22 Best Indie Horror Games You Need to Play

Sometimes watching a horror movie just isn’t enough. It’s fun to be in on the action, sleuthing out clues to a murder mystery or exploring a haunted house. There’s nothing like dropping the controller when something hideous suddenly enters the frame, and indie horror titles are special treats. They’re often crafted to perfection, have deeply developed stories, and beautiful original art. When it comes to horror games, there are lots of stand-out, creep-you-out indie products to keep you entertained. Here are 20 indie horror games that we think you need to play.

#22 Demonologist

Platform: PC
Release Date: September 25, 2023

Steam

Is there anything more psychological than going into a place that you KNOW is haunted…but you aren’t sure what exactly is haunting it? In Demonologist, you’ll have the choice to go into haunted locations by yourself or with allies and use your various equipment to try and figure out what roams around.

Not everything is simply a ghost, so you’ll need to be mindful of what you do, and then when you locate the entity, you’ll need to exorcise it! Your voice will add to the horror as the spirits and houses will react to your words.

So whatever you choose to do, be careful.

#21 Dredge

Platform: PC PS4 Xbox One PS5 XSX|S Switch 
Release Date: March 30, 2023

Steam | Playstation | Xbox | Nintendo

For ages, sailors would tell tales of the high seas and the dangers that lurked beneath the waves. But many of these tales were far-fetched, exaggerated, or simply not true. However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t monsters of the deep, and in Dredge, you will get up close and personal with many of them.

Your journey will start as a simple fisherman trying to make their way and learn the truth about the islands they fish within. But once you dare to brave the darkened waters at night, you’ll see just how many “bigger fish” there are out there and how small your boat feels in comparison.

So you best start believing in monster fish stories. You’re in one.

#20 Firework

A Chinese horror puzzle game translated into English, Firework is about an accidental fatal fire at a funeral and the re-opening of the investigation into the cause. The player moves through the complicated case as a rookie police officer named Lin Lixun, solving challenging puzzles to gain more clues. Though with each new piece of the puzzle, more questions arise. Was this really an accident? Could something supernatural be involved?

The bleak watercolor art lends more of a psychological horror quality to this story-driven title. Every person plays a part, but every person believes that they are the hero of their own story. The reviews for this creepy game are overwhelmingly positive on Steam. It’s worth a look.

#19 OMORI

Based on the Omori webcomic series, this Japanese role-playing game centers around the main character Sunny, a hikikomori boy, and his alter-ego, Omori, from a dream world. Sunny and Omori, along with a group of friends, explore the real world and the dream world. The player makes choices that affect how the two will interact and determine the ending of the whole story.

The game focuses on feelings of anxiety and depression, and the main goal while exploring is to overcome Sunny and Omori’s fears. It also has psychological horror elements as you try to maintain the characters’ emotional well-being and move through the story. The reviews on Steam are overwhelmingly positive, with fans commenting on their own emotional responses to the game.

#18 Doki Doki Literature Club!

Don’t let its name or appearance fool you! This psychological horror visual novel may seem like an innocent dating game, but it goes to some seriously dark places. The playable character is a male who is convinced to join his high school literature club by a friend. The four other members are beautiful girls, and while one character is never a dating option, the other three are all love interests that the player woos early on based on the poem they write.

As this is a visual novel-style game, you spend most of the game looking at 2D images on the screen from a first-person perspective as you complete mini-tasks that affect the plot. The story quickly takes a dark turn when one of the girls dies, has her file corrupted, and then appears to have never existed to the others as you start from the beginning. If you love a good plot twist, you should give this one a try.

#17 Pony Island

Another cute-sounding title for a not-so-cute game, Pony Island is an arcade-style, metafictional game with a first-person perspective. You play as the game player unlucky enough to start up what appeared to be a colorful game about ponies. Instead of ponies sipping from coconuts on the beach, however, you quickly find out that the game has been taken over by Lucifer. While Lucifer tries to claim your soul, one of the past victims comes to the rescue and helps you access the game’s internal programming in order to help you escape.

You get to interact with the game by moving code around, attempting to weaponize it as you fight the game. The way the screen seems to come alive and work against you, plus all of the mentions of stealing your soul, are where the horror comes into play. This is a fun one!

#16 Inscryption

From the creator of Pony Island, we get another unique metafictional horror game. This time, you play a vlogger named Luke Carder. While collecting cards for a rare game called Inscryption, you come across coordinates that take you to a floppy disk version. Deciding to play the game, you soon discover that the dealer has taken over the game and trapped other characters in the cabin where the card playing is taking place.

Luke plays rounds of cards, solves puzzles around the cabin to release the other cards, and listens to stories told by the dealer. Meanwhile, outside of the game inside of the game, Luke has to deal with the game publisher’s hostile representative demanding that the game be returned. If you have liked games created by Daniel Mullins Games before, you will probably enjoy this one too.

#15 Little Nightmares Series

Little Nightmares is a puzzle-solving adventure game. The main character is a nine-year-old girl in a yellow raincoat named Six. She wakes from a nightmare to find herself trapped in an underwater vessel called the Maw. With only a lighter at her disposal, she explores the Maw in search of an exit. But there are plenty of odd creatures to keep her company, including a pair of giant twins who butcher children and a whole slew of deadly leaches.

Climb stacks of enormous furniture, crawl through vents, leap over crevasses, hug Nomes, and handle your hunger however you can. The art of this game is perfect for the concept, making it feel like a child’s nightmare. The surroundings are too big, and players have no way to fight the people and things that want to hurt them. The game was well received, so a prequel called Little Nightmares II was made.

#13 The Forest

For fans of the movie Wrong Turn, here’s a game you’re sure to enjoy. In The Forest, the main character, Eric LeBlanc, is a survivalist by trade, which comes in handy when a plane crash leaves him and his son stranded on a forested peninsula. During the day, you’ll utilize LeBlanc’s survival guidebook to search for food and water, build a shelter, and make weapons. Once your basic needs are dealt with, you’ll also have to search for your son, Timmy, who was kidnapped by a man in red almost immediately. But you aren’t alone. A tribe of cannibalistic mutants also inhabit the forest, and while not every interaction is dangerous, most are, especially at night.

This game is neat because of its expansive open world. It’s up to you to hunt down clues to find Timmy and unravel the mystery of what happened on the peninsula.

#12 Dusk

Dusk is such a wonderful blend of horror tropes. Based in the rural town of Dusk, Pennsylvania, ancient but powerful ruins are discovered. Naturally, the military and scientists want to study the ruins and harness their power, but they are all possessed by demons or killed in accidents. To prevent the spread of evil, a giant wall is built around the town. But that doesn’t stop our treasure hunter protagonist!

The goal of the game is to exit each level of the game. You begin in the farmlands, dodging demonic livestock. Eventually, you work through the labs and try to avoid possessed personnel armed with weapons that draw power from minced humans. It’s a cool concept and gives players plenty of satisfaction as they move through levels to escape.

#11 Darkwood

In this top-down survival horror game, a dark forest is expanding over a large area of land, trapping people inside. Anyone who is trapped is also in danger of contracting a plague that will turn them into monsters. There are the Outsiders, mostly military, who try to help, but they are no match for the effects of the forest. Our first protagonist is the Doctor, who is desperate to escape. He comes across the unconscious Stranger in the woods. When he discovers the Stranger has a key, he restrains and tortures him for information.

Players will then take the POV of the Stranger, who manages to escape the Doctor but has to hunt him down for the stolen key. The Stranger knows of a way out but will he make it? Darkwood is semi-open world, and the results of the game will depend on how you interact with NPCs. There are two main endings, both dreamlike, as well as several smaller subplot endings for the other characters that will be listed in text blocks at the end.

#10 Limbo

Limbo is an eerie puzzle platform game. You play an unnamed boy who wakes up in a forest on the edge of hell. He has to defeat a giant spider to move forward, and as he moves forward on the search for his sister, he has to solve several difficult puzzles. Unfortunately, there is no avoiding death. Between the the monsters and glowing worms, the bear traps and electrocution hazards, there is also just the impossibility of solving the complex puzzles in the first try. As a result, there is plenty of graphic death in this title.

The boy thinks he sees his sister a couple times, but is thwarted from meeting up with her. After pushing through the forest, he ends up in a crumbling city. However, he is eventually thrown back into the forest, possibly hinting at the idea of being stuck in limbo. The black and white, 2D style is beautiful and adds to the gloomy feel of the game. Limbo was well received and earned a visual art award in 2011.

#6 Cry of Fear

Cry of Fear is a survival horror, choice-based game that takes place in an alternate version of Sweden. The main character is 19-year-old Simon Henriksson, who wakes up in an alley after being hit by a car. After leaving the alley, he is attacked by monsters and has to flee. From that point on, things just get weirder and weirder for poor Simon. He receives a cryptic text for help but arrives too late to help the man. He runs into a girl he has known and loved for years, but she rejects his attempts to save her and commits suicide. In her place, a monster appears, and the player makes the choice to run or fight.

This first-person shooter-style game adds to the intensity with its limited inventory. You can only carry six items at a time, and the game does not pause while inventory is open. If you are hurt or stressed, you can self-medicate with morphine. There are also puzzles to solve to move forward, so it isn’t all point-and-shoot. Based on your choices in the game, there are four possible endings.

#5 Five Nights At Freddy’s

As uncomfortable as a family pizza place with animatronic mascots is during the day, it’s nothing compared to the night shift. The player in this point-and-click game gets to be the lucky nighttime security guard. Locked in the security office with limited power, the goal is to use the cameras in each room to keep track of the animatronic characters through grainy footage and dark hallways without using all of your power.

Did we mention that at night, the animatronic animals come alive and try to murder you before your shift ends at 6 a.m.? Because they do, often. While it may sound very simple as players don’t explore the restaurant, the camera viewpoints are limited, and the animals are trying to jump scare you. The two hallways beside your safe space are not lit, so you have to use power to check them. But if you run out of power, the lock on the door will fail, and then they’re coming for you.

#4 Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a survival horror game that nails how terrifying it is to wander around dark places opening doors. Daniel wakes up in a castle with amnesia and a note from himself with his mission. He needs to go deeper into the bowels of this disturbing castle to find someone while evading an entity called the Shadow. As he explores, he has to solve minor physics-based puzzles for opening doors and finding the light. Meanwhile, he is not alone in the castle. Those bloodstains on the floor and room-rattling roars come from some very creepy monsters. And they may be behind every door you open.

The first-person perspective and dim lighting, combined with an occasional blurring of Daniel’s vision, give this game psychological horror elements. Not only can Daniel not fight the monsters, having to hide from them instead, but if he sees too many of them, his sanity is impacted. Daniel is also afraid of the dark, so making sure that his lamp is lit as much as possible is important too. Overall, this is a stressful game in the best possible way.

#3 Phasmophobia

If you’ve ever wanted to go ghost hunting but are too scared to pull the trigger, give Phasmophobia a go. This first-person perspective game lets you play in a team of up to four people or solo if you’re feeling really brave. You create a lobby as your base of operations, plan your investigations, and store your equipment. Then you pick a location from several choices, pack your van with the equipment you might need, and show up to investigate. The goal of the game is to identify which one of the twenty-one types of ghosts are haunting your site based on the clues you gather.

Of course, it wouldn’t be any fun if it were that easy! Your sanity is at risk the longer you are at the site. Once it dips low enough, the doors all lock and the ghost tries to hunt and kill you. Speech also plays an important role in the game. It can be picked up on certain equipment, but the ghost can hear you too. Some key phrases may even anger them, but you’ll have to play to find out which ones anger them the most.

#2 Outlast

What’s scarier than wandering around a dark psychiatric hospital full of homicidal patients? Outlast is a survival horror game centering around Miles Upshur, an investigative journalist who wants to know more about this hospital. He has no weapons and cannot fight, which seems to be a theme in the scariest games. Instead, he has to hide and evade the murderers lurking in the unlit hallways of this remote hellscape.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get more stressful, we should tell you that for most of the way, you have to look through a camcorder that has night vision capabilities. The first-person perspective, especially through the limited visibility of the camera, makes this game truly terrifying. So much so that it has two sequels to keep the fear going for as long as you want!

#1 Layers of Fear

Layers of Fear is a unique game that brings about one of the worst kinds of fears: the inability to trust your own mind. As the player, you enter the story of an unnamed man who has just returned home and wants to return to his workshop to complete his painting. From a first-person perspective, you roam his empty mansion in this story-driven game, looking for clues and solving puzzles. However, nothing in this place is as it seems. Shadows flicker at the edge of your vision, but when you turn, nothing is there. You enter a room just to turn around and realize that the door is gone. Where there was one door, perhaps now there are four. Paintings change as you look at them or when you look back at them.

There are three possible endings to the game based on the choices you make while you solve puzzles and explore while finding out pieces of a horrific and tragic backstory. This game is so frightening because it pushes you off balance, making you doubt what you see as well as your sense of direction. You’re not being haunted by another spirit or creature. You’re being haunted by yourself and your past. It’s excellent and worth playing with the lights on.