Some games lend themselves to those chill days when nothing sounds better than grabbing a snack and relaxing on the couch. Think of easy video games like Animal Crossing or Minecraft. Play without feeling an ounce of stress.

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6 Best Horror Games Published By Sony, Ranked

Zombies, wendigos, and other flavors of terror await brave players in these great horror games published by Sony. Here's how they rank up.

These horror titles published by Sony aren’t in that group. They are complex, difficult to beat, and without a doubt, aren't meant for the faint of heart. Players may need to consult gaming guides or detailed YouTube videos just to make it to the end of each one. Up for a challenge? Pick up any of these horror games published by Sony.

9 Days Gone

GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.06

Few video games have more eerie timing than Days Gone, which was released on the PS4 in April 2019. Less than a year later, the world was legitimately ravaged by a life-altering pandemic.

The game follows Deacon St. John, a drifter on a motorcycle whose mission is to find his wife in post-apocalyptic Oregon. Master crafting recipes to create weapons and battle against terrifying creatures called Freakers. There are also many times when Deacon needs to find his way in the dark, and in an open-world environment, this makes the gameplay even more challenging.

8 Primal

GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.17

Enter the land of Oblivion in Primal, a tough horror game on the PS2. Solve puzzles, fight vicious enemies, and essentially control two characters at the same time.

The protagonists are Jen and Scree. To make it through each puzzle and navigate the enemy-ridden caves, it’s vital to be strategic about which character is human-controlled and which is the computer. Jen, for instance, can transform into various demons in combat, while Scree is an immortal gargoyle who won't take any damage.

7 The Last Of Us

GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.29

It’s almost impossible to meet a gamer who hasn’t played The Last of Us or its sequel. However, for those unfamiliar, this is easily one of Sony’s most popular horror games.

Learn and master many controls to help Joel navigate the post-apocalyptic world in the game. Arguably, the most important is “Listen Mode,” which allows Joel to see clickers, bloaters, and other enemies through walls. There are now many games like The Last of Us, but the original is still worth checking out for anyone who wants a challenge.

6 Extermination

GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.35

Sony was proud of the PS2. With faster processing speed and pristine graphics, the company needed a game that could show off all that their system could do.

Extermination rose to the challenge. This title was more difficult than anything thus far experienced from a PlayStation title. The game boasts roughly three hours of gameplay, complex weapon mechanics, limited ammunition, and a brutal “Infection Rate” meter that tanks health. Since the game is set in Antarctica, players also need to face harrowing snowstorms.

5 Rule Of Rose

GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.38

Set in rural England in 1930, Rule of Rose follows a teenager named Jennifer whose parents die in an accident. The game plays like a movie, complete with a melancholy score and silent film-inspired title cards.

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Rule of Rose is just as terrifying as the scariest Resident Evil games. However, it’s slightly more challenging. Players must put together clues from vague scraps of paper, open safes in dark corners, and navigate an enormous, abandoned orphanage. There are also brutal villains lurking around every corner.

4 Dead Nation

GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.41

Zombie games usually have a first-person perspective, making it significantly easier to see the target ahead. Dead Nation throws that ease right out the window.

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The game operates from a top-down angle. Players shoot at the living dead from above as if inside a helicopter. As a result, it can be impossible to tell the protagonists from the zombies when a horde attacks. Plus, there's very little time to explore before more flesh-eaters invade the area. With ten levels, the game only gets progressively more difficult.

3 Lifeline

GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 3.97

Few gamers remember that the PS2 had a microphone. This feature is essential for playing Lifeline, a survival horror game published by Sony in 2003. Lifeline has over five hours of gameplay, and with no controller in hand, it’s more intricate than other horror titles on the PS2.

Players are the "Operator" giving orders to Rio, an antisocial femme fatale locked in a monster-ridden space station. Each enemy, from viscous slugs to sentient hands, has a chosen target area that must be fired at several times before they’re taken down. This, combined with the voice controls, makes Lifeline one of the hardest horror games released by Sony.

2 Siren

GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 4.16

Siren is a tough horror game that spawned many equally tough sequels. The original game is no walk in the park, boating a crazy 19.5 hours of playtime.

The game operates via the butterfly effect, which means the actions in one scenario will affect what happens in another. There's also a tricky “sightjacking” mechanic where players can enter the minds of enemies called shibito (“corpse people”) and yamibito (“darkness people”). This horror game is one of the hardest out there, but thankfully there are difficulty settings and hints for each mission.

1 Returnal

GameFAQs Difficulty Rating: 4.19

Returnal is a standout sci-fi horror and one of the best alien video games on the PlayStation 5. The protagonist is Selene, a space pilot stranded in a time loop on a planet called Atropos. She only has evil extraterrestrials for company.

According to the game developers, Housemarque, the rooms in each level are randomly interconnected, meaning players will never have the same run through a level twice. This increases the difficulty of the game and makes Returnal stand out from other horror games published by Sony.

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