When dealing with the real-life terrors of mortgages, student loans and the many challenges of simply staying alive, it’s understandable that some (if not most) of us horror fans aren’t able to keep up with AAA gaming’s financial demands. Hell, even those of us who can afford to lay down 60 dollars or more on the latest releases would sometimes rather try out something new without committing to oversized demo files or resorting to piracy.
Having dealt with this situation way too many times, I’ve compiled a list of six of the best free horror games available online today, so your wallets don’t have to suffer if you’re in need of a good interactive scare. While Free-To-Play games aren’t exactly rare on the internet, I’ve decided to limit this collection to fully-fledged gaming experiences. That means no micro-transactions, free trials, first episodes or flash games here, just solid horror offered up at no charge!
Also, don’t forget to comment with some of your best free horror games below!
With that in mind, let’s begin!
6. Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion
Jump scares are considered by some to be the horror equivalent of toilet humor in comedy, appealing only to the lowest common denominator. However, much like toilet humor, in the hands of creative and capable artists, jump scares can also be a tool for building tension in both movies and games. Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion certainly lives up to its title with 1000 haunted rooms and seemingly infinite ways of producing a scare.
It may be a minimalist take on horror, with simple graphics and cute designs, but the game works as a fascinating endurance test once you discover just how far you’re willing to go in order to reach the final room. It might not be for everyone, but Albino Moose’s experiment serves as proof that, even when you know it’s coming, it’s the anticipation building up to a scare that really matters.
Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion was also renovated into a fun HD remake, but the original is still available on Steam right here!
5. Doki Doki Literature Club!
To be honest, I was never really into visual novels. This hybrid form of gaming, literature and anime always felt weird to me, as if it would have been better to focus on one of these elements instead of trying to be all of them at once (though I’m still looking for an English translation of that silly-looking Silent Hill VN on the Gameboy Advance).
Nevertheless, a close friend really insisted that I play Doki Doki Literature Club, claiming that I would love it but she couldn’t tell me why. It took a while, but I eventually got around to it, and it’s actually really freaking good! I can’t even tell you why it’s on this list without spoiling the experience, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Meta elements and breaking the fourth wall can make a lot of indie games feel pretentious, but Team Salvato uses the concept here with such mastery that you’ll enjoy the experience even if you already know what’s going on. That’s why I recommend that you download the game over on Steam, even if, like myself, you’re not really a fan of the genre.
4. SCP – Containment Breach
The SCP Foundation remains one of my favorite instances of internet horror. From surreal objects like the bouncing ball that breaks Newton’s laws of motion to genuine eldritch abominations, these online creations usually rely on the manipulation of senses and existential concepts in order to inflict fear and discomfort on unsuspecting readers.
With all these reality-bending creatures and locations, it’s easy to see how this universe can make for some unique gameplay opportunities, and that’s exactly what Joonas Rikkonen thought when he released SCP – Containment Breach back in 2012.
As the player is tasked with escaping a secret facility overrun by horrific metaphysical monsters (not to mention government agents hell-bent on eliminating witnesses), the game actually feels a lot like low-budget Half-Life. However, the escaped creatures themselves make this a one-of-a-kind experience where even your blinking must be managed in order to stay alive. It doesn’t get much more intense than this.
SCP – Containment Breach is available here!
3. The Chzo Mythos Games
Yahtzee Croshaw may be best known for his brutally honest game reviews (not to mention the popularization of the PC Master Race meme), but he’s also one of few critics to actually try their luck at producing some of the art that they usually write about. Starting with 5 Days a Stranger, Yahtzee went on to explore his love of complex gaming narratives with this memorable horror-adventure series.
Taking cues from Silent Hill, Clock Tower and even H.P. Lovecraft, the Chzo Mythos games experimented with elements from classic Point & Click and even Text Adventure titles to tell a genre-bending story, resulting in a must-play experience for fans of both cosmic horror and retro gaming thrills.
The futuristic 7 Days a Skeptic (the Jason X of the series, if you will) remains my personal favorite, but all four games are worth playing. Plus, if you enjoy Yahtzee’s take on minimalist gaming, I’d also recommend The Consuming Shadow, another terrifying Lovecraftian experience for gamers on a budget.
5 Days a Stranger, 7 Days a Skeptic, Trilby’s Notes and 6 Days a Sacrifice are available here!
2. Slender: The Eight Pages
After all the adaptations, jokes and all-around over-exposure, it may surprise some readers to know that the Slender Man meme was once one of the scariest tales on the internet. Back in 2012, independent gaming developers Parsec Productions presented the World Wide Web with a simple but effective horror experience that, alongside the Marble Hornets web series, greatly contributed to the meme’s viral success.
While Slender: The Eight Pages can be summed up as a highly atmospheric game of good-old-fashioned hide-and-seek, with the player tracking down the titular pages in a randomized nightmare, it’s also one of my favorite examples of Found-Footage in gaming. It might not be terribly complex, and the graphics aren’t anything to write home about, but it’s still a memorable take on the internet’s most infamous urban legend.
Parsec Productions would eventually team up with the writers behind Marble Hornets and produce a more complex sequel that I also recommend if you can afford it (it even includes an HD remake of sorts of the original game as a bonus level!). In any case, you can still pick up The Eight Pages over here. It’s easily one of the best free horror games around after all this time.
1. Alien Swarm
Few movies can claim to have had as big an impact on gaming as James Cameron’s sci-fi classic Aliens. Sure, some of us (myself included) still prefer Ridley Scott’s terrifying original, but it’s easy to understand why space marines facing off against horrific creatures is such a compelling concept. While countless games have paid homage to the Alien franchise, very few have managed to capture the unique dread of badass soldiers caught in a horrific war that even they can’t win.
Now, imagine my surprise when I decided to try out a little free-to-play squad-based shooter on Steam entitled Alien Swarm, and was rewarded with one of the most heart-pounding and intense gaming experiences of my life. Starting off as a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004, Valve was so impressed with the team’s work that they hired them to work on projects like Portal and Left 4 Dead, eventually releasing a standalone version of the game in 2010.
Some of the art direction feels generic (especially the titular alien designs), and the unforgiving difficulty isn’t for everyone, but the satisfaction you feel when reaching the end of a level with your buddies barely hanging on to dear life is almost indescribable. The game was eventually updated into Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop, with improved features and additional fan-made content, so I recommend you try out that version. After all, who can say no to Souls-Borne-level thrills for the low, low price of absolutely nothing?
