Best Halloween Video Games for a Spooky Good Time

Resident Evil 2 Remake

Capcom redid the old RE games and to a fantastic result.

Reworked Resident Evil 2 is probably a whole lot better than the dated original, offering newcomers to the series an excellent way to experience this classic for the first time and for old-time fans to relive the past, probably the way they remembered it.

That’s right: Resident Evil 2 is so good that you might as well forget about the game from 1998. This might sound harsh, but it’s true. RE2 Remake completely re-imagines that oldie and offers a new kind of gameplay which blends traditional survival horror with a third-person shooter, as well as tactical and stealth elements.

Image credit: Capcom Development Division 1

Story-wise, it’s still about Leon and Claire teaming up in order to survive on the zombie-infested streets of Raccoon City. A dangerous and pretty much unkillable enemy known as the Tyrant also appears, which means that getting out of this predicament in one piece won’t be easy. Aside from the main campaign there’s a mode for the fans of what-if scenarios. All in all, it’s a fantastic package and one of the best picks for this Halloween. Grab Resident Evil 2 Remake now!

Resident Evil 2 Remake

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Resident Evil 8: Village

Remakes are one thing, but we can’t forget about fresh Resident Evil releases. The latest one, Village, is an excellent addition to the franchise.

If you want more action in your survival horror, this one’s a perfect pick for Halloween 2023.

Image credit: Capcom Development Division 1

The game continues the storyline of Ethan Winters, started with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, and takes him to a weird, snowy village somewhere in Romania. There he’ll have to face werewolf-like Lycans and the four mutant lords who rule over the place. And since he received military training, his fighting skills got a lot better, meaning there’s more emphasis on combat here than in the previous title.

This might disappoint those who loved RE7: Biohazard, but the fact remains that Village is just as excellent. So, if you’re up for some werewolf bashing, grab the latest Resident Evil game and have fun!

Resident Evil 8: Village

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The Dark Pictures Anthology

Supermassive Games’ Dark Pictures Anthology is a perfect option for Halloween.

Whether you’re spending it alone and looking to be spooked, or throwing a party and looking for something to play with your friends, these games have your back. No matter which one you pick, you’re in for a cinematic, frequently really scary horror experience with an excellent multiplayer idea.

Image credit: Supermassive Games

See, these games tend to have a fairly big cast, and the Movie Party mode is all about transferring controllers from person to person, so that they play only the character they choose, making choices, completing QTEs etc. There are three games already out, and the fourth is coming out shortly after Halloween, in case you still need to conquer your fears before Black Friday stakeouts.

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Gloomwood

If you miss the immersive sim nature of Dishonored, but also wish it was gloomier and spookier, you should take a look at Gloomwood.

It’s a moody game which puts you in the unfortunate shoes of a prisoner trying to escape from a cursed city patrolled by evil steampunk plague doctors. Thankfully, you’ve got your sword cane, a revolver, and a suitcase which can hold some extra stuff.

Image credit: David Szymanski

The world is intricately designed, enabling creative solutions and a lot of good stealthing, if you’re into that. Don’t be fooled by old-school looks, either. Gloomwood might look like it came from 2000, but the developers have proved with their previous game, ULTRAKILL that excellent gameplay doesn’t need photorealism, it needs to be fricking good. And Gloomwood certainly delivers.

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Carrion

What better time to play a game about being a monster than the day celebrating fictional monsters of all shapes and sizes?

Carrion isn’t very glamourous, being about a blob of mutated worms, but it is very good, and it’s incredibly fun to be an amorphous murderous mass humans can’t do much against. It won’t make a good costume, but it will make your evening for sure.

Image credit: Phobia Game Studio

Of course, you’re the blobiest from the start, the is well paced, so it takes time for you to rediscover bits of yourself and get new abilities, and certain areas force you to split your existence to squeeze into smaller places. The whole thing is like a side-scroller, and the contained locations are full of foolish humans you can rip to pieces…or run from, if they learn how to fight you.

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Unavowed

Unavowed is a modern, yet old-school adventure game which is sure to appeal to any fan of urban fantasy shows and novels.

Set in New York City, the game takes your character, a survivor of demonic possession, on journey beyond what most people see in the city. Thankfully, there are the eponymous Unavowed, people devoting their lives to protecting the world from the lurking supernatural evils.

Image credit: Wadjet Eye Games

The game has a pleasant, low-resolution aesthetic, but both the backgrounds and character are full of character and evocative detail nonetheless. As for the gameplay, it’s very much a point and click game, counting on your decisions and ingenuity more than on reflexes. You have a character with a customisable origin story, and there are four companions who can join your weird journey.

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The Medium

The Medium, from experienced horror developer Bloober Team, is a break from the studio’s usual style.

Instead of first-person deeply immersive psychologically exhausting scares, The Medium is a third-person horror game. It follows Marianne, the titular medium who can see the physical and spiritual worlds at the same time, which the game represents by splitting the screen in half to show both.

Image credit: Bloober Team

This dual vision is the way to overcome many obstacles blocking Marianne’s investigation. Troubled by a recurring dream, she travels to an old, abandoned holiday resort to seek answers… and to find more than she bargained for. The Medium is a unique, interesting, and engaging third-person psychological horror with a soundtrack composed by Akira Yamaoka of the Silent Hill fame.

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Alien: Isolation

Although Creative Assembly usually dabbles in strategies of the Total War sort, their foray into the horror genre turned out to be really, really good.

Based on the Alien license, Isolation follows the daughter of world-famous Ellen Ripley, Amanda. The developers have done an outstanding job capturing the atmosphere and aesthetic of the 1979 Alien movie.

Image credit: Creative Assembly

Amanda is stuck on a space station which suffers from some technological problems, in that its technology is unable to contain a fully grown Xenomorph, and then other bits of technology got a bit too murder-happy. If you’re more interested in a good Alien game, Isolation should keep your Halloween night frightful and full of breath held as the Xenomorph paces by the locker you hid in.

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Amnesia (series)

Amnesia is one of the best known horror games of the generation, and it played a part in popularising the FPP horror with a helpless protagonist.

In The Dark Descent this unenviable role falls to an Englishman called Daniel, who wakes up in a sprawling and neglected Prussian castle. In addition to a growing fear of the dark he also has to stay alive, because he is hunted by some dark presence.

Image credit: Frictional Games

Daniel is in no condition to fight, so his only defence against the monster stalking him is hiding, hoping for the best and trying not to lose his mind because of the horrible events and the oppressive darkness. While old Prussian castle might be too elaborate a setup for this year’s Halloween decoration, you can play around with the game’s level editor and make a virtual spooky tour this way.

Amnesia Collection

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Dead Space (series)

What do you get when you take huge ships straight out of Alien, add in some gruesome body horror from John Carpenter’s The Thing and have it all confronted by an engineer rather than a hardened mercenary?

You get Dead Space, and things only get weirder from there. Necromorphs are terrifying enemies, and your best chance against them is cutting off their limb with a plasma cutter.

Image credit: EA Redwood Shores

In addition to undead body horror and huge mining space ships there is also a cult revering the Necromorphs and mysterious alien artifacts called “markers”. The games became a franchise, with comic books and novels fleshing out the setting. If your favourite brand of horror is being faced with incomprehensible nightmares from the far reaches of the cosmos, DS should be right up your alley.

Amnesia Collection

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Amnesia Collection

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Amnesia Collection

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Phasmophobia

Do you know these reality shows about ghost hunters? And also these movies about ghost busters?

Phasmophobia is kind of like that, except ghosts can mess you up in the long run. There are more than different ghosts whose existence you need to prove with conclusive evidence, and each spectral visitor requires a different approach from your team of ghost-hunting intruders.

Image credit: Kinetic Games

Phasmophobia is just the perfect game for a Halloween for 2020: it takes place in mostly down-to-earth settings, it’s best played with friends, and if you have a VR headset: even better! You can get royally scared and have a good time with your friends, all in the safety of your own. The only downside is that after playing Phasmophobia your cosy home may feel a bit more spooky.

Phasmophobia

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Resident Evil (series)

Resident Evil games are a treat.

They seem to span the full range of possible horror expressions, from a fixed-camera survival horror of the original, through more action-packed, shooting-intensive entries, to the modern FPP immersive horrors. The series has plenty of zombies, mutants, crazed scientists, and body horror of the “eyes, tentacles, and aberrant growth” variety.

Image credit: Capcom Development Division 1

There are also sprawling mansions, police departments set in sprawling mansions, and a love of bizarrely complex locks. If you remove all the deadly monsters and extremely toothy dogs and whatnot, many of Resident Evil locations could serve as great horror theme parks, or themed paintball courses, why not. Either way, RE is a great series to give a shot this Halloween.

Phasmophobia

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Phasmophobia

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Phasmophobia

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MediEvil

How does that sound: a snobby knight killed before the battle even begins now comes back as an undead with double the ego.

If that sounds fun, welcome to MediEvil, a 1998 classic resurrected (get it?) in 2019 with new graphics, familiar gameplay, and the same prick of a knight, Sir Daniel Fortesque min the leading role. In other words: a proper remake.

MediEvil is an old-school third-person hack and slash game mostly focused on melee combat, which puts Sir Fortesque through a gauntlet of trials of tribulations as he tries to posthumously save his honor and protect the land from the evil overlord Zardok. How it works out for him is only up to you! MediEvil is good fun, with a lot of goofiness that is rare in games nowadays.

The Typing of the Dead: Overkill

Learning to type fast might be for nerds…but what if you add rampaging zombies to it?

That’s the promise of The Typing of the Dead: Overkill, a spin-off of the House of the Dead series, which replaces on-rails FPS gameplay with on-rails precision typing gameplay. In essence, each dreadful zombie has an associated phrase you need to type before it’s too late. Simple? Yes. But also fun!

Image credit: Modern Dream

It might sound easy, but try avoiding typos when there’s a whole bunch of undead jerks coming to eat your face! The game is as silly and ridiculous as the classic HotD, and if you want something fun, intense, and entertaining to fire up for fifteen minutes or half an hours, then Typing of the Dead is exactly the type (eh, eh?) to fit into a limited time slot. It even has co-op, if you can believe it!

The Typing of the Dead: Overkill

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Cult of the Lamb

Cult hit of summer 2022, Cult of the Lamb launched and quickly gathered a following, partially thanks to its fun premise, and partially because it is damn good.

As a sacrificial lam saved from slaughter, now you must repay your (divine? savior by building a cult in their name. Cult assembled from other cutely anthropomorphic animals, to be clear. It’s like Happy Tree Friends Cthulhu.

Image credit: Massive Monster

Cult of the Lamb’s main course are roguelike crusades your characters perpetrates in regions near the central temple. There’s all the good stuff: enemies to fight, perks to acquire, weapons to loot, etc. But there’s also village management segment, involving resource gathering, building houses for cultists, worship duties, and, of course, bloody sacrifices granting boons to you and the cult.

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Viscera Cleanup Detail

Viscera Cleanup Detail is a game about cleaning up alien goop and pools of blood after heroes are done stopping alien invasion.

If it doesn’t sound like a funny game, you haven’t seen the mop physics, or haven’t knocked over a bucket filled with murky water right after your co-op friend was done cleaning the floor. VCD is a physics-based, co-op friendly game where shenanigans are easy to unleash.

Image credit: RuneStorm

There’s even a DLC which should make you feel right at haunted home at Halloween, House of Horror shifts the clean-up action to a piece of atmospheric real estate where some unwise people decided to taunt the supernatural forces. You’re supposed to clean what’s left of these folks. There’s also a DLC which has you clean a Bond villain lair, and the aftermath of Santa Claus’ bad day.

Viscera Cleanup Detail

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Thimbleweed Park

Thimbleweed Park is something of a counterbalance for Unavowed.

The development was led by veterans of the genre who worked on many LucasArts adventure classics, and the sense of humor certainly carried over. The game’s story involved an FBI investigation of a mysterious murder, and there are more characters to play than just the FBI investigators: agents Ray and Reyes.

Image credit: Terrible Toybox

Thimbleweed Park is a delightfully surreal small town mystery story filled with odd characters and weird locations, including a sad clown and a destroyed pillow factory. The game is a point & click adventure, using an old-school verb commands system to interact with the world and its inhabitants. If you’ve been craving classic games like the Monkey Island series, Thimbleweed Park is exactly that.

Thimbleweed Park

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Saints Row: Gat out of Hell

The Boss was kidnapped by a literal Satan and dragged off to Hell so that they marry Satan’s daughter. Which is a major bummer.

Now Johnny Gat and Kinzie Kensington have to go to Hell themselves and rescue their boss, and, one could argue, friend. In the process you’ll fights devils, grow wings to fly gracefully through the hellscape filled with cameos by the likes of Blackbeard.

Image credit: Deep Silver Volition

The game isn’t exactly wacky, but it IS filled with the irreverent humour expected of the Saints Row series, and the gameplay reflects a lot of the aspects of the bigger instalments, like SR3 or SR4. There are plenty of collectibles, side missions, and just a cool-looking open-world romp switching the usual urban environments for, well, Hell. It’s a cool place you start if you want a cheeky Halloween this year.

Saints Row: Gat out of Hell

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Graveyard Keeper

Although nominally this game is about a truly grave matter, it isn’t really a serious one. You’re playing as a person dropped into a mildly fantasy world to manage the graveyard of a nearby village.

In addition to digging holes in the ground you’ll craft gravestones, give sermons at the graveyard temple, grow vegetables… There’s a lot of work ahead of you, and most of it requires a lot of resources.

Image credit: Lazy Bear Games

As you start crafting, harvesting, and burying, you’ll gradually earn experience you can spend on unlocking new blueprints and recipes, which can drastically improve the quality and efficiency of your work. With a DLC you can even create zombies to do some menial jobs for you, freeing up much of your time so you can, for example, delve the dungeons underneath your house. This game has a lot.

Graveyard Keeper

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Ghost Master

Commanding a crew of ghosts is no easy task, especially when every ghost is a creature of odd habits and peculiar tastes.

When you add hapless mortals to the mix, things get interesting, and pretty silly. Sometimes you just need to scare mortals away, sometimes you must your ghosts’ powers to manipulate the humans into doing something BEFORE scaring them mindless.

Image credit: Sick Puppies

Every mission is a different location, with new tasks and new ghosts to recruit, if you can sever the chains that tether them to the mortal realm. GM is filled with humour, from riffing on horror cliches to the names of ghosts and mortals you encounter, and the gameplay is a pleasant mix of puzzles and strategy. You also get a cool mansion as a base, and it only lacks Luigi scared witless in the corner.

Ghost Master

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Fall Guys

Your objections are heard and considered, but on the other hands: this game is called Fall Guys, and the game is really into fun costumes for the beans.

How is this not considered a Halloween classic? If you need something creepy, just look for the official artwork of the Fall Guy bean skeleton. You’ll be scarred for life. Not speak about the horror of other people from the other teams!

Image credit: Mediatonic

In addition to its obvious Halloween theme, Fall Guys is just a damned fun game, pitting up to 60 “beans” awkwardly waddling their way to victory. There’s a whole bunch of different games, individual and team-based, and they are all great fun thanks to the silly, friendly nature of FG. The winners get crowns for being the beanest on the block and can spend them on cosmetic stuff.

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Afterparty

Have you ever partied so hard you woke up in Hell with no recollection of what happened?

The protagonists of Afterparty might have, and now they have to outdrink and outparty our lord Satan himself to return to life. People can only hope to match this level of partying, and you can help protagonists Lola and Milo accomplish this goal, and get one of several possible endings.

Image credit: Night School Studio

Afterparty is a lovely and funny adventure game, which begins with you in Hell effectively challenging Satan to a drinking contest, and goes on to have you prove your strong head to Satan’s buddies, like Apollyon or old chap Asmodeus before challenging the big guy himself. If Halloween is usually a time to party for you, give Afterparty a chance. Just don’t end up like Milo and Lola.

Afterparty

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