The spooky season is finally here, and there are many new and scary games ready to keep you up at night. We have already had a pretty insane year for horror, with Resident Evil Requiem setting a new high for the franchise and countless other releases all perfecting their own little corner of the genre.
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Yet as the pumpkins come out this October, many people will be on the hunt for some fresh new games to play to keep the spirit of Halloween going all month long. Thankfully, there is no shortage of horror in gaming releasing over the next few weeks, no matter if you’re looking for traditional adventures, mascots, or something far stranger and scarier.
8
Escape From Playtime
Familiar Faces, New Ways To Die
Co-op extraction loop.
Procedural areas and different challenges to overcome.
Escape from Playtime is a co-op survival horror game that puts you in the tiny shoes of a Smiling Critter, a cute yet feeble toy stuck in the middle of an abandoned factory. Each run drops you and your team into a shifting section of the abandoned Playtime Co. factory, where a mysterious voice demands that you scavenge materials for a building project while avoiding the countless threats hiding around every corner.
Like similar co-op horror games, you have access to a range of tools that can be found within the environment, but when those fail, it is best to run and jump your way around the compound in the hopes of losing whatever is on your tail. Add in proximity chat, and you have the makings of another great mascot game, merged with the booming trend of co-op horror.
7
Tenebris Somnia
From The Screen To The Real World
FMV cutscenes meshed into gameplay.
Old-school horror exploration.
Tenebris Somnia looks like a lost NES-era survival horror game, but underneath the surface lies something much more special. During the game, you will stumble across jarring live-action cutscenes that fit perfectly into the current scene, swapping the pixel art for real actors and practical effects, which makes the creatures and fear hit a lot harder.
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The gameplay follows the classic horror template of puzzle solving and creature fighting, yet the more colorful visual approach allows it to feel old-school yet modern at the same time. The real standout is always going to be the cutscenes, though, which paint a much clearer image of the world and the monsters within it. I, for one, cannot wait to see just how far the FMVs go later on into the story.
6
ALYSSA
As Terrifying As It Looks
Multiple distinct threats.
Stealth-first focus.
ALYSSA is a pretty standard horror game archetype that replicates the feeling of entrapment in its own unique way. You find yourself in the shoes of a young girl who wakes up kidnapped inside a nightmarish mansion with no memory of how she got there, and behind every closed door lies a different horrific threat that you have no choice but to avoid in order to survive.
As time goes on, the darkness begins to reveal a much larger conspiracy, yet even as you begin to understand the wider story, you remain small and defenseless and are forced to hide whenever the footsteps get too loud. With several endings to aim for, as silly as it may be, you may find yourself stepping back into the house all over again until the whole picture becomes clear.
5
Terrible Lizards
Move To Survive
Parkour replaces weapons and other means of escape.
Platforming in between more traditional horror segments.
Mascot horror has remained an incredibly popular sub-genre, but Terrible Lizards is branching out even further from the beaten path. Stranded in a dinosaur-themed roadside attraction, it’s just you and the twisted reptilians, and you have no choice but to run, swing, and jump your way between sets to avoid their grasp.
There are no weapons, only speed. In the moments where wall-running and climbing aren’t an option, you had best keep quiet and out of sight. When you do come to a halt, there are also plenty of notes and audio logs scattered around that reveal what really happened, which mixes up the more extravagant sections with some standard horror exploration, at least until you need to get on the move all over again.
4
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING GOOD
A Night Shift From Hell
Slow-burn simulation.
Emphasis on atmosphere and gradual progress.
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING GOOD turns the most mundane job imaginable into an absolute nightmare. The night shift is already a breeding ground for scary events, but in this case, the line between the living and dead is thinner than ever before, meaning that creatures from the other side are going to be showing up left, right, and center.
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Importantly though, this isn’t a typical store simulator, because your everyday work routines are directly woven into the story and atmosphere rather than serving exclusively as the main gameplay loop. It’s a slow-burn, psychological horror experience that prioritizes mood over action, with sudden scares and twisted creatures arriving when you least expect them.
3
End Of Abyss
Move Over Little Nightmares
Twin-stick shooter horror Metroidvania.
Branching paths and unlockable tools.
End of Abyss is an isometric sci-fi horror adventure set in the depths of a mysterious underground compound. You are sent out to investigate disturbances of unknown origin, and the mission quickly spirals into a harrowing descent through a broken, abandoned world that is almost always going to put up a fight.
Exploration is the focus, with many branching paths to search and new tools tucked away in places you least expect. Both visually and gameplay-wise, End of Abyss feels to me like a spiritual evolution of Little Nightmares, only with less running away and a lot more shooting back.
2
Silver Pines
More Than There Appears
Metroidvania exploration and gameplay.
Classic survival horror resource management.
Silver Pines bridges the gap between Metroidvania and survival horror, with all the best parts of both genres shining their absolute brightest. Set in a rundown town full of darkness and decay, you try to figure out exactly what happened and how you yourself fit into the wider plot.
The 2.5D gameplay is a love letter to classic survival horror, only with far more modern features that allow you to traverse and unlock more of the world with few resources at your disposal. Yet the most appealing part is the hand-drawn visuals that give the game such a distinctive aesthetic that is equal parts beautiful and horrifying, though the latter certainly takes center stage.
1
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival
A Titan Returns
Image via Saber Interactive
Brutal and gritty visuals and combat.
Puzzle box adds depth to the gameplay.
Out of all the big names in horror, Hellraiser is the one with the biggest drought between games. Hellraiser: Revival is changing that this October, introducing a whole new generation of players to the King of Hell and his twisted world of gore, blood, torture, and just about every other nightmarish thing you could think of.
The game brings back both Clive Barker as a writer and Doug Bradley as Pinhead himself, ensuring the original DNA of the franchise remains present despite the more contemporary gameplay style. With only a few other major horror games releasing in the remainder of this year, I would position Hellraiser: Revival as the last heavy-hitter, and maybe even a frontrunner for the best horror game of 2026.
