For such a notorious scaredy-cat, I sure do love me a good horror game.

Watching X-Play’s recent coverage of “The Secret(ish) History of Silent Hill” was a pure nostalgia trip, taking me back to the very first time I ever heard of one of my favorite franchises—all the way back when the original X-Play first covered Silent Hill 3 back in 2010.

It made me want to write (even more) about horror games—so for this Halloween, it’s time to talk about some of the most influential horror games in the history of the industry.

The Most Influential Horror Games of the 1980’s and 1990’s

While many historical overviews point to Sega’s Killer Shark (1972) as perhaps the first horror video game to be released, the genre didn’t take off until the 80’s—right alongside the golden age of slasher films.

‘Castlevania’ (1986)

Known in Japan as Akumajō Dracula (literally translating to Devil’s Castle Dracula), the original Castlevania marked the beginning of the first truly successful horror video game franchise. It was also among the first side-scroller horror games and set the tone for many spooky interactive experiences to follow, contributing half of the name of a subgenre still kicking today—Metroidvania. It was fun, it was stylish, and it kicked off a vampiric dynasty that shows no signs of dying out any time soon.

‘Alone in the Dark’ (1992)

Alone in the Dark brought so much to the video game horror genre, it’s hard to know where to start. Dubbed the first true 3-D survival horror game by the Guinness World Records, developer Infogrames either invented or popularized many a classic trope, including spooky puzzle-solving, fixed camera angles, pre-rendered backgrounds, narrative-supporting notes scattered throughout the levels, breakable weapons, finite light sources, and more.

‘Doom’ (1993)

Even despite my personal bias toward slow-paced psychological survival horror, id Software’s Doom has always and will always hold a special place in my heart—and I’m not the only one. For every gaming veteran who remembers what it was like to buy the floppy disks, there’s a millennial like me who grew up watching their dad or their older sibling(s) gather color-coded keys and blast pig demons to smithereens. Doom was the game that launched a thousand action-horror first-person shooters, including six sequels.

‘Clock Tower’ (1995)

While not as well-remembered in the U.S. as some of the other entries on this list, Capcom’s Clock Tower introduced one of the tropes I love to hate the most in modern horror games: helplessness. Unlike the gun-toting heroes of previous horror titles, the teenage female protagonist of this point-and-click game is abjectly vulnerable, unable to use weapons or run too far too fast, and liable to panic (and get herself killed) should she become too overwhelmed by her circumstances. Clock Tower also introduced us to the terror of an unstoppable stalker antagonist—an concept which will sound all too familiar to fans of the next franchise on this list…

‘Resident Evil’ (1996)

As a Silent Hill girl, myself, the original Resident Evil is one of my favorite games to pick on. (A “Jill sandwich”? Really??) But even I can’t deny that it’s a classic. If Alone in the Dark sparked the survival horror subgenre, Resident Evil turned that spark into a bonfire. As a bonus, while AitD certainly took a cinematic approach to its overall design, Capcom’s original RE utilized cut-scenes in a way that took horror game storytelling to another level. 

‘Silent Hill’ (1999)

I could go on for days (in fact, I probably have) about my favorite horror game franchise. While the second and third games remain my favorites, it is to Team Silent’s original Silent Hill game that so many horror gaming fans owe an eternal debt of gratitude. Silent Hill was a psychological descent into despair and desperation that introduced a whole new (and delightfully disturbing) dimension to the genre. It was also a testament to just how much a small team with a small budget could (and still can) accomplish, with a bit of luck and a lot of passion and imagination.

The Most Influential Horror Games of the 2000’s and 2010’s

As gaming grew more widespread and technology advanced, horror games in particular began to push the boundaries of their limitations, starting with…

‘Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem’ (2002)

Eternal Darkness took Silent Hill’s psychological approach to horror and made it personal, breaking the fourth wall to mess with players in unexpected and creative ways. Developer Silicon Knights took the now-famous sanity meter mechanic (a direct descendant of Clock Tower’s panic meter) and made it terrifying in a whole new way. Low sanity triggered in-game effects that preyed on all sorts of fears—some of which felt all too real not just to the characters, but to the players themselves.

‘Amnesia: The Dark Descent’ (2010)

Amnesia: The Dark Descent wasn’t Frictional Games’s first descent into madness, nor was it their last, but it was certainly one of the highlights of their career thus far. The original Amnesia combined some of the best elements of its predecessors—limited light sources, sanity mechanics, helplessness, and psychological depth—and mixed them up into something unique and iconic. Like its predecessors, Amnesia spawned a wave of clones, but also popularized the concept of custom maps created by the players, for the players. More than 30 custom maps have been published as of this writing, a library upon which more than one YouTube streamer’s career was built.

‘Slender: The Eight Pages’ (2012)

If Amnesia showed us just how intellectually complex and intricate even a short horror game could be, creepypasta-inspired Slender: The Eight Pages by Parsec Productions proved that a game doesn’t have to be overly in-depth to scare players. This minimalist formula—a dark place, a simple goal, and a terror stalking you from the shadows, waiting to jump-scare you into next Tuesday—inspired a horde of clones and, two years later, a franchise that seems pretty hellbent on taking over the world, one screen at a time.

‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ (2014)

Five Nights at Freddy’s was an act of alchemy. Developer Scott Cawthon took criticism of his previous game—which featured a beaver that was meant to be friendly, and instead scared the jeepers out of everyone—and turned it into inspirational fuel. From the ashes, he created Freddy Fazbear, an animatronic bear that has provided many young gamers with nightmare fuel for years to come. The world of FNaF has now expanded to include numerous sequels, spinoff games, books, and a potential future film adaptation. (Technically, the movie Willy’s Wonderland supposedly has nothing to do with FNaF, but it’s hard to deny the similarities in both premise and presentation.) The franchise even holds the world record for most sequels released in a year.

‘P.T.’ (2014)

While technically a part of the previously mentioned Silent Hill franchise, Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro’s masterpiece deserves its own spot on this list for a few reasons. One, while P.T. keeps the spirit of Silent Hill intact, it feels very different from previous titles in the series. It’s first-person, hyperrealistic, and features a looping hallway mechanic that has since been replicated in way too many indie releases to count. Two, it’s absolutely terrifying. To me, it is the scariest game I’ve ever played—and prompted many gamers to ask the question, “Is there such a thing as a horror game that’s too scary?” Equally influential was the Silent Hills game that it was meant to tease; its cancellation inspired games such as Allison Road (which also never quite got released) and Abandoned (hopefully coming soon), and of course The Medium is basically an unofficial Silent Hill sequel in every way that matters.

The Most Influential Horror Games of the Future

Horror games are here to stay, and I am so excited to see what the most influential horror games of tomorrow will be. I think we can already make out a bit of the shape of what’s to come in the final and most recent game on this list…

‘Phasmophobia’ (2020)

Phasmophobia is proof that hindsight is 20/20 because, when looking back, ghost hunting seems an almost inevitable next step in the evolution of the horror gaming genre. Developed by Kinetic Games (which at the time of the game’s release consisted of just one developer, Dknighter), Phasmophobia began as a diamond in the rough that has quickly shaped up to be one of the most fun and influential scare fests in recent horror gaming history. It sparked a new subgenre of investigative horror games and turned the terror volume up to 11 with its use of proximity-based voice chat and in-game voice recognition.

So where do we go from here? I think virtual reality games, and especially VR horror experiences, are going to gain traction as the technology improves and becomes more widely accessible. One can almost imagine a spiritual successor to Phasmophobia that not only implements voice recognition but facial recognition as well. And perhaps we can throw some artificial intelligence in there for good measure?

After all, when you gaze into the abyss, never forget: “the abyss gazes also into you.”

Kim Berkley is an author and narrative designer whose works include horror as well as fantasy—most notably in the fantasy/horror game The Harbinger’s Head, which you can play the first chapter of for free today. She is looking forward to releasing her next game, chiaroscuro, in early 2022.