While we’re still a bit away from the spooky season, it’s never too late to prepare for it. If you’re a fan of horror games or want a gaming experience that will keep you on your toes, the PS5 library has some solid choices. It might be hard to sort through the PlayStation Store if you aren’t looking for something specific, so we have gathered a list of the top 10 best horror games the PS5 offers.
The Quarry
This spiritual successor to Until Dawn takes players to a remote summer camp deep in the woods of Hackett’s Quarry. The start of the game teases a monster on the campgrounds and then fast forwards to the last day of camp. Due to one counselor’s wish for his summer fling to continue, their transport is sabotaged. This strands the counselors overnight at the camp without knowing what awaits them when the sun goes down.
The Quarry takes the same choice-driven narrative as Supermassive Games’ greatest hits while giving players responsibility for their largest cast to date. Twists and turns await anyone brave enough to spend the night.
Dead Space
Isaac Clarke journeys aboard the USG Ishimura after it has gone completely silent, hoping to find his medical officer girlfriend, Nicole Brennan. However, he first finds awful mutated corpses with unnatural limbs running wild all over the ship. With only his engineering knowledge and iron will, Isaac must fight the Necromorph threat and figure out exactly what happened for things to become this nightmarish.
The remake offers the same Dead Space you might know but with every aspect enhanced. If you thought the original game made you afraid to play it in the dark, there’s a new king in town.
Resident Evil Village
The story begins in the Winters’ household three and a half years after the events of Resident Evil 7. After Chris Redfield storms in and shoots Mia dead in front of him, Ethan finds himself wandering an eerily abandoned Romanian village. The series once again steers away from zombies, and instead, you’ll mostly be fighting creepy werewolf creatures and worse. However, several unique figures watch over this region, but they messed up by giving Ethan a big reason to track them down.
The first-person camera returns, giving an all-new claustrophobic atmosphere to gothic castles and weird industrial mazes. Plus, the whole game is playable with the PSVR2, so you can experience all the frights right in your face.
Resident Evil 4 Remake
Experience the story of action hero Leon Kennedy on this fully remade journey through Resident Evil 4. When the president’s daughter has been kidnapped and brought somewhere in Europe, only one special agent (and previous zombie apocalypse survivor) has the skills to get her back. Leon must use all of his mettle (and inventory space) to track her down. The fourth game in the series introduces the Las Plagas virus, which completely changes the usual zombie formula.
Resident Evil 4 is hailed as one of the best games ever made, so there’s no excuse not to try this excellent remake if you’ve never played it.
Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!
Admittedly, including Doki Doki Literature Club on this list is a little bit of a spoiler. However, the game is much deeper than expected, so it still gives nothing away. DDLC is a slice-of-life visual novel wherein your character has finally decided to join the school’s Literature Club. You can choose from the four female members within the club and follow their story routes. To write anything more would be a definite spoiler, and everyone should go into this with as few expectations as possible.
Dead Island 2
After a decade’s wait, a sequel to Dead Island was finally released. Ditching the island locale, Dead Island 2 drops players right into Hell-A in the middle of the zombie outbreak. The last possible plane out of the city crashes, and players can choose from one of six unique characters to survive and figure out what to do next. The city is entirely overrun, with zombies around every corner. Immune or not, there aren’t many options for safe shelter, and it feels like the undead are constantly closing in.
While the game attempts to play up the comedy and goofiness of the game, the weight of combat and resilience of certain enemies makes the threat of the zombies very real.
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes
House of Ashes is the third episode of the Dark Pictures Anthology. It takes place in 2003 and follows a group of soldiers stationed in the middle east. After word comes down of a possible chemical weapons stash, the soldiers infiltrate a village and are met with opposition. The ground gives way during the fighting, and both sides’ soldiers fall into the caverns below. Once down there, the true threat reveals itself as ancient creatures cause both sides to work together, or no one survives.
The best part of the Dark Pictures Games is they can all be played in co-op. So whether you share the same couch or play over the internet, nothing is better than being scared with a friend.
Alan Wake Remastered
Alan Wake is a bestselling author suffering from a long stretch of writer’s block. At the advice of his agent, he and his wife Alice take a vacation in the sleepy mountain town of Bright Falls, Washington. The town isn’t quite what it seems, and Alan watches as Alice is pulled into the town’s lake by some supernatural force. After diving in after her, he comes to his car without knowing how he got there. Now he’s hounded by shadowy monsters who hate light while finding mysterious manuscript pages he doesn’t recall writing.
This game plays on the fact that Alan Wake is just a normal dude fighting impossible monsters perfectly. He’s not Leon Kennedy, so the tension in encounters is extremely palpable.
Little Nightmares 2
If you’re familiar with the first Little Nightmares, you know some of what to expect. The story follows Mono, who suddenly awakens in a forest on the edges of a hunter’s shack. After saving another child from the hunter, the pair continues through several terrifying locations. The worst, however, is a hospital full of doll-like people that will only move in the dark. If you’re scared of the Doctor Who Weeping Angels, try fighting them as a shin-tall child with a flashlight.
While the game still sticks to the side-scrolling aspect, the excellent monster design occasionally makes Little Nightmares 2 feel like a messed-up children’s book.
The Last of Us Part 1
Despite the other high-quality zombie movies on this list, The Last of Us Part 1 still reigns supreme. If you’ve watched the series without giving the video games a go, there’s never been a better time to rectify that. The story still follows a grief-stricken Joel Miller, tasked with escorting the only known immune girl to a Firefly hideout. The only big difference in the game is that the fungus aspect of the virus is more prevalent, with spores also causing infection.
The sound of the infected clickers is bone-chilling and means this game should absolutely be played with headphones on and the lights off.
Published: Jul 3, 2023 09:30 am