However we haven’t even talked in regards to the current franchises but. The Silent Hill 2 remake from Bloober Group, the Polish studio behind Layers of Concern and Blair Witch, was a superb success, even within the face of exacting requirements from longtime sequence followers. The remake appears and appears like the sport that gamers bear in mind, solely spit-shined and smoothed over, and Silent Hill 2 stays simply as terrifying in 2024 because it initially was in 2001. Possibly much more so. Bloober Group had lots to show with this one, they usually made us elder-Millennial horror gamers proud.
Alan Wake 2 was probably the greatest video games of 2023, horror or in any other case, and it obtained two important batches of DLC this yr: Night time Springs landed in June and The Lake Home went reside in October. Every little bit of content material not solely retains Alan Wake’s hellish world alive, nevertheless it provides depth to the cross-franchise universe that Treatment is constructing between Management and Alan Wake. Personally I all the time need extra Alan Wake, and in that regard, 2024 didn’t disappoint.
Two live-service indie video games, The Outlast Trials and Phasmophobia, additionally noticed main updates previously 12 months. After coming into early entry in Could 2023, The Outlast Trials studio Purple Barrels has been working to determine a stable cadence of latest content material drops, and this yr they actually bought into the groove. The Outlast Trials launched in full in March 2024 and it’s obtained a number of updates since then, introducing new enemies, maps, sport modes and limited-time occasions for the gamers trapped within the Murkoff Company’s secret Sinyala Facility. The quantity of labor that Purple Barrels places into The Outlast Trials is endlessly spectacular, particularly contemplating there are solely about 65 builders on the studio.
Phasmophobia has a good smaller crew than Purple Barrels, however they’re making huge strikes. The crew at UK studio Kinetic Video games have saved Phasmophobia alive since its Steam launch in September 2020, and this yr, they lastly introduced the ghost-hunting sport to consoles. Phasmophobia hit PlayStation 5 and Xbox Sequence X/S on October 29, and it additionally got here to PS VR2. Kinetic Video games has grand plans to maintain supporting and increasing Phasmophobia in 2025 and past, so despite the fact that the console launch occurred 4 years after launch, that is actually just the start.
There it’s — our humble ode to horror gaming in 2024. It’s been a dozen months of indie innovation and lovely gore, with a aspect dish of fabulous remakes and sizable updates. Some new horror video games push towards the boundaries of the style, increasing our concepts of what’s scary and why, whereas others discover contemporary methods to dissect traditional tropes. It’s a case of recent delicacies vs. consolation meals, and on my plate, there’s loads of room for each.
