10 best horror games to play for Halloween 2025 – spooky treats worth checking out
Settle into the spooky season properly with our selection of the 10 scariest games to play on all platforms.
If you're in the mood for some playable scares before October 31 arrives, we've got you covered with a list of the top 10 most frightening video games we'd recommend.
Ah, Halloween. The Perfect time of year to cosy up with a nice blanket and cup of hot chocolate or a bowl of sweets, keeping the cold outside while watching scarry movies. Films are one thing, but video games can equally send a chill down your spine – especially since it’s you that’s in control. It’s for this reason we’ve put together a list of the 10 best horror games to play for Halloween 2025. That is, providing you’re brave enough.
From small-scale indie darlings willing to take bigger risks with their unique brands of terror to high-budget survival horror franchises primed to thrill with staggering graphics, there’s plenty of scary games primed to make your dreams nightmares. Here’s our top 10 picks of horror games to play over this year’s Halloween period.
Cronos: The New Dawn
If you put Dead Space, Resident Evil, and Silent Hill in a blender, you’d probably get something that looks a lot like Cronos: The New Dawn. Made by the same developer who gave us last year’s utterly excellent Silent Hill 2 remake, it trades American suburbia for a futuristic war-torn Krakow where you play as a time-travelling agent trying to rescue the minds of specific individuals who didn’t make it out the first time around.
Doing so means repeatedly blasting endless waves of sludge-like Orphan enemies, solving different types of time anomaly puzzles, and uncovering the reason behind the collapse. Cronos is very derivative of a lot of modern horror titles, but it plays brilliantly because of it.
Silent Hill F
Hot on the heels of last year’s modern take on Silent Hill 2, Konami’s intent to bring its classic survival horror series back in a big way has been cemented with the recent launch of Silent Hill f. The first entry to set itself outside of the titular town, it’s an excuse to further push the franchise’s brand of psychological scares through a new protagonist, new setting, and totally new combat system.
The result is a more mature-feeling journey into heavier subjects like abuse, female oppression, and more. For those seeking a scary descent into madness too, however, don’t worry. Silent Hill f proves there’s scares to be found wherever the fog appears.
Little Nightmares 3
Six and Mono might be nowhere to be seen, but that doesn’t mean the small-scale scares don’t continue in Little Nightmares 3. Centred on the exploit of new heroes Low and Alone, this third outing offers players a bit more variety thanks to a range of different, scantily-lit locations to explore rather than just one.
This is also the first time in the series that players don’t need to go it alone thanks to the addition of online co-op. With Low and Alone both boasting different puzzle-solving skills, it helps bring a new, if slightly familiar flavour to Little Nightmares 3’s cinematic puzzle-platforming.
Dredge
Those looking for a slightly calmer and less rocky approach to terror should absolutely check out Dredge. You take control of a little tugboat charged with cleaning up and fishing on behalf of several archipelagos, doing so while trying not to disturb the menacing sea monsters that lay underneath the waves.
Throw in a moody colour palette and some seriously satisfying inventory management, and you have an off-kilter horror indie that is at times relaxing while feeling utterly frightening at others. Dredge is the only eldritch fishing adventure you need.
Resident Evil 4 (2023)
The original Resident Evil 4 is considered a holy text by many. Hence why a lot of us weren’t sure whether Capcom would be able to pull off giving it the modern remake treatment. The truth is we needn’t have worried. Because while Leon’s original mission to rescue the president’s daughter is still untouchable, 2023’s take pays great respect to its brand of over-the-shoulder horror while sprinkling in some appreciated improvements.
Moving and shooting is a revelation, but so are enhanced boss battles, amazing graphics, and somehow even more camp. Resident Evil 4 remake is a pure spooky treat.
Dying Light: The Beast
Following the middling reception to 2022’s Dying Light 2: Stay Human, fans of open-world zombie games were hopeful that developer Techland would get the genre back on track with this year’s DLC-turned-full game, Dying Light: The Beast. For the most part it did.
Although not a horror game in the strictest sense, The Beast presents a far more interesting location to explore and parkour across in Castor Woods, striking a good balance between central urban spaces and the more naturalistic forest surroundings. Undead biters want to chomp you wherever you roam, true, but this Dying Light delivers a much better power fantasy thanks to the ability to embrace the titular monster and wreak havoc on your enemies.
Alien: Isolation
Licensed games have historically had trouble retaining the vibe, look, and feel of the properties they’re based on. Alien: Isolation, however, has none of these issues – in fact, it makes adapting the source material look easy. You play as Ellen Ripley’s daughter, Amanda, trapped on board the lavish Sevastopol space station with – you guessed it – a Xenomorph.
It makes for a truly haunting and claustrophobic first-person horror experience that is still as chilling now as it was upon release over 10 years ago. A sequel from Creative Assembly is now in development, but the original Alien: Isolation is still an all-timer.
Mouthwashing
Easily one of the most unsettling indie horror games from recent years, Mouthwashing is a short yet cruel first-person horror game about a crew’s slow decent into madness. After a mysterious collision in space leaves you stranded, the only thing you have in your supply is crates upon crates of mouthwash.
How it relates to the wider mystery and your role as captain is for you to uncover. Mouthwashing might be a mostly linear horror story, but it’s one that doesn’t outstay its welcome and will have leave you thinking long after the credits roll. It’s crude art style and curveball story is bound to stay with you.
Alan Wake 2
After what felt like a lifetime of waiting, Remedy finally delivered the sequel long-time fans had been waiting for in 2023 with the mind-bending Alan Wake 2.
A bigger, better take on the psychological ideas the first game set down in every way, Alan Wake 2 leans further into horror by trapping the titular writer in a location called The Dark Place and introducing new character, FBI agent Saga Anderson, to help try and get him out. Events warp and twist in weirder ways the further into the story you get, resulting in one of the creepiest and smartest modern horror games out there.
Crow Country
Players seeking to set in some 90s retro horror vibes during Halloween needn’t look further than the utterly excellent Crow Country. Styled very much after the look of classic Resident Evil – and even Final Fantasy games – it exudes a polygonal art style, which, when combined with a CRT filter and an isometric camera angle, only increases the nostalgia-hued scares while exploring this rundown amusement park, gunning down mutants, and solving intricate puzzles.
Crow Country also won’t take you long to complete, meaning it’s the perfect bite-sized indie horror game to enjoy over the holiday period.