The Best Horror Games About Machines

There is a lot of variety in the horror genre, both within video games and without. Creators have found countless ways to terrify their audiences over the years. One particularly striking horror foe is the machine. Several games have presented a variety of distinct takes on terrifying mechanical foes, often emphasizing their scale and implacable menace.

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By  Shahmeer Shahzad

In the real world, technology is becoming more advanced and more prominent by the day. The anxieties this advancement produces are reflected well in a variety of horror games. Here are ten of the best horror games with a frightening mechanical component.

10 Atomic Heart

A Soviet Terror

While Atomic Heart wears its BioShock influence proudly on its sleeve, the foes encountered in this 2023 shooter are decidedly more mechanical in nature. The game takes place in a Soviet research facility in an alternate version of the 1950s. At the dawn of a new machinery that will supposedly revolutionize technology, something goes wrong, turning the facility into a deathtrap overrun by hostile robots.

One of the main reasons Atomic Heart stands out is through its striking and uncanny robot designs. There are a wide variety of killing machines players will have to contend with throughout the game, and their deadly efficiency and menace add an unavoidable tinge of horror to the shooter.

9 The Evil Within

A Virtual World Of Horror

At first glance, The Evil Within looks like a standard survival horror game, full of wretched zombies, chainsaw-wielding brutes, and vanishingly little ammo and supplies. As players delve deeper into the game's twisted world, however, they will learn more about the horrible mechanical secret at the heart of the terror.

The world of The Evil Within is influenced by machinery in a very profound way, and its sequel, The Evil Within 2, delves even deeper into the intricacies of its virtual reality nightmare. Both games make for an excellent and deeply frightening horror experience.

8 Dead Space

Preparing For Convergence

Iconic sci-fi horror Dead Space presents some frightfully organic foes in the form of the Necromorphs, hideously mutated flesh monsters with only a passing resemblance to the humans they once were. But despite the meaty monstrosities Isaac Clarke will have to survive on his quest to escape the USG Ishimura, there's a core to Dead Space's horror that is distinctly mechanical.

The infamous Marker, a manufactured beacon of madness, is responsible for all the nightmares Clarke and his allies endure during the events of Dead Space. This horrible alien machine is accompanied by the dreadful mechanisms of the Ishimura itself. The halls of this derelict ship are riddled with hulking, user-hostile machines that are often just as dangerous and menacing as the Necromorphs that lurk in their cracks.

7 Iron Lung

A Nautical Nightmare

A machine is virtually all that players will be able to see during their time with the infamous Iron Lung. The game seals players inside a cramped and claustrophobic submarine with no windows and forces them to navigate a hostile and terrifying alien sea, using nothing but primitive radar and a slow, unreliable camera system to navigate.

The most terrifying thing about Iron Lung's machinery is that it's the only thing keeping players alive. This tiny, fragile, helpless vessel would be a nightmare to be trapped inside under the best of circumstances, but the unseen horrors of the ocean of blood outside are unfathomably worse than anything hiding in Earth's oceans.

6 Bendy And The Ink Machine

Nightmares In Animation

Bendy and the Ink Machine is a particularly infamous mascot horror game which, as the name suggests, has a very prominent mechanical aspect. The game is a twisted homage to the classic cartoons of the 1940s and takes place in an abandoned animation studio, where the enigmatic Ink Machine has brought the cartoon characters to life.

The game's episodic format slowly reveals the dark history of the Ink Machine and the grim nature of the main character's connection to the terrible device. The game's unique art style and heavy BioShock influence make it a truly distinct and deeply scary horror title.

5 Five Nights At Freddy's

A Week-Long Mechanical Nightmare

Five Nights At Freddy's is a legendary horror game that generally receives the credit for founding the mascot horror subgenre. A truly massive franchise of sequels, spinoffs, and even a film adaptation have branched off from the relatively simple premise of the first game, which saw players hiding in their office as hostile animatronics pound at their door.

The animatronics of Five Nights At Freddy's are unquestionably horror icons in their own right, and their lumbering presence in the empty pizzeria remains chilling to this day. The terrifying mechanical gears and springs lurking under the surface, waiting to tear players apart, provide a masterfully menacing twist to these hulking foes.

4 Signalis

Cosmic Dread

Signalis provides a remarkable twist on machine horror by casting players as the machine. The protagonist of Signalis is Elster, an android Replika stranded in the farthest corners of space. During her journey, she uncovers grim cosmic secrets about the fate of the human society that created her.

While Signalis has plenty of hostile machines to terrorize players, much of its horror is distinctly psychological. The shocking revelations players will be faced with during their journey will likely shake them to their core, and the task of uncovering Elster's past and her fate will keep fans glued to their seats until the very end.

3 Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs

The Horrors Of The 20th Century

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is the less-prominent sequel to The Dark Descent. While it generally falls short of that revolutionary title, A Machine For Pigs still delivers a remarkably frightening tale and plenty of gruesome machine horror as well.

This frightful game takes place on the eve of the 20th century, a time of industrial progress tempered by horrific bloodshed and war. As the protagonist, Mandus, explores the titanic machine in his basement in a frantic quest to rescue his children, the awful nature of the device, and the role it aims to play in this bloody future only causes the existential horror of A Machine For Pigs to grow.

2 Inscryption

Playing Computer Games

The terrifying card-based roguelike Inscription hides many layers of secrets that players will have to wade through before they uncover the game's shocking truth. Once they do, they'll find themselves struggling to beat self-aware computer programs at their own game in order to protect the world from an enigmatic data program that could destroy everything.

The history of this sinister computer data is couched in many secrets and Easter Eggs, as well as real-world ARG quests for dedicated fans. Luckily, none of this deep research is required to enjoy this shocking and horrifying roguelike game.

1 SOMA

Existential Undersea Terror

SOMA is a sci-fi horror game sunk deep beneath the waves in an underwater facility flooded with twisted mechanical monstrosities. Simon, the protagonist, finds himself lost in this facility with no clue how he got there and no way out, helpless against the cybernetic horrors that stalk the halls.

As players explore more of this derelict facility, they discover more about the dreadful fate of its original inhabitants, and the cause of the deranged machines constantly pursuing Simon. SOMA is a relentlessly dark game, and the revelations waiting at the very deepest levels will shock and terrify players more than any given robot ever could.

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