It’s been a great year for fans of the horror genre in gaming but it’s tough picking the best of the best for 2023.
Whether you are playing a horror game for the immersion, story, jumpscares, or pure thrills, each entry held its own in 2023. Regardless of its horror subgenre, these are the best horror games that were released last year.
The nine best horror games in 2023
Honorable mentions
After debating between a tenth spot, I decided to leave it open to my honorable mentions. This is because I did not feel like a single game in my honorable mentions was better than the other entries on the list. Each has its pros and cons and hits different aspects of horror that will intrigue particular horror fandoms.
How did 2023 fair when it came to horror? My honorable mentions for the best horror games of 2023 are:
- World of Horror (a fantastic Junji Ito-inspired game)
- Midnight Scenes: From the Woods (a great story about queerness and friendship)
- Slay the Princess (a unique and narrative-driven game)
- Ironbark Lookout (similar to Do You Copy?)
- Dead Signal (a very challenging game that fills you with paranoia)
- Dredge (a Lovecraftian cozy horror game)
- The Exit 8 (the most unique Observation Duty-style game)
- Teleforum (a surreal and dark experience similar to Videodrome)
- The Windows Are Gone (a short Silent Hill inspired tale)
For example, if you want a narrative that keeps you gripped from start to finish, Slay the Princess, From the Woods, and Ironbark Lookout are perfect for you. But you’ll want to play Dredge or World of Horror if you’re a Lovecraftian lover. Teleforum and The Windows Are Gone are chilling for the surreal and psychological fans who love an ambiguous ending. Finally, if you want an Observation Duty-style game, The Exit 8 and Dead Signal will keep your attention at all times.
With those out of the way, my nine best horror games of 2023 are in no particular order—they’re all as good as each other across many criteria. Let’s dive in.
Amanda the Adventurer
Amanda the Adventurer is an obvious and twisted take on Dora the Explorer. While the setting of the game isn’t particularly unique, its small environment packs a punch and offers a ton of mysteries. With cursed video tapes, secrets, and six endings to uncover, Amanda the Adventurer is a fantastic horror game that completely ruins your childhood. It left me with many questions, having me beg for an Amanda and Wooly sequel.
Amanda the Adventurer has a hold on its players. You feel like you have literally been taken and transported into Amanda’s world. The use of real-life actors and cartoonish characters adds to the uncanniness of the game which makes it feel like a real and forgotten TV show.
Amnesia: The Bunker
In simple terms, Amnesia: The Bunker is an awesome horror game. I never truly got over the first hour of The Dark Descent’s gameplay which I still believe has the scariest atmosphere in horror game history. Amnesia deals with an almost cosmic horror where the fear of the unknown is always at the forefront of the game. The fear of the unknown is continued inside The Bunker.
I absolutely loved playing The Bunker. It had the perfect blend of genuine horror and a challenging premise. Frictional Games always offer a unique gameplay mechanic to master. The winding flashlight is a great way to add to the horror and switch it up from the sanity mechanism that we typically see with their games.
Resident Evil 4 Remake
Capcom always offers visually beautiful games that few, in my opinion, have been able to take on (like The Last of Us, Bloodborne, and Alan Wake 2). I loved the changes they made towards the escorting mission in Resident Evil 4 Remake and being able to play Ashley in a nightmarish library level. Every Resident Evil remake is faithful but its polish and modern gameplay puts it above the originals.
You know I’m down bad when I look forward to Capcom’s remakes over its newer entries. Just don’t get me started on Resident Evil: Village. My only issue with this game is how difficult hard mode is over Resident Evil 2‘s hard mode. The difference is blatant and one that actually forced me to replay the game from the beginning in normal mode. But I guess I just had to “get gud.”
Alan Wake 2
Alan Wake 2 is a step above many AAA horror games. It has incredibly beautiful visuals, great real-life acting, terrifyingly impressive graphics and character models, and banger-after-banger songs in its soundtrack. As someone who obsesses over great storytelling, Alan Wake 2 takes the cake this year for the best narrative. The game plays like a film.
I cannot tell you why the scariest part for me was hearing humming after leaving the talk show with Alan. A concoction of curiosity and fear guided me to look around the corner and find Ahti, the janitor, frozen stiff and humming the night away.
Dead Space Remake
When I heard Dead Space was getting its own remake, I thought “Why bother?” With more and more media diving into remakes, remastering, reimagines, and so on, I thought why should they remake a horror game that still holds up to this day? However, with Dead Space originally released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the remake made sense for those who were unable to witness this fantastic horror game when it came out.
Dead Space (2023) is a faithful remake of the original game. It stayed true to what made it great to begin with and added much-needed polish that naturally occurred with the newest generations of consoles. Dead Space is a truly immersive experience and one that easily goes against the titans of Resident Evil and Silent Hill. The atmosphere is unmatched and the dread I felt while traversing across the dark space station after forgetting all of the terrors that lurked within had me on the edge of my seat.
Parasocial
Parasocial is just one of Chilla’s Arts 2023 games. This developer released a ton of horror games for an indie dev and most were memorable, disturbing, and interesting. The best however was Parasocial. Parasocial demonstrates the nightmare of having an online platform, the risks of having your identity and address known, and the lengths some fans will go to because they think they know you.
The game has moments of pure terror and paranoia throughout. The climax of the game has a scene that left me frozen and disturbed. What Chilla’s Art does incredibly well is capturing that feeling of being watched. You see often with their work that some kind of stalking is in play. While the developer has other games that focus on Japanese myths and legends, their best work is games where the horror is based on real-life events.
Deppart Prototype
Deppart Prototype stood out in 2023 for its utterly terrifying content. Its hyper-realistic graphics and body cam horror planted you into a video game that felt like playing the final moments of the main character. The game is intense from start to finish, with one of the best jump scares in horror game existence: A mask placed on a mop. Yes, that mop made most people scream, and rightly so.
Deppart Prototype is a twisted tale that has no context, story, or guide to what is happening in the dark building. All you have is a flashlight and a handgun to work off of. N4bA is an evil developer who doesn’t take their work too seriously, to the point that the ending is completely meme-worthy. But don’t let that take away from the actual horror in this short gaming experience. Imagining this game in VR is actual nightmare fuel and something that I hope N4bA dips into.
Lethal Company
Lethal Company deserves a shoutout for being the perfect blend between comedy and horror. Similar to the popular Phasmophobia, players who head into these games with their friends can not only be entertained by their friend’s fear but also by the game itself.
It’s hard to take things seriously when your character’s run cycle is the goofiest thing since Roblox, but Lethal Company is a gem that I hope stays in the spotlight for a while. This game has shone like Among Us did but I hope it isn’t forgotten too. I just wish games like SCP: Containment Breach had a similar adoration from the average consumer. But Lethal Company deserves a top spot on this list for its effortless blend of the Backrooms, SCPs, liminal spaces, and pure chaotic proximity chat fun.
Hollow Cocoon
Indie horror in a Japanese setting has risen in recent years and is often soaked in culture and folklore. Hollow Cocoon mixes the beautiful Japanese culture with its eerie ghost stories, resulting in a tale that is reminiscent of the first Resident Evil gameplay and the classic Fatal Frame aesthetic. The story is gripping and is executed well with note-finding. The game follows a similar format to other indie horrors where you must hide from the enemy using standard hiding spots like cupboards.
Hollow Cocoon feels like a throwback to the better days of horror or a love letter to Fatal Frame and Resident Evil. With a silkworm moth tattooed on my forearm, Hollow Cocoon felt like it was made for me. Uncover the dark secrets about the Miyama family and their strange affliction with silkworms.
