Highlights
- Horror games often incorporate surreal elements, adding a new level of horror with strange stories, designs, and monsters.
- Little Misfortune is a deceivingly cutesy game that tackles dark subjects like domestic abuse and loss of innocence.
- Surreal horror games like Yuppie Psycho and Alice: Madness Returns offer unique and unusual experiences for fans of the genre.
Horror is one of the broadest genres in gaming, each often tackling its story and scares in its own way. Whether it is psychological jaunts like Layers of Fear or survival action titles such as Resident Evil, players know they will be in for something new with every title they play.
17 Best Psychological Horror Games
Horror fans shouldn't pass up on these titles, which are considered by many to be the best psychological horror games out there.
Horror games have also tackled surrealism in their games, which adds a whole new level of horror to their titles with just how strange the story, design, and monsters are, and sometimes tackling dark subject matters in the heart of its plot.
9 Little Misfortune
Don't be fooled by the cutesy cartoon graphics of this game that make it look like it could earn a spot on the Disney Channel - Little Misfortune is anything but a cheery and child-friendly journey. In this peculiar title, the titular little girl is guided by a voice that offers her eternal happiness in exchange for a game, which she agrees to with plans to gift the happiness to her mother. She and the disembodied voice that she calls Mr. Voice set off on their adventure.
The game will have players visiting many places around the city looking for games and adventure, with some truly strange scenes and crass humor that often go over the head of the young girl. Underpinning the strange and surreal story beats is also a tragic tale of domestic abuse and the loss of innocence, which is where the game is at its darkest.
8 Yuppie Psycho
Nothing can be more terrifying than beginning a new job, which is the basic premise of Yuppie Psycho, with a few extra embellishments to add more horror. Brian Pasternack joins the world's largest corporation, Sintracorp, and finds himself saddled with the lofty task of hunting down a witch that has infiltrated the company, rather than a boring but safe office job.
7 Terrifying Pixel Graphics Horror Games
Good horror doesn't need to rely on fancy graphics. These games with pixel graphics can still scare the pants off players.
Yuppie Psycho does a brilliant job of incorporating surreal visuals even with its basic pixel-style graphics, which is where the horror aspects of this title thrive. While it may not master the tension of other comparable horror titles, it is still a worthwhile foray for horror fans looking for something a bit strange and unusual.
7 Alice: Madness Returns
What if Wonderland was less of a wonderland and more of a nightmare dimension? This question is what gave rise to American McGee's foray into the story of Alice and the Rabbit Hole. Instead of a cutesy and charming Disney adventure, Alice: Madness Returns decides to tackle the story of Alice in a completely different manner.
Instead of a young girl full of innocent imagination and curiosity, Alice suffered the loss of her parents in a fire that left her with heavy mental scars leading to her institutionalization. After being discharged from the psychiatric ward and left in an orphanage, Alice still struggles to cope and escapes to Wonderland, which has become a land of corruption and evil, and every bit as surreal as Wonderland should be.
6 Neverending Nightmares
As the title suggests, there is no end to the nightmares of this game. The main character Thomas wakes up from one nightmare only to stumble into another in a neverending cycle of horror, with fresh new terror awaiting him when he next opens his eyes. The sketchy monochrome art style helps to elevate the games' horror, as only blood is given a color that is more vivid against the black and white color scheme.
The game thrives on isolation, with the only other person in these night terrors being Gabby, Thomas's younger sister, whose roles change throughout the nightmares. As one might expect from the nonsensical nature of nightmares and dreams, there are plenty of surreal visions the players will experience right before they are shunted into yet another nightmare.
5 Stories Untold
Stories Untold is not one but multiple games delivered in one neat little package, but all revolving around the same protagonist, James Aiton. These games all have a different flair to them with the first episode, the House Abandon, a completely text-based adventure, The Lab Conduct seeing James experimenting on an artifact, The Station Process which takes the players to Greenland, where something else stalks the snowy wasteland, and finally, The Last Session, in which the truth behind James's story is revealed.
7 Most Iconic Episodic Games
Episodic games have a unique way of delivering their immersive stories to players. Here are the best games this genre has to offer.
There is plenty of surrealism to be found in these small episodic adventures, from monsters attacking to the twist ending to the House Abandon, without the game diverging to territory too strange to understand. Instead, there is a cohesive story with a rather tragic beat that is sure to shock its players.
4 Anatomy
This short, experimental horror experience sees players exploring an abandoned house filled with cassette tapes in various rooms the players will go and listen to one by one. It creates a stifling tension even without the use of any monsters or threats, only the eerie atmosphere of the house and the unsettling tapes that liken rooms of the house to parts of the human body, hence the title Anatomy.
The house and the tapes grow more strange as the game progresses, becoming almost dreamlike in its sequences, though it might be more correct to call it a nightmare.
3 The Cat Lady
From the brilliant minds of Harvester Games came The Cat Lady, a side-scrolling horror game following the story of Susan Ashworth, a depressed middle-aged woman whose only companions are stray cats she summons by playing the piano, earning her the moniker of the cat lady. But her feline friends aren't enough to save her from her crippling depression, and one night she takes her own life, but instead of oblivion, she awakens and speaks to someone who calls herself the Queen of Maggots who makes her immortal and saddles her with the task of killing five psychopaths.
Returning to the living world, Susan sets about on her tasks and experiences many strange and frightening encounters as she hunts down the parasites, adding a layer of surrealism to this tragic horror title. Much of the storybeats and scenery are shocking and horrifying to behold, without being too senseless for the story's core to lose cohesiveness.
2 Fran Bow
Fran Bow is the quintessential surreal horror game that is a must for fans of the genre. Similar to Alice: Madness Returns, it follows the tragic tale of a young girl who suffers life-altering trauma after witnessing the deaths of her parents, and is subsequently admitted into an asylum. The doctor in charge administers her medication, but instead of aiding her frail mentality, they only serve to make things much worse.
The pills give Fran surreal hallucinations of a nightmarish version of the asylum filled with blood, eerie messages on the walls, and otherworldly creatures a la Silent Hill, introducing terrifying and peculiar horror to the world of Fran Bow.
1 World Of Horror
The rising of Old Gods in Japan is bringing all manners of terrifying creatures and events in this purposefully aged turn-based horror role-playing game. No one run is the same, bringing new terrifying encounters players must use their smarts to escape from alive.
Inspired by the works of horror masters such as Junji Ito and HP Lovecraft, World of Horror is about as surreal as it can get, mastering the art of unsettling designs and storybeats. Enter this world of horror, all who dare.