Summary
- Successful island horror games make players feel isolated and alone.
- Games like Resident Evil: Revelations 2 and The Suffering make their island settings more oppressive with locations like prisons.
- Games like Dead Island juxtapose sunny beaches with zombies.
A key element of any successful horror game is their ability to make players feel trapped and alone in their horrific circumstances, with the idea of escape being a far-off notion. One horror setting that is able to establish such a sense of hopelessness faster than others is an island.
8 Most Isolating Horror Games
There are many ways to induce horror in a video game, but making the player feel isolated is one of the best, something these horror games excel at.
Broken away from the freedom of the mainland and dotted in an endless ocean, islands feel, by their very nature, isolating. Below are some of the best horror games with islands that, whether they start out as idyllic getaways or secluded facilities, eventually succumb to chaos and tragedy.
Total Chaos (Honorable Mention)
- Release Date: July 24, 2025
- ESRB: N/A
- Developer: Trigger Happy Interactive
- Genre: Survival Horror
Starting out life as a conversion mod for Doom 2, Total Chaos is set to get its own release as a full game in July later this year. The game sees players stranded on the mining island of Fort Oasis after getting caught in a storm while responding to a radio transmission.
Currently, there is a playable demo up on Steam that already shows off the game's excellence. Fort Oasis as a setting is bleak, purposefully muted with a gray color palette and filled with all sorts of dark imagery. Navigating the island is truly, in the funnest way possible, a depressing experience.
7 Dino Crisis
Dinosaur Survival Horror
Dino Crisis
- Released
- August 31, 1999
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Violence
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
Inspired by the Jurassic Park franchise, Dino Crisis is a survival horror (or "panic horror," as creator Shinji Mikami preferred to call it) dinosaur game set on the Ibis island research facility.
Though featuring dinosaurs ripped straight from the past rather than being genetically manufactured in a lab, Dino Crisis, like its influences, is essentially another cautionary tale as to why the giant lizards shouldn't be messed with. Playing as Regina, a member of a special forces team sent to investigate the facility, gamers will find themselves trapped on the island and battling a variety of dinos with the traditional survival horror mechanics they've come to expect.
6 The Suffering
A Haunted Prison
The Suffering
- Released
- March 9, 2004
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- m
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror, Shooter
The Suffering is a horror game that intensifies the hopelessness of an island setting by also placing players within a prison, trapping them with metal bars as well as water.
The game sees players assuming the role of Torque, an inmate on death row for murdering his family, though, due to a case of video game amnesia, he can't remember performing such a crime. Before he's put to death, the prison is attacked by a horde of monsters, each resembling various forms of execution, leaving players to fight through them while uncovering the secrets of Torque's past.
5 Resident Evil: Revelations 2
An Island-Sized Saw Trap
Resident Evil: Revelations 2
- Released
- February 24, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
Resident Evil: Revelations 2 sees Claire Redfield and Moira Burton being kidnapped by an unknown force of armed individuals. Waking up in a dilapidated prison, located on an island of course, with strange bracelets attached to their wrists, the two must figure out why they're there and how to escape.
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Thanks to Revelations 2's unique episodic structure, players will also switch to Barry Burton and Natalia, a mysterious girl with supernatural powers, as they explore the island in search of Claire and Moira. With players being hounded by a mysterious voice in Claire's episodes, the game plays like an island-sized saw trap, as the aforementioned voice will often antagonize the duo while subjecting them to various dangerous situations.
4 Dead Island
Zombie Getaway
Dead Island
- Released
- September 6, 2011
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Alcohol
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, Survival Horror
A tropical getaway turned nightmare, Dead Island, for obvious reasons, is often the first game players think of when it comes to island settings in video games. After a zombie outbreak occurs on the fictional island of Banoi, players assume the role of one of four characters as they fight through hordes of monsters in fun first-person combat.
The game's emotional trailer and the very juxtaposition of sunny beaches with flesh-eating zombies is part of what has made Dead Island so iconic in video games, despite its flaws. For those looking to really feel isolated in the world of a video game, the setting of Dead Island is likely to impress.
3 No One Lives Under The Lighthouse
Someone Is Probably Down There
No One Lives Under The Lighthouse
- Released
- April 21, 2020
WHERE TO PLAY
Fans of Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse should absolutely check out No One Lives Under the Lighthouse. Set on a small island off the coast of the United States, players assume the role of keeper sent to a lighthouse after the previous one mysteriously disappeared.
8 Great Folk Horror Video Games
Folk horror video games are often based on real-world mythologies, with ancient tales of supernatural dangers being adapted to the virtual medium.
Mysterious, haunting, and rendered in brilliant retro visuals, No One Lives Under the Lighthouse expertly captures the atmosphere of old-England folk-horror and dashes it with a hint of cosmic dread. Supposedly being the only inhabitant of the island, the game truly feels isolating.
2 Sons Of The Forest
Cannibal Island
Sons of the Forest
- Released
- February 22, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Survival, Open-World, Survival Horror
Sons of the Forest and its predecessor, The Forest, are two of the best horror survival games out there. The former sees players assuming the role of a rescue team searching for a CEO and his daughter. Though set on a different and larger island, Sons of the Forest's setting is just as dangerous as the first game's.
Familiar tribes of cannibals and horrific mutants inhabit the island, stalking and attacking the player while they try to survive. The island, being home to a number of dark and claustrophobic caves, increases its environmental horror, as players will be forced to explore these locations in order to gather new tools and progress the game's story.
1 Resident Evil - Code: Veronica
Umbrella Prison
Resident Evil CODE:Veronica
- Released
- March 28, 2000
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ due to Animated Blood and Gore, Animated Violence
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
Abducted, again, by a group of armed forces, Resident Evil - CODE: Veronica sees Claire Redfield trapped on the prison island of Rockfurt after raiding an Umbrella facility in search of her brother, Chris Redfield.
Though the game's real-time 3D environments haven't aged as well as the pre-rendered backgrounds of the GameCube version of Resident Evil that was released a couple of years later, CODE: Veronica's setting still feels delightfully dreary. The dark corridors of the prison lend the game a feeling of oppression that, paired with the isolation of its island location, creates one of the franchise's best atmospheres.