International Courant
On the subject of new horror video games, there are occasions of feast and famine, and this previous 12 months we gorged till our bellies bulged and our mouths dripped with grotesque grease. In 2024, we obtained a wealthy unfold of darkish experiences from solo creators, indie groups, AA builders and AAA studios in an enormous array of genres and visible kinds. There was a implausible Silent Hill 2 remake and beefy updates to up to date classics like Phasmophobia, Alan Wake 2 and The Outlast Trials, and there was additionally a gradual cadence of brand-new horror franchises increasing the style in surprising methods.
First, let’s take a second to have fun a sampling of the 12 months’s recent horror universes. In 2024, we received the next new titles:
This isn’t a complete record of latest horror franchises in 2024, but it surely’s an acceptable demonstration of how huge and assorted the choices had been this 12 months. Indie studios are main the cost in the case of recent concepts and authentic mechanics, after all, however there are additionally loads of references to early-2000s graphics and PS1- or PS2-era survival horror on this record. The mix of innovation and nostalgia is especially potent in titles like Concern the Highlight, Crow Nation, Mouthwashing and Hollowbody. These video games infuse blocky 3D worlds with fashionable sensibilities and clean animations, leading to experiences that illuminate the static reminiscences of Resident Evil and Silent Hill that lurk in our heads. That is how we needed these video games to really feel, mounted digicam angles be damned — or, within the case of Hollowbody, lovingly embraced.
Concern the Highlight (Cozy Recreation Buddies)
It must also be famous that Concern the Highlight marks the debut of acclaimed horror-movie maker Blumhouse as a online game writer. Concern the Highlight is the primary launch in Blumhouse’s lineup — which incorporates future titles from EYES OUT, Half Mermaid, Excellent Rubbish, Playmestudio and Vermila Studios — and it is a superb exploration of low-fi teenage drama and dread. The horror-game revolution is upon us and Blumhouse is totally going to snag a chunk.
The least horror-like sport on the above record could also be Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, and it additionally occurs to be the one title from a AAA studio. I’ve included it as a result of, as a devoted fan of horror video games, I feel Kunitsu-Gami checks loads of packing containers: It options large, disgusting demons and a deadly blight that envelops whole cities in skeletal but unusually juicy natural materials. Its monster designs characteristic colourful shows of lechery and physique horror, and there is consolation to be present in its tense strategy-action gameplay loop. Kunitsu-Gami wasn’t marketed as a horror expertise, and it actually comprises simply as many scenes of beautiful magnificence because it does grotesquerie, however I heartily suggest it to any horror fan. I feel you will be pleasantly shocked.
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (Capcom)
INDIKA is one other entry that straddles the genres of horror, camp and non secular satire, but it surely undoubtedly options a number of scenes of soul-piercing terror. Plus, the literal satan is your pleasant companion all through the sport, and that counts for one thing. Amongst scenes of grief, inhumanity and devastation, INDIKA is fun riot, and it is a preeminent instance of mature themes dealt with properly in online game type. A further genre-bending standout from 2024 is Simogo’s Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. It comprises extremely satisfying logic puzzles in a lodge made out of mysteries — however phantoms hang-out the hallways, there is a corpse within the again backyard and each scene drips with palpable uneasiness. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is among the finest and most unsettling video games of the 12 months, interval.
Nonetheless Wakes the Deep, in the meantime, affords a well-recognized and delightful model of monster-stalking horror on an oil rig in the course of the indignant North Sea. It is a must-play sport for any horror fan, appearing as a vessel for The Chinese language Room to indicate off its expertise in constructing genuine worlds and cultivating ceaseless pressure with a mystical edge. Plus, it is one of many best-looking video games I performed on PS5 all 12 months. Slitterhead is one other one for the action-horror gamers on the market, presenting a supernatural thriller in a model of Hong Kong that is been infested by body-snatching demons, that includes buckets of blood and frantic close-range fight.
Nonetheless Wakes the Deep (The Chinese language Room)
The 12 months started with the discharge of House Security Hotline, a simulation of a Nineteen Nineties name heart the place gamers assist diagnose and deal with family pests, which embrace otherworldly threats like Mattress Tooth, Fae Flu, The Horde, Laundry Gnome, Mirror Nymph, Rest room Hobb, Unicorn Fungi and others. House Security Hotline actually was the amuse bouche of 2024’s horror sport lineup — and Mouthwashing is the dessert.
All of the horror children these days are enjoying Mouthwashing, a polygonal first-person romp by a stranded house ship stuffed with doomed crew members steadily dropping their minds, overseen by a maimed captain with a maniacal, bandaged smile. Mouthwashing is unusual and claustrophobic, and it is a fabulous option to finish the 12 months in horror gaming.
Silent Hill 2 (Bloober Workforce)
However we have not even talked concerning the current franchises but. The Silent Hill 2 remake from Bloober Workforce, the Polish studio behind Layers of Concern and Blair Witch, was a superb success, even within the face of exacting requirements from longtime collection followers. The remake appears and seems like the sport that gamers keep in mind, solely spit-shined and smoothed over, and Silent Hill 2 stays simply as terrifying in 2024 because it initially was in 2001. Possibly much more so. Bloober Workforce had loads to show with this one, and so they made us elder-Millennial horror gamers proud.
Alan Wake 2 was top-of-the-line video games of 2023, horror or in any other case, and it obtained two vital batches of DLC this 12 months: Night time Springs landed in June and The Lake Home went reside in October. Every little bit of content material not solely retains Alan Wake’s hellish world alive, but it surely provides depth to the cross-franchise universe that Treatment is constructing between Management and Alan Wake. Personally I at all times needed extra Alan Wake, and in that regard, 2024 didn’t disappoint.
The Outlast Trials (Purple Barrels)
Two live-service indie video games, The Outlast Trials and Phasmophobia, additionally noticed main updates prior to now 12 months. After getting into early entry in Could 2023, The Outlast Trials studio Purple Barrels has been working to ascertain a strong cadence of latest content material drops, and this 12 months they actually received into the groove. The Outlast Trials launched in full in March 2024 and it is obtained a number of updates since then, introducing new enemies, maps, sport modes and limited-time occasions for the gamers trapped within the Murkoff Company’s secret Sinyala Facility. The quantity of labor that Purple Barrels places into The Outlast Trials is endlessly spectacular, particularly contemplating there are solely about 65 builders on the studio.
Phasmophobia has a good smaller workforce than Purple Barrels, however they’re making huge strikes. The crew at UK studio Kinetic Video games have saved Phasmophobia alive since its Steam launch in September 2020, and this 12 months, they lastly introduced the ghost-hunting sport to consoles. Phasmophobia hit PlayStation 5 and Xbox Collection X/S on October 29, and it additionally got here to PS VR2. Kinetic Video games has grand plans to maintain supporting and increasing Phasmophobia in 2025 and past, so though the console launch occurred 4 years after launch, that is actually only the start.
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (Simogo)
There it’s — our humble ode to horror gaming in 2024. It has been a dozen months of indie innovation and beautiful gore, with a facet dish of fabulous remakes and sizable updates. Some new horror video games push in opposition to the boundaries of the style, increasing our concepts of what is scary and why, whereas others discover recent methods to dissect traditional tropes. It is a case of contemporary delicacies vs. consolation meals, and on my plate, there’s loads of room for each.
