Horror games, much like their film counterparts, fall into a niche genre experience that is supported in large part by a very loyal and active fan base. The most recent generation of video game consoles sees the release of more games annually than we've seen in previous generations.

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The PlayStation 4 is home to many great gaming experiences, and if you're simply looking for horror games it's home to some of the best the genre has ever seen. Due to the nature of the medium horror games come in many different shapes and sizes. Let's take a look at the best horror games on the PlayStation 4.

Updated October 01, 2023 By Matthew Mckeown: It's a great time to be a horror fan and a console owner. There have been so many great spooky games added over the years since our last check-in, so it's worth catching up as you definitely should have some of these on your console.

Whether it’s a game made of small-team indie scares or big-budget terror rides, there's something for every horror aficionado. If you're looking for great games filled with great stories, horrifying ghouls, and other nightmare scenarios that will keep you up at night, then here's an updated look at some best horror games on PS4, ranked.

15 Little Nightmares

Little Nightmares: A Scary Encounter With The Giant Butcher

You've likely never considered the possibility of a 2-dimensional platformer delivering a top-notch horror experience. In Little Nightmares, you play as a small child trying to escape this awful world that surrounds her. The art style and design of the horrid people that live in this machination of terror will make your stomach hurt.

Players will feel fear and fright not only in the grotesque imagery but in the immersion of playing as a character much smaller than the people around her. It's like a dwarf trying to escape the land of giants, only the giants were designed by Tim Burton and Wes Craven.

14 The Evil Within

The Evil Within: Murphy Encounter Safe Head In The Nightmare Realm

Shinji Mikami, the man responsible for Resident Evil and Dino Crisis, formed Tango Gameworks with the hopes of tackling the survival horror genre once again. The Evil Within was the studios first release and the moment they released the first trailer for the game, fans across the globe new Mikami was back with a vengeance.

The Evil Within pays heavy tribute to Resident Evil while giving fans a new disturbing world to play around in. It features new devilish creature designs that invoke characteristics of Pyramid Head from Silent Hill or the dogs from Resident Evil.

13 Visage

Visage: A Ghost Wearing A Sheet In The Dark Living Room

Visage is a title that may not yet be fully released but is heavily inspired by the phenomenon known as P.T. There was a bevy of indie horror games that tried to ride the wave of the Silent Hill demo that took Youtube and the gaming world by storm.

Visage takes place in a home and features high-quality environments and plenty of scares. The game's mechanics rely on light and if the player spends too much time in the dark their sanity begins to slip and the supernatural events occur at shorter intervals. Visage is a great horror experience.

12 Alien Isolation

Little Nightmares: Using The Motion Tracker In An Space Station Hallway

After the release of Aliens: Colonial Marines, fans were very skeptical of any new game from the beloved 80s franchise. Though Alien: Isolation didn't release to fantastic critical reception it did manage to deliver a unique and disturbing horror experience.

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Alien became such a hit because people were truly terrified by Xenomorphs. Alien: Isolation allows players to feel what it's like to run and hide from the alien predators. There's even a mode where the speaker in your controller can pick up sounds and if you're not quiet enough it will alert the alien of your location.

11 Layers of Fear

Layers Of Fear: An Unsettling Encounter With The Shadow Ghost

Many people consider art to be confusing and overrated. Abstract art tends to be the one that draws the most disdain and confusion from people trying to figure out why people like or enjoy it. Layers of Fear is a horror game that follows the story of an artist struck by tragedy and personal demons.

Everyone at one point in their life has come across a piece of art that's off-putting or makes them irrationally uncomfortable for some reason. Layers of Fear plays on this general experience in brilliant ways. It recently saw the release of a sequel as well in 2019.

10 Observation

Observation: Watching Astronauts For Any Strange Changes

Observation is one of the newer releases on this list seeing as it came out in the first half of 2019. It's a science-fiction horror game where you play as the artificial intelligence of a space station. You work alongside an astronaut aboard the space station and your focus is on figuring out what happened to the other astronauts.

As the story unfolds the tension builds and you start to question everything you've done. It's a neat perspective to play for a sci-fi game and it makes use of the player's strengths and weaknesses of playing as a piece of technology as opposed to an actual human being.

9 Outlast

Outlast: A Surprise Attack By One Of The Asylums Test Subjects

Outlast in many ways was the catalyst for an entire sub-genre of horror video games. In Outlast you're trying to escape an insane asylum with nothing but your wits and a video recorder. The main mechanic of the game revolves the video recorder being used as a light to visual guide you through the game.

Its batteries drain the more you use it so gathering and stocking up on new batteries is a big part of the experience. There's also follow-up downloadable content for Outlast as well as a sequel that follows a brand new protagonist if you happen to enjoy your time with this game.

8 Amnesia: The Bunker

Amnesia: The Bunker - A Confrontation With The Bunker Beast

A successful follow-up in the Amnesia series, The Bunker took the familiar formula and locked it inside a small World War One bunker that had become the hunting grounds of a Mole-like monstrosity known as The Beast. You play a lone French soldier trapped within this deadly Rabbit Warren and with the exit blocked by rubble, trying to escape is going to be a hard task.

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The Bunker is pitch black, your fuel to keep the lights on is limited and every noise you make draws the ire of the resident man-mulching monster. The game itself is fairly short, but there’s some unique replayability in that non-key items will change position on each playthrough.

7 Resident Evil 7

Resident Evil 7: Trapped With The Family At Dinner

Resident Evil Seven was a return to the original formula that made the franchise so popular. It returned to its survival horror roots and stepped away from the ongoing action focus that upset fans of the series as the franchise continued to move away from horror with each new mainline installment.

Despite returning to the classic formula it made the bold decision to be entirely played from the first-person perspective. The game has players traveling to a home estate in the backwoods of Louisiana in search of your missing girlfriend.

6 Signalis

Signalis: Elster Fighting Cybernetic Mutants In A Laboratory

A love letter to the horror game genre, Signalis is a spooky Indie game from Rose-Engine that’s chock-full of nods and references to cult classic horror games. Plus it’s got a great hook and dark setting that will keep you pushing on to the end of this strange cosmic mystery.

Set in the far future, humanity has discovered a dark secret. On the far-off Government Facility, you awaken as Elster, a humanoid Android Technician. Stranded on this strange planet and inside a building filled with mutations, it’s up to Elster to journey into the heart of the station to face the evil mystery monster below that’s behind it all.

5 Alan Wake

Alan Wake: Alan Watching The Darkness Manipulate Cars

A literary adventure into the metaphorical and literal darkness. Alan Wake is a cult-classic horror game that took an interesting look at the haunted, tortured author trope and made it into a third-person survival horror game set in the haunted pines of Bright Falls.

Feeling like a mixture between a Stephen King novel and Twin Peaks, you play as the titular Mr. Wake. Who after visiting a quiet town to finish writing his novel, unleashes a dark demonic entity upon the town. With the only safety from this eldritch nightmare being in the light, what follows is a rollercoaster adventure into a reality-warping nightmare realm. Plus, with the well-received Remaster making the rounds and a sequel shortly about to drop, now is the perfect time to take a trip to

4 Until Dawn

Until Dawn: A Character Grabbed And About To Be Killed By A Wendigo

Horror games had stuck to a pretty familiar structure for a long time. The genre itself is very niche and fans have always yearned for refreshing experiences that invented new ways to scare the player. Until Dawn mixed survival horror with a consequential choose-your-own-adventure game and knocked it out of the park.

Players take control of several young adults spending the weekend out at a log cabin. It's considered one of the best games to play with friends because instead of yelling at a screen because someone did something dumb in a horror movie, you're actively choosing what the best action to take is.

3 Soma

Soma: Simon Observing A Structure Gel Mutation In Qaurantine

Experience an existential nightmare deep below the waves in the far future. Set on a ruined Earth, Soma throws you into the literal deep end as you play as Simon, a man out of time who’s awoken on a ruined underwater Research Station.

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The resident A.I has gone rampant and what’s left of the crew is roaming the halls and ripping apart anyone that comes close. The only way out is to go deeper, so try and keep that Thallasophobia at bay as the depths become darker and the creatures more twisted, larger, and deformed. With an ending that will leave you shaken, Soma is a well-crafted dive into terror and existential dread.

2 Dead By Daylight

Dead By Daylight: Survivors Attempting To Repair A Generator Together

An asymmetrical horror game with a massive roster of monsters and celebrity cameos, Dead By Daylight is a great spooky game to have on your console. Especially around Halloween as there’s usually a special event or new character drop to celebrate the scariest time of the year.

For those not familiar, Dead By Daylight pits a team of Survivors versus a Killer. The arenas can be small or sprawling, but the goal is Survivors have to repair Generators to power up an Exit Gate, whilst the Killer has to stop them. There are a lot of bizarre powers, helpful passives or skills, and the ability to mix and match to get your own unique build once you put a good bit of time into the game. Great on your own and better with friends, Dead By Daylight is definitely worth trying.

1 Bloodborne

Bloodborne: The Hunter And Eileen The Crow Taking On The Cleric Beast

A big hit from Fromsoftware that took their tried and tested Dark Souls core gameplay and filtered it through a Lovecraft lens. Trapped within a nightmare with even death giving no release from your torment, your only hope is to survive the Beast Hunt and figure out the mystery at the heart of this unending curse.

Unlike previous Fromsoftware Souls games where a slower sword and board approach is preferred, Bloodborne cranked things up a notch. The gameplay’s faster, the monsters are more aggressive, and with health regenerating through damage it was a great refresh to the Souls franchise. A highly recommended must-play game with a DLC side-story that’s also worth checking out.

NEXT:The Best Horror Games For Beginners