Five Creepy PC Games to Brown your Trousers

I love filling myself with whiskey and loading up the scariest and/or brain-twistingest PC game I can find. It doesn’t matter if the game is terrifying me or convincing me that I’m insane, creepy PC games are some of my favorite things. They’re also painfully few and far between thanks to their niche nature, delegated mostly to indie developers and demented modders. If you’re itching to mess your undies or question your sanity, here’s my top five picks for creepy PC games in no particular order. 

Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Steam, $19.99, free demo)

Amnesia is the scariest game that I’ve ever played. You wake up as a fresh amnesiac in a crumbling manor, discovering that you had experienced something so terrible that you forced yourself to forget with a poisonous drink. The game’s plot forces you to delve both into your own lost past (riddled with unspeakable deeds) and the mystery of what eldritch apocalypse is brewing in the manor’s dungeons below you. The atmosphere is thick with tense danger as you’re pursued by both an existential threats and a weird-science monster that is truly a nightmare brought to life. I really do need to write a whole review about this game (what it does with player input and feedback is brilliant!) but for now, just trust me and buy it. It tells a great story while delivering cerebral scares that will stay with you long after you turn the game off.

Nightmare House 2 (Half-Life 2 Ep 2 Mod, Free)

As the sequel to the lackluster Nightmare House mod, Nightmare House 2 is a  surprisingly expert execution of the “wake up in and get out of a creepy hospital” story. While the narrative falls apart at the end the scares along the way are shocking when they need to be and excruciatingly drawn out when they can be. There is a long segment featuring mannequins that I can never forget, no matter how I might try. Provided that you have Half-Life 2 Episode 2 (which you should!) Nightmare House 2 will provide you with a generous number of consistently scary hours for zero dollars.

The Path (Steam, $9.99)

The Path is an experimental story telling game from Tale of Tales, the folks that brought us the game about being an old lady walking around in a graveyard. As a twist on Little Red Riding Hood, the game features a posse of girls that need to walk a path through the woods to Grandma’s house. But be careful, if you pilot them off of the path into the woods they may run into their own personal “wolf”. While the game lacks any explicit depiction of violence or sexual content it strongly communicates the confusion, painful desires, and vulnerability of adolescence. It’s a surreal and wicked game that pays off big if you take the time to explore it.

Lone Survivor (Steam, $9.99)

Lone Survivor is a stylish game where you’re one of the few left living in a ruined city. This is decidedly not a survival horror game, it’s more of an adventure game that allows you to explore your zombie-filled Resident-Evil-ish surroundings at your leisure. While there is a main story, it’s the seemingly innocuous actions that you take along the way will shape your experience. Every bit of food you cook and eat, every human you help or harm, and even the paintings you decide to examine will come into play. While the story itself ends up being a little too vague and pretentious for my taste, the game made me more conscious of how I play games than any other game ever has. Add that self consciousness to a game that’s filled with terrifying faceless zombie creatures, and you have a game that’s worth the ten clams.

The Void (Steam, $9.99)

The Void is the place that souls get stuck in between life and death, a membrane populated by monstrous Brothers and manipulative Sisters. You appear in the void, your own nature a mystery, and discover that you can manipulate Color to shape this bleak world. There is enough Color in the Void to ascend one soul, will it be you? Or perhaps one of the Sisters?

That’s about as specific as I can get about this game. The Void is one of the most opaque games ever created; the very objective of the game is a mystery that’s revealed to you bit by bit. It’s ultimately a first person resource management game about not running out of Color, and it’s completely possible to play yourself into an unwinnable corner. Your only instruction on the game’s inner workings is through in-game characters that all have their own agendas. (Some will blatantly misinform you.) All that’s between you and Color-less non-existence is the suspect instructions of a birdcage shaped monster-Brother.

The feeling you get when playing The Void is enough to recommend it. It’s confusing, disturbing, and always captivating. You must surrender yourself completely to its fickle mechanics and be willing to get hurt along the way. Its strange agnostic view of game mechanics with disturbing aesthetics create one hell of a fever dream to survive. If you’re one of those that says they want a new experience in gaming, here it is, it’s worth it.

My Picks

Now keep in mind that these are just my choices. Scariness is a very personal thing and you may not agree. In fact, if you think I am full of crap, or that I missed an obvious game. Let me know in the comments! I could always use a new recommendation for a scary game.