The Best Horror Game of 2024

Honorable Mentions

Because of the expansive array of experiences provided up by the present horror recreation renaissance interval, the IGN staff’s votes went to a variety of 2024 releases. Whereas not getting sufficient votes to safe runner-up standing, we’d like to offer honourable mentions to 2 further video games.

Nonetheless Wakes the Deep from developer The Chinese language Room is a beautiful narrative horror set on an oil rig that’s been contaminated with a The Factor-like creature. It’s enjoyably Scottish in tone, painted within the miserable shades of Nineteen Seventies Britain and powered by the unknowable worry of Eldritch literature. It’s far more partaking than its strolling sim fundamentals would recommend, too, with thrilling chase set-pieces and creepy stealth encounters.

We additionally must tip our hat within the path of Slitterhead. Whereas our reviewer in the end struggled to fall in love with it, a number of IGN staff members loved its idiosyncratic strategy to an Invasion of the Bodysnatchers-style state of affairs. The newest recreation from authentic Silent Hill director Keiichiro Toyama actually has its fair proportion of quirks and weird presentation, however there’s one thing basically fascinating about its core idea. Hijacking our bodies and utilizing totally different folks to additional your investigation into Lovecraftian monsters that put on people like pores and skin fits is not like something we’ve ever finished in a horror recreation earlier than. In an business that performs it more and more protected, Slitterhead is unafraid to embrace the weird.

Runner-up: A Quiet Place: The Highway Forward

The power of the unique A Quiet Place film is in its easy idea: a world the place you must keep silent to outlive. A snapping twig or a rustling snack may very well be your downfall. On paper that’s not only a good elevator pitch for a narrative, however the driving mechanic of an ideal online game. And so, considerably unsurprisingly, we’ve landed a fairly good film companion recreation in A Quiet Place: The Highway Forward.

As you’d count on, this can be a tense survival recreation rooted in stealth techniques. Stalked by the identical alien creatures seen within the films, you need to fastidiously navigate by way of ranges crammed to bursting with noisy objects. Each opened drawer and door is a dangerous transfer, lest the squeak of a hinge alert the beast. Including much more stress to the state of affairs is the truth that your protagonist is asthmatic, which means strenuous duties like climbing over obstacles can push you nearer and nearer to a loud respiratory assault that can summon your hunter.

Developer Stormind Video games clearly had a restricted finances for this challenge and so The Highway Forward is commonly a bit tough across the edges. Its cat-and-mouse gameplay isn’t fairly the Alien: Isolation successor you’d hope for (see final yr’s Amnesia: The Bunker for a greater various). However regardless of that, this can be a nice proof of idea as to how properly suited A Quiet Place is to the online game medium.

Runner-up: Crow Nation

A lot of the horror style’s latest success may be attributed to builders trying again to earlier generations and discovering methods to recreate these authentic scares. That’s precisely what’s occurring in Crow Nation, an indie spookfest that pays homage to Nineties PlayStation classics Resident Evil and Silent Hill. The low-polygon visuals, restricted stock house, overhead digicam, and foot-anchored capturing all seize the timeless essence of early survival horror.

Nevertheless it’s the brand new concepts injected by developer SFB Video games that improve Crow Nation above and past a easy train in nostalgia. Having the ability to rotate the digicam a full 360 levels brings trendy edge to a historically fixed-view method, and the power to freely intention weapons equally uplifts the in any other case old-school capturing system. These in flip permit Crow Nation’s puzzles and battles to really feel freshly invigorated, be that by way of spinning the digicam to seek out new clues and gadgets, or lining up a headshot to rapidly neutralise an approaching monster.

Whereas it does channel some of the unsettling ambiance of its retro inspirations, Crow County isn’t afraid to have greater than slightly enjoyable. Set in an deserted theme park, there’s a stage of whimsy that penetrates the darkness, whereas protagonist Mara at all times has a comedic line up her sleeve to convey a bit of levity. The outcome isn’t precisely cosy, however there’s a sure consolation to be present in Crow Nation – a form of gross nostalgic hug.

Runner-up: Mouthwashing

Mouthwashing is the word-of-mouth horror hit of 2024. It’s one of these video games that comes coupled with “learn nothing, simply play” recommendation, so if a twisted narrative journey that exposes the depravity of human nature is the type of factor you go for, then you definately’ll need to cease studying, open Steam in a brand new tab, and hit the purchase button proper now.

However we’ve got to offer particulars to justify Mouthwashing’s place because the IGN staff’s second-favourite horror recreation of the yr, so right here we go. On the floor, developer Incorrect Organ has made a easy strolling simulator through which you jog to-and-fro between the totally different rooms of a crashed house ship finishing fundamental errands. There’s little within the kind of traditional horror recreation mechanics – you gained’t discover any zombies to shoot, enemies to cover from, or useful resource administration right here. However because the story pushes ahead, you end up falling down an more and more distressing rabbit gap. What occurs when a stranded freighter crew faces little hope of survival? Sanity turns into a valuable, dwindling useful resource.

A story triumph, Mouthwashing drops horrifying new reveals at simply the best moments of its ever-building pressure curve. And because the layers are peeled again, you start to have a look at not simply your crew mates in a really totally different gentle, but additionally your personal protagonist. It is a horror story the place force-feeding painkillers to your mutilated captain is simply the appetiser to the grotesque late-game essential course. It’s as disturbingly scrumptious because it sounds.

Winner: Silent Hill 2

It’s protected to say that there have been no ensures for Bloober Staff’s remake of Silent Hill 2. Staff Silent’s timeless survival horror traditional was, to some, thought of inconceivable to remake. Others had been cautious of Bloober’s capabilities after The Medium (itself an underwhelming homage to Silent Hill) and a really up-and-down again catalogue. However after we lastly had Silent Hill 2 put in on our consoles – a recreation that’s concurrently shiny and rusty – it was instantaneously clear: Bloober didn’t simply get Silent Hill 2, it spoke it fluently.

Silent Hill 2 follows within the footsteps of final yr’s Lifeless Area in being a remake that stays virtually utterly devoted to the unique recreation whereas including trendy enhancements in a tasteful method. It options all of the dread-inducing, tense exploration of the unique – this can be a recreation largely about exploring horrible buildings room-by-room and digesting the horrible secrets and techniques inside – simply this time round you are able to do all this with a 3D digicam and trendy over-the-shoulder fight. The result’s an expertise that seems like a throwback to the height of survival horror in its design, however is totally trendy in its execution. For many individuals, together with a lot of the IGN staff, that is the precise candy spot a remake ought to intention for.

Bloober sticking so near the unique method means Silent Hill 2 isn’t fairly as transformative a piece as, for instance, Capcom’s Resident Evil 2, which re-thought the whole recreation from the ground-up. As such, we all know this may very well be thought of one thing of a controversial alternative. Ought to a devoted remake be thought of for an end-of-year award when a lot of the artistic work was finished by totally different folks in a unique decade? Whereas that’s a worthy query, it’s plain that Bloober’s efforts on this challenge is a helpful addition to the horror canon, making a real titan of the style accessible to trendy audiences. Its heavy, bleak story stays as timeless as we speak because it did again in 2001, and that fear-inducing exploration loop is a reminder of the everlasting qualities of good recreation design. As such, Silent Hill 2 was one of the best horror recreation we performed in 2024, and this contemporary car for such triumphs deserves to be recognised regardless of its roots.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s Senior Options Editor.