Best horror games to play right now

1. Alan Wake

Alan Wake isn't like most horror games. It doesn't trade in excessive gore or jump scares - in fact, it's not that scary on the whole. But its sense of place and character is second to none. That place is Bright Falls, a Twin Peaks-inspired mountain community with a terrible secret. The dulcet tones of the night DJ rambling across the airwaves - mixed with the little vignettes you can catch on TV - make this town feel alive, like a character unto itself. Its story unfolds like a thrilling TV miniseries, right down to the episodic structure that bookends each plot twist and revelation.

Alan Wake further distinguishes itself by, well, being a lot of fun to play. Maybe that sounds a bit mean, but you'd be hard pressed to find a more enjoyable horror game than Alan Wake from a pure gameplay perspective. Developer, Remedy is as famous for action as storytelling, and that comes to bear here, as simple, fluid controls do away with the stilted awkwardness that's characteristic of this genre. Taking on a group of enemies is challenging for all the right reasons: the encounters are well crafted, and the pistol-plus-flashlight combat combo is fun to use without making you feel invincible.

Available on: PC and Xbox One (via backwards compatibility)

2. Carrion

Carrion might look like a bit of fun, because it is, but it's also a great horror game that reverses the roles and lets you play the monster. Through it's pixelly recreation of tentacles and teeth it really captures the essence of a good creature feature as you hoover up screaming scientists, rending limb from limb and leaving nothing but parts in your wake. It's excessively gory in a laugh out loud way and in between the bloody carnage there's some decent puzzles to work out using an ever expanding range of monster powers.  

Available on: PC, Xbox One and Switch 

3. Prey

While Morgan Yu’s trek across a space station doesn’t offer the breathless horror Dead Space does, especially the Mooncrash DLC showed off Prey’s potential for horror. A fairly straight-forward alien shooter can become much more unsettling when the goal changes from  you defending yourself to saving others, and the element of randomisation in Mooncrash does a lot in keeping you on your toes. But basic Prey, too, has a certain spookiness to it. Apart from being  a brilliant game with many secret nooks and crannies to discover, Prey, just like other Arkane games, gives you a certain freedom of approach. Many stories you come across in its environment tell of horrifying accidents, people trying to flee or alien encounters. If you want a bit more action but love good environmental storytelling, this is another game you shouldn’t sleep on.

Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4 

4. Little Nightmares 2

There is something deeply wrong with Little Nightmare 2, in a good way. The sequel really doubles down on the original creepy children's story world but somehow ups the unpleasantness to impressive levels. The weirdness just creeps under you skin as you explore. From creepy juddering mannequins, to faceless, lost people - faces seemingly worn away my the TV static they'll die to stare at - there's little in this game that won't unnerve you, or leave you feeling uncomfortable thinking about it. It can be frustrating at times - the controls never really live up to the demands and there's a few trial and error encounters to blunder through. But stick with it and you'll experience probably one of the most traumatizing games on this list. 

Available on: PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, and Google Stadia

5. Until Dawn

Teen slashers have been around for nearly four decades now, but aside from the abysmal Friday the 13th on NES, games haven't really been brave enough to venture into that territory. Until now. Or rather, Until Dawn (zing), a 2015 survival-horror game about a pack of randy teens going on vacation to an isolated mountain cabin, only to find that some heinous entity is set on killing them off. But it's not all fun and games: the characters will die gruesome deaths if you can't navigate Until Dawn's horror movie logic, and it takes every opportunity to scare the bejaysus out of you.

While many games on this list are here because of their fear-factor alone, Until Dawn earns a spot for more meta reasons, too - it's wilfully, soulfully entrenched in horror tradition, and uses those tropes brilliantly. It's packed with winks to the slasher genre, and you'll still love the ridiculous twists even if you see them coming from a mile away. You'll laugh as much as you scream, if not more, and few horror games capture that sense of grisly fun so well.

Available on: PS4