There's nothing better in this world than a well-made horror game. One that sucks you into its world immediately, places you on the edge of your seat from the second you boot it up, and keeps you engaged and on your toes until the end credits roll. Well, actually, there might be one thing better than a well-made horror game. A well-made horror game that is completely free to play. Such a thing might sound too good to be true, but rest assured, they're out there.
Some of them you've heard of, some of them you haven't, some of them you might not have even realized were horror games. But in a genre where each horror experience starts to blend into the last, eight games stand out as gems that won't cost you a dime.
8 Slender And The Eight Pages
Before the onslaught of lets plays and memes and even the production of a Hollywood movie, we just had Slender And The Eight Pages - a free-to-play horror game that, despite a cultural perception now tainted by the aforementioned movie, is actually pretty fun. The premise is simple enough. You, the protagonist, are in a dark forest, trying to acquire all eight hidden pages placed throughout.
The catch is that you will be constantly hunted after finding your first page by Slenderman, whose pursuit becomes more and more aggressive the closer you get to your goal. It's one of the original cultural phenomenon horror games, and it still stands as a fun time for the low price of zero dollars.
7 Project H
Who said that puzzles couldn't be scary? Project H is a free-to-play indie game from HollowPixels that takes everything you know about the horror genre and directly challenges it, while still managing to create a spooky and engaging experience. It may fool you by presenting itself with a charming, pixelated art style.
It breaks the traditional trope of horror games by making you think fast and focus on brain-teasers rather than simply running away from whatever antagonist you might be facing. And Project H stands out amongst the sea of horror games because of all this. Basically, it's like a virtual escape room, with a spirit that constantly changes the environment around you in little ways.
6 Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion
Engrained in the horror genre is the simple fact that, through its reliance on jump scares, unsettling imagery, and psychological torture, it's not a genre for the faint of heart. That said, if you feel like you're missing out a bit on the thrill and excitement that horror video games bring to the table, you might be brave enough to try out Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion from Lag Studios.
This is a horror game, no question about it, with elements throughout its playtime used as building blocks of the game. But with its cutesy art style and joke-based approach to the genre, you might find it as a nice starting point into horror games - just be warned that the intensity does ramp up as the game progresses.
5 Port of Call
Port of Call is the kind of game that hits the ground running and never looks back. All of the feelings you could anticipate from a horror game experience, feelings like unease, confusion, and a constant 'on-your-toes' vibe are here in Underdog Games' Port of Call - and it won't cost you a cent to see for yourself.
The game is a quick, story-driven experience that will have you asking questions about who you are and where you are from the first minute, and continues to ramp up the intensity from there. And with a unique and unsettling art style, it is a breath of fresh air as a video game in a crowded genre.
4 Fears To Fathom - Home Alone
Fears To Fathom - Home Alone puts a spin on the horror game genre by using episodic releases focusing on a new playable protagonist in each episode. Only one episode is available on Steam as of writing from this debut release from indie developer Rayll, but that debut episode gets the job done by playing on the universal insecurity of feeling completely alone in a tense situation.
In order to make it out alive, Fears To Fathom - Home Alone will require you to play the right way and make the right choices.
3 Doki Doki Literature Club
If you know, you know. And if you don't know, well, maybe you're a bit surprised to see Doki Doki Literature Club on a list of the best free horror games. Some of the greatest, most effective horror properties in pop culture excel because they lure you into a world that, at first, seems innocent enough. The 2017 movie Get Out begins as nothing more than a man traveling to meet his girlfriend's parents for the first time. The indie-horror video game Five Nights At Freddy's takes place entirely in a children's restaurant.
And the 2017 game Doki Doki Literature Club presents itself just like any other dating-based, visual-novel simulation you've seen buried on the depths of Steam's indie page dozens of times over. But there's more than meets the eye with this one.
2 SCP Containment Breach
Metacritic's page for SCP Containment Breach doesn't have a single critic review, but that hasn't stopped user reviews from getting this fan-favorite horror game to a level of fame. The 2012 release from Joonas Rikkonen has stood the test of time as a stellar horror experience, and a free-to-play one at that.
SCP Containment Breach is based around the idea of an attempt to escape from a secret facility that is undergoing a complete containment breach. The game will place you in an oppressive atmosphere and bring you in contact with haunting supernatural creatures in a way that only the best horror video games can.
1 Reminiscence
Reminiscence doesn't necessarily reinvent the wheel, but it does add a unique gameplay element to the horror genre to make it an engaging experience. Specifically, Reminiscence allows the player to rewind and jump through time in a race against the clock to save your family. Now, the mastery of time and space might sound like an absolute win - but it's in those time manipulation moments that the horror part of the game comes into play.
Supernatural beings that lay in the area between time and space will be blocking your attempts at heroism, manipulating the environment, and hunting you down as you try your best to use your powers for good.