Top 10 Lists: The Top 10 Most Terrifying Games On PC (Revisited!)

To start off our descent into madness I present a game that will ultimately make many "horror fans" scratch their heads or immediately close the tab to this list. Make no mistake; FEAR 2 has not found its way onto this list because of scares and nail biting tension. Too many gamers think of horror as the ability to make you jump or react, but another side of the genre exists: the self aware kind. You know what's going on, like what you're seeing, and get lost in whats happening without jumping or screaming despite knowing it's just your imagination still at work. Not many games share the ability to portray elaborate narratives in such an (almost bad) way, and yet maintain a tingling sense of creepiness and unease as well as FEAR 2. For all intents and purposes FEAR 2 is a bad game done right.

FEAR 2 presents this kind of atmosphere very quickly on. The first game relied on very badly spliced-in scares of Alma and made the environments shake or the lights turn off, often with her running from left to right out of view. Granted it was a (almost too) generous throwout to Japanese horror and it shares similar qualities, but it was something I still disliked. Horror games to me are about building a tension and atmosphere while portraying a narrative/story that is appealing and mysterious.

Whereas FEAR 1 appealed to fans of The Ring or The Eye, two popular Japanese horror pieces, FEAR 2 presents itself in an almost Barker-esque or Carpenter infused style (Carpenter would go on to actually "direct" the third game in the series). The horror is very surreal and odd, and often bizarre for the sake of being edgey, but most of the time it is genuinely cool to watch. FEAR 2's best quality are its environments and the art direction.

In one you creep up a hill blindsided by fire bloom and burning ashes until you reach a gnarled tree--hanging off it a swingset which is rocking lightly. The scene demolishes itself and you're back in reality. Another rather elaborate but nonetheless slightly chilling part has you following around your possessed and moaning friend who sounds convincingly scary as he shuffles down halls or through doors out of reach, only to see him periodically mentally tortured psychically and screaming in pain. Lastly imagine a city in post apocalyptic ruins, alright? Now imagine the population is either mutated or dead. As you wander down a street you see a burned, charred half-mutant man. He has a suit case and he's waving to a wrecked taxi in the street. Then there's always the legal-line pushing, ridiculous ending that will leave you pretty surprised.

FEAR 2 presents a self aware, self fulfilling niche atmosphere/narrative that keeps you involved enough in the game to see what weirdness happens next. But as a game, FEAR 2 is very disjointed and unfun and that is what keeps it merely on the #10 spot. The game play is very boring and the AI often cheats or shoots through walls, too many mech-suit segments are spliced in the game randomly and the boss fights are a pain.

Moving on we come to...

The Suffering blends a particular style of horror gaming that would later prove immensely successful in games such as Condemned and Dead Space. The in-your-face, balls to the wall, bloody and brutal kind of horror that relies on shock value as much as it does on story. I have mixed-to-negative opinions about the latter, but the former is also a game present on this top ten. I digress. The Suffering has a surprising catch to it that lets it reach the #9 spot, and it's the level of polish to the story. Let me explain...

The Suffering's level of polish to the characters, story, lore and enemies really shines as an example of immersion. The game includes three separate diaries of sorts that unravel the prison and the inmates and lastly the mutants. Did I mention that each diary is an in game book? And that can be flipped through, and each word is convincingly voice narrated? My favorite part about the genre over the years is getting lost in convincing lore or backstory and The Suffering throttles this up as much as Midway Game's budget allowed, portraying Still Island, the Prison and everything in and... "under" it to a very convincing degree.

Another oft-used but still successfully employed tactic here is that our main hero has amnesia. But in his case, he is put in prison for the murder of his family and he doesn't remember it--and doesn't seem to care. As you progress horrifying visions piece the story together, as well as aforementioned diaries. Don't worry, this is hardly a spoiler for you sensitive folk--it is all told in the opening cut scene and the intro booklet.

The monsters are also of grim design; pseudo-bondage or torture victims modeled to the extremes of those stereotypes in order to portray a sense of constriction and imprisonment. Indeed, since built on the Ps2's hardware, vast open areas or cell blocks were (very) hard to render Midway employed Stan Winston of horror-movie-monster fame to design all the monsters around the stereotypes and horrors of Prison nature or personality. The result is fighting embodiments of the emotions I imagine a prison might hold. The Suffering convinces the reality in the prison quite well. As the "incident" happens you are freed and can wander around prisons reading notes, picking up phones to try and dial for help, and witness guards and inmates alike fighting for their lives. Reality is stark and brutal in The Suffering and, actually, the game loses points because of it. Suspension of disbelief is the game's weakest point as I simply could not feel for any of the characters or picture myself in that scenario at all.

Problems exist with the game though; the previously hinted at budget seems to be quite low, resulting in grainy visuals on PC and some ridiculously bad voice acting. Bugs exist, and triggers are used *everywhere* to spawn enemies or scenes. So you could follow a guy and he stops dead in a doorway, but only when you pass a trigger behind him will the scene follow. All in all though, The Suffering provides a sense of claustrophobia that is convincing enough to drop it on the #9 spot

Clive Barker is a well regarded and decently strange author in the horror genre carrying on a sort of fusion of magic/mythology with a twist of ancient terrors or cosmic horror. And in modern times just straight up gore fests. If there is anything I enjoy about horror game's it would be visiting the locales they provide me with and getting immersed and lost in them... and Undying fills this void by presenting--to this day--one hell of a bizarre story with a great setpiece... a castle! Sort of. You play as a WW1 Veteran named Patrick Galloway who acquired knowledge of the occult and other less than divine areas who gets called by an old "friend" to a castle where, his friend says, a curse lies. The investigation turns into mayhem and from that first level on you're thrust into one original game.

No other game to date presents itself in such an alluring and charmingly lore soaked and nail biting way. Undying is an original game from start to finish, having some of the most magnificent or plain ordinary-but-unused setpices. The subjects of witchcraft, magic, ghosts, apparitions, castle and countryside curses and more all run in and out of the (rather intensive) script.

Battling dark sorcerer's or *worse* in Undying is a thrilling experience. You have a slew of stones, spells, conventional weapons and so on to combat some really hard enemies. Imagine two fireballs connecting and then psychological spells warping your perception, only to pull out a revolver and plug two bullets into the enemy to reboot the conflict to even the grounds. It took many many years for *this* kind of gameplay to make its way back to games in the name of Bioshock, to give you a modern example. Undying does it infinitely better though.

Undying presents an uneasy and esoteric story, with some involving and creepy locations and very original--to this day--setpieces and subject. The game broke ground in the horror community and as such it easily deserves the #8 spot on this list. Moving down our list, we come to the land of...

Silent Hill. No doubt the most popular and, for lack of the better word, "original" titles on this list.Merely speaking the name of this series invokes mixed emotions in people: some think a love story, some think guilt, some think all of the above, others think "GOD I hate this camera". But regardless of it's monumental game play issues (to some) Silent Hill 2 is still one of the most uneasy, guilt ridden, emotionally involved horror games ever to be made.

One of my favorite aspects of horror, as said, is the locales you go to. A popular trope in this is "Town with a secret". Despite originating from Lovecraft country more or less, this has been abused to death in horror movies. In a striking contrast; games however present them so efficiently and with such aplomb and polish that you forget what you're playing or witnessing has been done a dozen times before. Arguably introducing this trope to gaming was Silent Hill. The infamous town with broken locks, fogs, and some of the most cryptic and gut wrenching enemies. The thing about the town is that it's an extension of guilt or sadness. The town seems to me like a physical representation of emotion. And while an uhh.. ordinary setpiece for it, a foggy town, it is still done brilliantly.

James Sunderland travels to Silent Hill because he gets a letter from his dead wife. A very original and sad plot point drives it home as he arrives in the town only to find horrible monsters (Who are, like The Suffering, physical embodiments of emotion. Guilt, panic, fear...), fog, and very shady characters/residents while being perused by the biggest emotional embodiment--judgment.

Silent Hill 2 delivers psychological horror to a very high peak, making you feel guilty and uneasy as you discover the truth behind James and Silent Hill itself. Not many other horror games can get you so involved in the story and the wreckage of someone's life so well while maintaining a way to keep you in *constant* unease. Silent Hill 2 is not scary, and never claimed itself to be. It is a misjudged gem that is a brilliant piece of story telling, which leaves it in a modest #7 spot.

Horror as a genre is a very blank and neutral canvas rather than a distinct genre. If you think role playing games you know exactly what you're in for, if you think simulator you know what kind of detail is in store. Same for strategy, sports... but horror has so many angles to it that makes it one of the most versatile and unused genres. Any story, any locale, any era, any type of combat and any type of narrative can be used in order to portray a point. The genre adapts, and adapts again, it's best games shining as top tier examples of narrative or story telling. Just on this list we've been to a Prison figuratively gone to hell, a post apocalyptic city, ancient castle grounds and now we arrive at one of the forefathers of horror--System Shock 2, on a space ship. This genre gets around.

System Shock 2 takes a lot of elements from a lot of genres and can be, for all intents and purposes, called an action fps/rpg hybrid and you'd get away with it. But there is an atmosphere and originality about the story that has sparked *many* other games to take influence. The story has you (relatively nameless soldier) onboard a military vessel escorting a highly experimental ship called the Von Braun. You receive a distress signal from an alien planet...

The atmosphere's greatest trump card is being truly alone on a ship full of hostiles. System Shock 2 retains my favorite monster designs in any game; the crew merged with parts of the ship or machinery is a huge punch towards the technological dependency of the time as well as just freaking you out. Their faces in particular have countless emotions, namely sadness, that humanize them. Most enemies in horror gaming or.. well, any gaming, are merely emotionless shells that hate you or shoot at you. In SS2 you feel their emotion and see it in their animations, their faces, and obviously hear it in their cries. SS2 features a host of gameplay devices original for the time: hacking ability, "spell"-like attacks and tons of conventional weapons as well as some melee to fight back. The game broke a lot of ground and still holds water as a fun game to play even today.

But this isn't a review, and why do I need to get into that? SS2 is on my #6 spot for a reason: It's unsettling, it's creepy, and it's tense. The monsters aboard the ship are some of the most original and jarring in any game I've played and the conclusion is still one of the top video game twists in my book.

We've come to the half way point. These top five games represent the pinnacle of my favorite aspects of horror. Immersion, Story, Location, Atmosphere and Completeness.

Reviewing a game like Condemned is hard (which is why I haven't done it.) Explaining why it's on my list is even harder, it isn't a horror game. How can I describe it? This game is so immersive and polished that I couldn't take my hands off it until I beat it. Then I completed it a second time before putting it down. Taking limbs off of Se7en and Manhunt, Condemned has you investigating serial killer murder scenes with help from a police officer over the cell phone and eventually in person. The catch is they're hunting you, too, and so are merciless drug addicts in the slums you visit. Decrepit malls, police stations. libraries, back alley streets, subway stations and more. Monolith absolutely nailed the locations in this game and as such presented one of the most immersive games I have ever played. Every speck of detail, every item on a shelf, every hallway and side room is crafted with meticulous detail in order to give you the commanding sense "Wow, I'm really here."

Immersion is something crucial to getting a horror game down. Making you believe where you are and you're doing this. One of the key reasons I hated games like FEAR. Horror is not kicking in slow motion and mowing down 15 soldiers only to go "AH!" at a tiny little girl running around a minute later. Monolith learned this and created Condemned, their master work. The atmosphere is gritty, dirty and panic filled. The locations are creepy by themselves without any little girls or ghosts or jump scares. They just are creepy alone. Populating them is a singular kind of enemy. Pissed, raged drug addicts who want to kill you for no reason. The second best part about Condemned?

The combat. It is an all melee system and almost anything is a weapon. A log, a pipe, a plank, a crowbar, even the butt of your empty pistol or shotgun. Smash a guy in the face with a sledgehammer and teeth fly all over, blood sprays, he falls back and cries and he's battered and bruised. Kick him and he stumbles back into a shelf, bending it and causing all its contents to spill. Melee combat is as brutal as it gets and you parry, smash, kick, shoot and sledge your way through the game's locations.

I explained earlier their are two kinds of horror. There's actually five or six, and one of them that applies here is anything uneasy or emotionally negative and disturbing/creepy can be summarized as a brand of horror. Too many people think Horror is a singular genre, one that is supposed to make you turn the game off or jump or scream. Horror can be slow, unforgiving, monotonous and overbearing in atmosphere without making any monsters go "boo" or without breaking your immersion for flashbacks or plot points. Horror can simply mean surviving against real world enemies in real world locations.

Now where was I? Ah, yes, Cryostasis. I don't know how to begin discussing just how original, vibrant, jarring or emotionally crushing this story is. Yes, you read me right, story. Cryostasis is a playable study on human nature and emotion, with some huge sweeping narratives on redemption, guilt and trust. You play as an unknown, unnamed man sledding to the derelict and ruined nuclear icebreaker stuck in, well, the ice. As you arrive to its bow your dog sled crashes into the ice, and the dogs scurry and try to hold on to save you. This beautifully shot, frantic scene is only one of many in the Cryostasis world. You see, the game has a particular catch: As you wander through the broken down, icy, depressing ship you can encounter the dead crewmen. But for an unspecificed reason you can save them by going into the past. These scenes are often stunning or just morally bankrupt puzzles that have the simplest of human logic but still more power to them.

Imagine one crewman dies by jamming the door to his comrades as they flood, only for him to die and them to swim away. You can redeem him by going into his last moments and grouping up together with your comrades, embracing death, only to live. His body disappears in "real time" allowing you to move forward. While sometimes optional, these redemptive puzzles allow you to move on most of the time. Imagine another crewmen is being shot at by another up above. In his mistake he threw a can up there, drawing attention to himself and getting killed. You can redeem him by throwing the can at an electrical switch and turning off the lights to save your friends.

As you progress through these puzzles and sub stories the entire picture of what exactly happened to the ship comes into play. Flashbacks, those "redemptive" puzzles, and some beautifully symbolic cutscenes involving an old Inuit tale of a tribe lost in the woods all intertwine. The game's four narratives work beautifully together as you wander across all ends of the ship trying to find answers to your unnamed goal. It truly is hard to describe on text just how gut wrenching the story can be at times. Throughout the story a subornidate to the captain tries to overthrow him; in his private rooms and studies the captain bemoans to himself and judges what to do; greed and unjust spread across the ranks as does starvation, disease and lack of sleep. Eventually the ship gets stuck in the ice and the narratives all change to reflect it. As you change the past on the ship the present changes, building into--quite easily--the most stunning ending I have ever played in a game.

Cryostasis is an uneasy survival horror game. The cold affects you throughout the game. Your aim, your vision, your speed, your hearing. You need to huddle under lightbulbs; fires; sparks; run your hand in warmth in order to gain health and recover injures. This is a very immersive gameplay prospect and really puts you into the shoes of your character. You don't just charge through the ship. You struggle to run from enemies, to survive, to find ammo, to find warmth.

Let me cut to the chase: Call of Cthulhu is the most uneasy, surprising, and one of the most horrifying games I have ever played. It immerses you so deeply into the Lovecraft world and lore that you truly feel like you are in the shoes of Jack Walters as you wander through some of the most polished and omnipotent locations in any game. No other form of media than book has nailed Lovecraft's visions and atmosphere so clearly and with such polish. Innsmouth is horrifying, the Esoteric Order of Dagon is one of the most frightening cults in any game, and the enemies you face and the visions you see and the locations you creep through will leave you speechless at times.

The story starts out with you investigating a cult house only for things to go very, very, wrong. Following flashbacks in the Arkham Asylum you finally find yourself back in reality--having suffered split personality and amnesia for many years. The story is presented all from the first person perspective of Jack Walters who does a *lot* of talking. Hit the action button over a book shelf, bench, doorway, sign, person or interesting area and he will verbally discuss what he sees and thinks about it. Alternately he writes it in his diary where he also keeps newspaper clippings, other diaries and ancient text you come across.

Once back into reality your mission is to find a missing Grocery Store Manager in Innsmouth. Innsmouth, unknown to Jack Walters, is a horrible fishing port in Lovecraft Country that was known for its surplus of gold and fish into the country. Despite this the town only degraded into rot, ruin, and mystery. You show up at the prime of this phase of Innsmouth. Very, very quickly you realize you are in hostile territory and no game to this date has ever scared me simply with the location you're in. Sunken rooftops, pale yellow moon hanging above, broken down and boarded up homes and stores, lonesome church bells, and the residents. Oh, god, the citizens of Innsmouth. The people are disgusting; Fat, weathered, angry, gray skinned and have some of the most striking and frightening voice actors in any game. All of them have a snarl mixed with blubbering and pure hatred.. They watch you, follow you, talk in corners about you in whispers, watch you from the rooftops and never tell you a word about themselves or Innsmouth. Right away you meet some side characters who do nothing but chill your blood, the pinnacle of which is Gilman. As you softly shuffle down the padded rug all you can hear is the monotonous clicking of a grandather clock. Rounding the corner through slight fog and musky air you see an immense welcoming desk, behind it a grayed and smiling man with a voice as cold as ice. Later on in the game you need to spend a night in Gilman's hotel, ushering forth one of the most jarring and frantic chase scenes in gaming history.

Your whole stay in Innsmouth is in real time, only lasting about two hours until you decide to call it a night. But what you witness there, who you talk to, is ridiculously well paced. I have never played a game so well crafted in telling it's story. What starts off as uneasy quickly goes to panic and horror. Talking to a sad old man staring out a window for 40 years in a poor house, witnessing a murder, being followed, talking to uneasy allies, catching a burglar. All of these things happen in a very well paced line until culminating to the second quarter of the game which I will not spoil, but only starts in Gilman's hotel.

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is one of the most overlooked games I've played. Only few people know of it, only few more understand what it was aiming for, and even less understand just how important this game is to Lovecraft fans. It has easily earned the #3 spot on my list for the creepiest location in any game, some of the most surprising and panic enducing moments in a game, and some wonderful set pieces and voice acting.

I have been a long time fan of the Stalker games. Their immersion, atmosphere, open ended gameplay and survival aspects always draw me in for more from time to time. No game has such an atmosphere--while not directly horror in any means--instead more uneasy and just simply creepy. Walking through tall marsh grass as a fog rolls in and a storm begins to bellow is an experience that needs to be felt and understood in person. Call of Pripyat is the latest iteration of the series famous for such a thick and overbearing atmosphere, and brutal and slow paced firefights--and is also the best. While the other two games were taxingly linear, Call of Pripyat presents a huge gameworld more or less twice the size of the other games with half the loading screens. In this world of the Zone you will be always cautious, always fearful, and always primal and alert.

I will not delve into the detail of my review on call of pripyat today. Instead, as always, I will only be discussing my favorite aspects of the game befitting this top ten. First things first, Call of Pripyat is so uneasy and creepy that it really makes me wonder how such a game could be calmly formulated in the broad daylight and in an office space. The creators behind the game have managed to immerse you in The Zone. A world of tall grass, forests, gigantic anomalies and rips in fabric of physics and reality, underground chasms, railroads, factory and apartment complexes... the world is open for you to explore and literally every location you'd expect can be found.

Also populating this world are mutants. Bloodsuckers, invisible and tentacled horrors that stalk you and kill you. Dogs, boars, pigs--all of mutant variety--as well as fellow man. Greedy, merciless bandits and mercenaries out to kill you for pennies. If you were unaware the AI is unhinged in the Stalker games and this is why it has my #2 spot. The world is open, anything can happen. It is a wound up toy set loose. You could be looking for food and supplies in old crates when ambushed by someone else doing so. You could be wandering through a train yard when the mutated and angry residents of it show up. You could be made dinner by a leaping, two headed monster.

In order to survive the world the other side of the coin flips--the survival aspect kind. Ammo is precious, guns break and rust and jam, sights degrade. Scopes, silencers, grenade launches and a huge tech tree of upgrades can be applied to each gun. You also need to collect food, vodka, medical supplies, artifacts, quest items, explosives, armor, helmets, oxygen--anything you can think of in a real world scenario sans water.

Call of Pripyat is a huge open ended game with a horrible and addicting atmosphere, uneasy locations from apartments to ports to underground labs, populated by mutants and man alike, with a spin on survival gameplay. There are over 250 quests, 20 achievements that affect gameplay, six side story arcs regarding npc's. a huge main quest, and more. Call of Pripyat tolled in 65 hours before I beat it, and that was the second time. When I rushed. Call of Pripyat extends the tradition of the genre for presenting the most uneasy game world. Ever.

And so here we have it, the scariest game on PC. Without a doubt the title belongs to the Penumbra series. Black Plague, the sequel to overture, takes the place for the number 1 spot for a multitude of reasons. It is a culmination of many qualities and simplicities that put Black Plague in this spot.

Black Plague is too sweeping and large scale to wrap my head around, but I will try my best. The narrative is brilliant--While not as foreboding and self directed as Overture was--Phillip still very much talks to himself. Quickly on through the game you are introduced to panic and the need to escape as someone next door gets eaten alive and dragged off. You bust out of the room using the ingenius game mechanics and soon are presented with the game's atmosphere. As you creep through the airduct you may look into a room with something, or someone, strapped to an operating table. A flashing light blinks above him, illuminating for just seconds the multitude of machines and instruments around the room. As you creep on, there's a skip and a flash, and as you walk forward again you see the room once more. Black Plague deals with two subjects *no* game on this list does: Deja Vu and insanity.

As you explore the very strange and laboratory-esque area you're trapped in it becomes painfully obvious you're insane, and baggage you picked up early in the game (very early, its not a spoiler) begins talking to you. Doors move or vanish; direction changes; quest items vanish; reality warps; morally bankrupt and often gut wrenching self-conversations take place as you creep through the game and dodge disgusting enemies and solve some of the smartest puzzles in a game. Human instinct and emotion is what drives the puzzles in Black Plague, not physics and mechanics. Need to escape a room that only opens in an emergency? Light a flare under the fire system. Need to thaw something? Strap your lighter to the end of a bug spray can. So on, and so on.

The atmosphere is top notch, with a fantastic score and sense of unease following you throughout as many instances of deja vu, insanity, lack of trust or panic happen. It's legitimate, not scripted or queued or in a cutscene. Everything happens in real time, from solving a puzzle to a conversation or "cutscene". You are always in control of Philip.

The fact is going through an already creepy and chilling location, solving logic based and simple puzzles, while unraveling the story and making rare contact with other humans is good enough, the game's own spin on insanity and trust makes it even harder to digest. On top of the entire game is a singular message, one fact, that is mind blowing when first experienced. The game deals with subjects such as trust, community, and the ending literally left me questioning the basics of my own personality and human emotion. The ending is absolutely brilliant in approach and scale, giving you a series of tests and a narration from the closest thing to God in a video game. I will spoil nothing, but rest assured that many moments in Black Plague will leave your eyes a little hazy or your brain at work.

Black Plague is immersive; it's enemies, story, pacing, location and narrative all suck you into the gameplay. So does the ingenius game mechanic/control system, and how logical and simple the puzzles are. You use your human nature to survive.

Black Plague's Story is heavy; The encounters, the themes, the narrative, and the very fabric and nature of your "baggage" is frightening enough. The game ends on one of the most chillingly beautiful notes in gaming history.

Black Plague's Location; Is frightening and uneasy. It is gritty, dirty, unoccupied, chilling and suggestive of its previous use and many cryptic logs and computer messages tell you what used to happen there. I have never felt as uneasy in a game like Call of Cthulhu or Black Plague.

Black Plague's Atmosphere; Is overbearing at times. The themes at play, the subjects at hand, the sights you see, the enemies you encounter. The entire game is shrouded in paranoia and insanity and lack of trust. The environments are poorly lit and gritty and disgusting, meaning you need to use a simple flare or glowstick most of the time while saving previous batteries. The baggage you're stuck with is easily the most "scary" part of the atmosphere however.

Black Plague is Complete overall. It is the epitome of the genre.