Highlights
- The horror genre in video games explores deep philosophical themes, such as morality and the nature of humanity, enhancing the overall gaming experience.
- Games like Little Nightmares and Prey delves into the dark side of human behavior, showcasing the harm adults can inflict on children and forcing players to question their own moral decisions.
- Games like Darkwood and Limbo pose thought-provoking philosophical questions about reality, player choices, and the consequences of their actions, leaving players contemplating long after playing. #philosophy #horror
The horror video game genre is a fascinating one, filled with many ideas about humanity and what true horror really constitutes. While the horror genre has continued to grow and change in video games, the idea of morality and many philosophical ideas have made their way deep into the narratives of some of the best games in the genre.
Square Enix's 6 Best Philosophical Games
There is nothing better than a story in a game that makes players stop and think, and that is certainly the case for these games from Square Enix.
From survival horror games with psychedelic styling that makes players question things about morality to futuristic horror that deals with what or who humanity really is, the horror genre has more recently been engaging players’ brains in fascinating ways while also scaring them.
8 Little Nightmares
A well-known franchise with a threequel on the way, Little Nightmares is set in a dystopian world where a young girl is attempting to escape a large vessel filled with huge creatures that want to devour her. The game has many terrifying sequences and a bleak world on the surface, but the philosophical musings around it are even more terrifying.
The idea of Little Nightmares and the themes it really draws from involve child abuse, and the way that adults do harm to children. Six is an innocent child at the beginning of the game but along the way, she is forced to do more evil than good, just to survive, and eventually realizes that all she can do to escape from that dark place is harm the larger creatures or “adults” back. Little Nightmares didn't need to last long to showcase fascinating philosophy through horror.
7 Prey
Another world that has a lot to say beneath the surface, Prey is set in 2025, in a timeline where the space race sent humans to live on space stations at an accelerated rate and people are studying dangerous aliens called the Typhon who seem hostile and are attempting to call something by creating a neural network.
The game is terrifying, filled with blank spaces and possible twists that keep players guessing. It also deals with the question of what is humanity, forcing players to second-guess every decision as it treads further into morally gray territory. Prey hasn’t had a sequel, so the narrative questions asked have been left open-ended for now.
6 Darkwood
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A game set in a terrifying reality, Darkwood takes place somewhere in the 1980s Soviet Bloc where a strange forest has been expanding across the land, trapping many people inside and slowly transforming them from humans into other creatures through some sort of disease. A survival game with many horror elements, Darkwood asks many unusual questions.
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The truth behind what is going on, and the ways in which player choices can affect the outcome, are fascinating parts of Darkwood. There is even a choice to live life in bliss, despite having uncovered the reality of the secrets that the forest holds. All of this helps leave players questioning the philosophical outcomes of Darkwood long after they finish playing.
5 Limbo
One of the many great horror-focused puzzle platformers, Limbo began the trend that led to other similar games like Inside and Little Nightmares. This one asks some of the most fascinating philosophical questions though, since it takes place on the borders of hell, in the between place that people go to after death.
Focusing on a young boy, players have to escape traps, other children, and monstrous creatures as they try to find a young girl, the boy’s sister. The ending of the game in particular leaves players wondering if there was any point in their journey, and what it would really be like to be trapped in Limbo.
4 The Last Of Us
One of the best games of all time, The Last of Us went far beyond merely asking questions about humanity and the lengths they are willing to go even for the mere semblance of hope. Going far beyond the psychology and philosophy of a normal bleak apocalyptic zombie world, this game and franchise force everything into the morally gray places that players often dread.
Not knowing whether their actions are good or not, players have to help Joel and Ellie survive in a dystopian world while questioning whether the greater good is really worth it. The horrors they see, and the horrors they enact on their surroundings, leave consequences on them and on their world that make players address their own philosophy and what they would do in similar situations.
3 Silent Hill 3
The Silent Hill franchise has always been one of the best sources of psychedelic horror that is willing to confuse players in order to get a point across. However, Silent Hill 3 went further, taking cues from the horror novels of Stephen King and films like Jacob’s Ladder in order to create an even more compelling and thoughtful narrative.
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The multiple endings of the game, the narrative focusing on a cult trying to bring forth their God to create paradise on Earth, and Heather questioning her past, make for a fascinating time. Philosophically, this game is one of the best to deal with the themes of motherhood, self-agency, control, and identity.
2 BioShock
One of the most fascinating and beautiful worlds ever created for a video game, Rapture is an idyllic city built underwater where people became obsessed with ADAM, a strange substance that gives people superpowers. When a random man finds himself in Rapture, he is forced to question the morality and philosophy of the place and of all his decisions while he is down there.
BioShock is a fascinating philosophical game, which has been praised as one of the great examples of video games as art. While it is hugely fun on the surface, the implications of the story, character decisions, and world-building have left many players thinking about this game and wishing to replay it and change decisions.
1 SOMA
Set in the year 2104, SOMA deals with the last members of humanity attempting to save a black box containing the consciousness of many more humans. Players are left in this survival horror challenging many creatures, each representing different philosophical aspects of what the game is trying to say with the depressing and nihilistic nature.
While SOMA is a fantastic game on the surface that is a lot of fun, the ideas about what makes up humanity and what counts as a person, or what lengths we should go to preserve humanity, make for a fascinating ride and one of the best philosophically thought-out games ever made.