Summary
- Darkwood offers a unique horror experience in a procedurally generated forest.
- Dredge combines fishing relaxation with Lovecraftian horror elements.
- Sunless Sea provides a horrifying seafaring adventure with beautiful but grim imagery.
Horror games exploded onto the scene with the original Resident Evil back in the '90s, a game that gave players so much freedom of movement for its time that it almost counted as an open-world game. Things have evolved, though, and a lot of games - even those made by indie or solo devs - have come up with game worlds players can navigate with stupendous freedom that would've felt ludicrous just a little over a decade ago.
8 Most Iconic Horror Game Settings, Ranked
Eerie towns shrouded in mist or cities plagued by a virus, these horror settings will live on as some of the most memorable in video game history.
For fans of open-world titles in particular, here's a look at the best and most spine-tingling horror games made on a shoestring budget by indie developers.
8 Darkwood
No Two Nightmares Are Ever The Same In Darkwood
Darkwood
- Released
- August 18, 2017
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- m
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
Darkwood isn't just a horror game that decided to use the original GTA games' POV for fun. It's an incredibly successful combination of roguelike, RPG, and action elements that puts players in the most vicious procedurally generated forest in all of gaming. Though everything is seen from afar, Darkwood's horror will feel like all distant danger is right next to the player.
On top of being a great game, Darkwood is made by genuinely great people. Acid Wizard Studio, the now on-hiatus studio behind Darkwood, released their own game on Piratebay just so people who couldn't afford it could still enjoy it.
7 Dredge
Horrifying But Also Comfortable
Dredge
- Released
- March 31, 2023
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- E10+ For Everyone 10+ Due To Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Use of Tobacco
- Genre(s)
- Adventure
There are few activities more relaxing than going on a fishing trip, so making a horror game out of that basic premise should be a challenge. This wasn't the case for Black Salt Games, the developers of Dredge, who made it half a game about doing cool stuff like fishing and finding cool stuff at sea and half about surviving never-ending Lovecraftian horrors.
Dredge strikes the perfect balance between spooky and cozy, and that's because it allows players who've learned the ropes to pick between encountering more horrors or more fun activities. Either way, these seas are vast and extremely fun to explore.
6 Sunless Sea
A Beautiful Journey Into Uniquely Dark Depths
Sunless Sea
- Released
- February 6, 2015
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- t
- Genre(s)
- RPG, Adventure, Indie Games, Shooter
If gamers are looking for a totally horrifying game about open-world seafaring, they should look no further than Sunless Sea. Instead of fishing for fun, players will set sail just to encounter a wide variety of horrors that will defy their beliefs.
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Though it features some incredibly grim imagery, the art in this game is also a thing of beauty, so players might find themselves missing the call of the dark ocean once they've stopped playing this game. Sunless Sea truly is a very unique triumph in the realm of indie gaming.
5 The Forest
Not A Walk In The Park
The Forest
- Released
- April 30, 2018
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Intense Violence, Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
Who doesn't love a good camping trip? Well, possibly the people who go into The Forest unaware of what lies beneath the trees. What at first seems like a regular open-world survival game about all sorts of stuff wildlife adventurers like to do quickly devolves into everything nobody wants to do.
The days are tough, and the nights are, well, just exactly what players would expect a night for a horror game with a day and night cycle to be like. The Forest is pretty straightforward in what it proposes and in what it offers, but there is some very interesting lore to uncover for those brave enough to dive in.
4 Pacific Drive
Makes Mad Max Feel Like Child's Play
Pacific Drive
- Released
- February 22, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen Due To Fantasy Violence, Language
- Genre(s)
- Survival
Pacific Drive is yet another title that successfully turns what should be a pretty good time into a scary good time. It originally tasks players with driving around a wide area to scavenge the place, but things are never as simple as they seem.
Slowly, the fun trip begins to turn into an odd nightmare where the player will have to begin contending with all sorts of abominations and dangerous weather effects that feel more like terrifying glitches in the Matrix. For fans of the racing genre looking for something new, this is a great title to check out.
3 Mundaun
Horror With Different Colors
Mundaun
-
OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 74 /100 Critics Rec: 59%
- Released
- March 16, 2021
- ESRB
- m
- Engine
- Unity
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Horror
Ever felt nostalgic for a kind of old-school horror that never really existed? Mundaun will bring out that feeling in those who decide to give it a try. Its beautiful, colorless landscapes transport players to a time of oldie black-and-white horror movies that didn't really exist (but probably should have).
Though mostly colorless, Mundaun shines in a lot of different ways, one of them being its deliberately slow approach to plot development. Mundaun is completely unique, so it might not be for everyone, but it's definitely a title that those curious should give a shot.
2 Outer Wilds
A Beautiful But Dangerous Open Universe
Outer Wilds
- Released
- May 28, 2019
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- E10+ For Everyone 10+ due to Fantasy Violence, Alcohol Reference
- Genre(s)
- Adventure
Outer Wilds' greatest trick is promoting itself as a chill game where one solo astronaut goes on a Groundhog Day-style adventure attempting to save their solar system from an exploding star. It's all that, sure, but it also hides nightmarish dangers inside its otherwise beautiful planets.
It's quite a spoiler, but the first encounter players will have with the anglerfish in Outer Wilds will for sure remain in their memories as one of the scariest moments ever seen in a game. Still, for those brave enough to pursue the game's mysteries, there is a great deal of enjoyment to be had.
1 Amnesia: The Bunker
The Amnesia Title That Offers The Most Freedom
Amnesia: The Bunker
-
OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 77 /100 Critics Rec: 71%
- Released
- May 16, 2023
- ESRB
- t
- Developer(s)
- Frictional Games
- Publisher(s)
- Frictional Games
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
It's been a while since the original Amnesia: The Dark Descent came out and seriously influenced the world of horror games. Amnesia: The Bunker showcases that the series is not slowing down.
Instead, it's opening up in a way that gives players more space to explore and find different perils. While it's not exactly an open-world game (because players barely even see the outside), it sure is an open deathtrap dungeon game, and it's actually a great one at that.
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