10. Dying Light
Dying Light’s huge open world, filled to the brim with zombies, is an incredibly enjoyable experience. While the whole thing isn’t all that scary during the day, when the sun sets and the streets are filled with nothing but darkness and super strong undead creatures, you’ll be a little more terrified. One ill-timed jump off a roof and you’ll come crashing to the floor in the middle of a street flooded with zombies. Trust us when we say it’s highly unlikely you’re going to survive.
It’s got scares when you’re shrouded in darkness, but Dying Light’s nothing quite as terrifying as some other PS4 games.
9. Until Dawn
Until Dawn became one of 2015’s surprise success stories. With its cheesy horror movie styling, branching decisions, and gripping interactive story, players fell in love and embraced every bit of the corny, B-movie experience.
When it came to scares, Until Dawn had the jumps peppered in. You’d be terrified at the sight of a ghost in the basement, or that maniac chasing you through the dark house, but you’d also have a fair share of entertainment. If you’re looking for a horror game with a completely different take, then Until Dawn is your game. If you’re looking for “I need a new change of pants” scary, there are better PS4 games out there.
8. Alien: Isolation
Set on a decommissioned trading station out on the fringes of space, Alien: Isolation sees you assume the role of Amanda as she navigates her way through an increasingly dangerous world, all the while being hunted by Alien. While what is essentially a sci-fi version of cat and mouse may not seem all that terrifying, it is when Alien is controlled by an impressive AI dedicated to hunting you down with all of its senses.
Think you can just wait until it walks by and then run for dear life? Wrong. Alien will hear your loud footsteps, chase you down, and shove one of its long finger things straight through you. Isolation requires you to outsmart a terrifying foe and bide your time. It’s this suspense that makes it so damn scary.
7. Layers of Fear
Layers of Fear offers a pretty unique take on horror and scares. Rather than just throwing terrifying monsters at you, Layers of Fear is a psychological horror game that delves deep into the mind of an insane artist desperate to finish his Magnum Opus.
The Victorian mansion you’ll explore throughout the game is incredibly unsettling, with things morphing and changing around you and ghostly visions popping up every once in a while to lay on the scares even thicker. With its unique take on the horror genre, this is definitely one worth checking out, even if it doesn’t quite deliver the scares on a consistently high level.
6. The Last of Us
Many players would say that The Last of Us is anything but scary, and they’re probably right. However, many of those same players would also say they haven’t played through the game on Grounded difficulty. The world in The Last of Us becomes a far more sinister and terrifying place when you bump the difficulty right up. Resources are incredibly scarce and you’ll lose many of the abilities that make tracking and taking down the Clickers a manageable task.
Now, you remember all of those moments in the game where you had to creep through dark houses or tunnels filled with those things? Imagine that, with little to no ammo and grueling AI out to make every step a living hell. The Last of Us becomes one of the most intense survival horror experiences around.
5. The Evil Within
The Evil Within’s release back in 2014 was met positively by both players and critics alike. After investigating the scene of a gruesome mass murder, you awake in a surreal nightmare world of twisted reality. As you make your way through the game and take on all manner of jump scares and enemies, you’ll also be stalked by a hooded primary antagonist, just for that extra scare.
The Evil Within felt like a return to the kind of survival horror scares of the older Resident Evil titles. Exploring silent areas had you wondering when the next enemy was going to jump out at you from around a corner, and even after clearing a room of enemies, you never quite felt like the threat had disappeared. You’ll never feel at ease during The Evil Within, something that was possible even for brief moments in the previously mentioned titles.
4. Emily Wants to Play
Emily Wants to Play is nightmare fuel. You assume the role of a delivery guy and you’re making the last house at 11 pm. The door is open and the lights are on, so you head inside, and then BAM. The door shuts behind you and you’ve got to survive the night with a girl called Emily and three creepy as all hell dolls trying to murder you.
And that’s all there is to the game. You’ve got to survive the night, playing however you want, and working out how to survive if you find yourself stuck in a room with one of them. It may not sound all that bad, but when you turn around and there’s a terrifying doll staring at you from your only escape route, you’ll feel an overwhelming sense of dread.
3. SOMA
Set below the waves of the Atlantic ocean, SOMA sees you attempting to survive a hostile world as you try and uncover what exactly happened down in the underwater facility. Of course, you’re not alone, with corrupted humans, terrifying creatures, and bloodthirsty robots all trying to murder you.
With a multitude of different enemies wandering the corridors, and an AI just terrorizing you in whatever way it can, SOMA feels like it doesn’t even want you to succeed. It just wants to murder you over and over for fun. Why, you ask? Because it doesn’t even give you a means of fighting back, you’ve just got to outsmart your enemies or run for your life. Trying to work out how to overcome an enemy when it’s just scared the crap out of you only adds to the torment. Button mashing won’t help you here. The whole thing gets a hell of a lot worse too, thanks to its uncomfortably atmospheric environments.
2. Kitchen
It’s only a demo they said. It’ll be fun they said. NOPE.
Kitchen is one of the most horrifying experiences I’ve ever had the “pleasure” of sitting through. The whole thing begins with you strapped to a chair and a friend of yours unconscious on the floor. I could have dealt with that, and then they had to bring in the creepy zombie demon lady.
Though it’s, for the most part, non-interactive, Kitchen is still one of the most nerve-wracking and scariest experiences I’ve played to date. Thanks to the wonders of PSVR, said zombie thing gets right up in your face and invades your personal space with her giant knife. It’s a brutal demo, and one that shows just how immersive and intense horror experiences can be in virtual reality. If you’ve got PSVR and want a near heart attack, this is something you cannot afford to miss out on.
1. Outlast
Outlast is a scary first-person survival horror game that drops you into Mount Massive Asylum and tasks you with uncovering the truth behind the mysterious Murkoff Corporation, which recently reopened its home for the mentally ill. As you’d expect, nothing is sunshine and rainbows and instead, you’ll find dead bodies, weird zombie people, and jump scares galore.
Combine that with the unsettling location, incredible sound design and lighting effects, and the fact that you can only hide from any enemies you encounter, and you’ll be terrified with every move you make. Oh, and we almost forgot. You’ve got a video camera with night vision to help you see in dark places (which the asylum has plenty of), but batteries are limited and the camera devours them in a matter of minutes. Therefore, you’ll spend most of your time walking aimlessly in the dark, taking quick peeks through your night vision lens, only to find something staring right back at you…
BONUS: P.T.
It felt wrong of us to include P.T. in the ranking due to it now being impossible to download, but we couldn’t help but include it for anyone who has still got this on their PS4. The playable teaser for Silent Hills was one of the most terrifying experiences we’ve ever met, and it used all of about four different rooms in its entirety.
It’ll require you to perform an insane amount of particular actions to reach the end, but if you’ve ever wanted to see the devil, well… P.T. is probably as close as you’re gonna get to being completely out of your mind terrified.
