It's easy to make a doll scary, but it's hard to make one terrifying. Even the unrealistic or cartoony ones have something uncanny about them. Something about looking at a thing with human features, knowing it isn't alive, and yet feeling its eyes move in the shadows, is pure nightmare fuel.
To elevate a doll from simply scary to outright horrifying takes a special touch. Sometimes it's unnatural movements or the sounds they make as they skitter just out of sight. Often it's their expressions: little smiles or grimaces painted or carved into their faces as if they know something their owners don't. Here are some of the most terrifying dolls in gaming.
8 Every Doll – Dollhouse
Projected on every wall in giant letters are the words "Please standby. I'm chasing you." A woman's voice, distorted, chatters away. Through the dim lighting, a tall shape moves towards the player. The flash of a camera illuminates it, and the shape pauses, giving the player a moment to flee. In a game titled Dollhouse, one would expect the dolls to be the centerpiece, and they don't disappoint.
The entire game is eerie, but it's when the player is in the company of the many crash test dummy or mannequin-like dolls that the true horror begins. And once it starts there is no getting out. Dollhouse may not be the best horror game, but it has terrifying enough dolls to more than hold its own.
7 Chucky – Chucky The Killer Doll
The Child's Play franchise made the red-haired, overall-wearing Good Guy doll famous. Well, it made one particular Good Guy famous: the one possessed by the spirit of the dead serial killer Charles Lee Ray.
Chucky has been giving people nightmares since 1988 when the original film was released. Chucky the Killer Doll is not a triple-A studio title, and players expecting a polished experience are better served to look for their scares elsewhere. Nonetheless, getting chased around a suburban home by the quippy killing machine is harrowing, especially for fans of the series who have the doll's every horrific deed playing on a loop in their minds as they get chased.
6 Freddy And Friends – Five Nights At Freddy’s
Freddy Fazbear's Pizza is a horrifying setting, as are many places intended for children when viewed through adult eyes. It's too bright, too artificial, too wrong in so many ways, and that's before the animatronics start coming to life and trying to break in.
Five Nights at Freddy's is built on jumpscares, but to accomplish a jumpscare you need something scary to jump with. Thankfully, the franchise has no shortage: Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy are all disconcerting in their own way. Mascots, animals, and animatronics unite in these characters to form a perfectly engineered hybrid of horror. For many fans, these are unforgettable characters. They are here to upset, and they do.
5 Huggy Wuggy – Poppy Playtime
Why would an employee at Playtime Co. return to the factory years after everyone else had disappeared? It doesn't really matter; it's horror game logic that has drawn the player to the factory, and now that they are there, there's only one thing to do: avoid Huggy Wuggy.
This grinning blue menace is the primary antagonist for Chapter 1, and everything about him screams "don't touch me!" From the shiny red lips to the gaping mouth and rows of shark-like teeth, Huggy Wuggy seems designed to be the most off-putting toy on the planet. Huge, stealthy, and fast when he wants to be, Huggy Wuggy is nothing like the lovable muppets that inspired him.
4 Kiki, Mr. Tatters, And Chester – Emily Wants To Play
It is often the case in games with killer dolls that the dolls are identical or at least behave identically. They may be frightening, but once the player has learned how to deal with one of them, they know the secret to surviving them all. Not so with Kiki, Mr. Tatters, and Chester, the three dolls from Emily Wants to Play.
Each of the three has a unique personality which must be learned if the player wants to survive. Kiki must be stared down, whereas the player must hold perfectly still until Mr. Tatters leaves. Chester is the worst because upon hearing his laughter, the player has no choice but to flee before the doll catches them. Emily Wants to Play proves having multiple, distinct villains is a recipe for fear.
3 Akane And Azami – Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly
Fatal Frame, a series that centers around the photographing of ghosts, overflows with unsettling and jumpy moments. Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly contains some of the series' best specters, including Akane and Azami, the ghosts of the Kiryu house.
Azami dies in the village sacrifice, leaving her sister Akane traumatized. To console his grieving daughter, Akane's father crafts a life-sized doll of Azami to keep Akane company. Never in the annals of horror has an idea like this one ended well, and so it is that the player encounters both Akane and the cursed doll of her sister. The Azami doll is immune to the effect of the player's camera, and to make matters worse, the ghost and doll are identical.
2 Brush Dolls – Layers Of Fear
Footsteps muffled by carpet, the relentless ticking of a grandfather clock, unseen shapes in a grimy mirror--Layers of Fear is the definition of atmospheric horror. Most of the time, it doesn't even need a bad guy to shake the confidence out of players. That only makes it scarier when an actual threat arrives.
In the "Brush" chapter, that threat is a legion of dolls, representing frustration and resentment felt by the protagonist's daughter towards her alcoholic father. Watching a porcelain doll in a dress and bonnet sprint into a wall is one of the most jarring moments in a game packed with them, and the chapter doesn't get easier from there in this unconventional take on horror.
1 Walker Dolls – Condemned 2: Bloodshot
Being terrorized by a haunted, possessed, or otherwise evil doll is bad. Being terrorized by an entire army of them is much, much worse. In Condemned 2: Bloodshot, the player has the ill fortune of navigating through the Walker Doll Factory, a condemned doll factory that somehow manages to be even worse than it sounds.
Even if the player manages to survive the dolls and psychopaths within, they are confronted with the Doll Woman, a killer who has dressed as a ragdoll and wields a saw blade attached to a stick and painted to look like a lollipop. There is no salvation here.