Ah, ghosts, the eternal epitome of all things spooky (right next to zombies and skeletons). From poltergeists to the more friendly variety, every culture around the globe has its fair share of ghost stories. After all, who hasn’t wondered about the afterlife before? And who hasn’t once thought about the possibility that, even now, an invisible, ethereal force has its eyes on you?
By that logic, it’s only natural that their presence would bleed through into pop culture and media, spanning across countless genres. But how have ghosts fared in the wide world of video games? Surprisingly well, actually. It takes a bit more coding for humans to replicate their innate supernatural powers, but don’t be mistaken. These titles are sure to leave you possessed.
9 Geist: Haunted By Its Hardware
In a military retrieval operation gone wrong, the mysterious Volks Corporation captures scientist John Raimi and, using experimental technology, tears John’s soul from his body. This proves to be their undoing, as it gives him the power he needs to oppose them and any demons hell-bent on world conquest.
In Geist, you can only stay incorporeal for so long before you have to find a host (usually a soldier) to possess, and you need to scare them first. Thankfully, you’re a poltergeist, so scaring comes easy. Throw objects, turn faucet water blood-red, jumpscare through reflections, and more.
8 Murdered: Soul Suspect: A Film Noir, But With Demons
Detective Ronan O’Conner got a bit more than he bargained for the night he tried to stop a burglary and lost his life in the process. Now reborn as a ghost, Ronan cannot rest until his killer is brought to justice. He’ll use every trick in the book to find out who did it, plus a few new tricks he picked up while dead.
Murdered: Soul Suspect is a game all about unraveling mysteries. To solve the case, you’ll have to thoroughly comb the town of Salem for clues, all while avoiding dangerous demons that want to steal your soul.
7 The Outbound Ghost: A Classic Formula, Back From The Dead
In the small town of Outbound, ghosts live out their afterlives, only kept from moving on by their own regrets. In The Outbound Ghost, it’s your job to help your fellow ghosts resolve their pasts or help them come to terms with their deaths, so they can leave Outbound for greener pastures. In the process, you might just piece together your memories and move on as well.
Taking cues from the Paper Mario series of old, The Outbound Ghost will have you running through a 2.5D world, taking care of baddies in turn-based combat, and performing quests of both the weird and wacky variety. If you’re looking for a game that breathes new life into a familiar gameplay loop, this is the game for you.
6 Flipping Death: A Hilarious Body-Hopping Adventure
Flipping Death is the kind of puzzle platformer where one weird coincidence leads to a chain reaction of absolutely absurd proportions. You play as Penny, an unfortunate teen who not only falls to her death shortly after the game starts but discovers that her body is being possessed by an unknown dark force.
Fortunately, The Grim Reaper left you his scythe when he went on vacation, and you can use it to possess various townsfolk, each with their own special skills. Swap seamlessly between the lands of the living and dead to get your body back, or just pop in for a bit to hear some innermost thoughts. It's not a particularly long or challenging game, but its fantastic writing and grim sense of humor will definitely get you.
5 Haunting, Starring Polterguy: Scare Their Socks Off!
Released by EA all the way back in 1993 for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis (and later ported to the PSP in 2006) Haunting has you play as, well, Polterguy, a rebellious teenage ghost with a vengeance to enact on the unsuspecting Sardini family.
Your goal is to scare them out of the house, and you do this through “Fright ‘ems,” little tricks you can do on everyday objects to turn them terrifying. Some you prep, then wait for a family member to trigger, while others let you take direct control and chase your poor victim around the room. You'll have to be quick and think on your feet, though, because once your Ecto Meter runs out, you must play through a dangerous Underworld level to get back to the house.
4 Grimm’s Hollow: Short, Sweet, Spooky, And Surprisingly Emotional
In this short RPG Maker game, you play as Lavender, the spirit of a recently deceased young woman who is technically a reaper and not a ghost, but in the context of this world, the two are one and the same.
In Grimm’s Hollow, ghosts are spirits with too much energy to pass on, and that energy makes them violent. On the other hand, reapers are spirits with too little energy to pass on, but by fighting and harvesting energy from the ghosts, both of them are able to pass on.
The game has a heartfelt story about family and grief at its core, with a total of four different endings. It’s free to play on Steam, so there’s no reason not to give this game a shot.
3 Dead By Daylight: Leave No Survivors
Dead by Daylight is a game famous for letting you hunt down your friends as one of many Killers, with antagonists inspired by (and sometimes directly pulled from) famous horror movies. As a Killer, your job is to appease the Entity by sacrificing each and every Survivor before they can escape the Trial Grounds. Needless to say, the whole game revolves around the Killer.
There’s a wide range of Killers available to play, so if you’re looking to play as a terrifying ghost, you’ve got plenty of options, such as The Spirit, aka Rin Yamaoka, or The Wraith, aka Philip Ojoma. You can even play as Sadako Yamamura, the famous vengeful Onryo from The Ring! In general, these ghosts specialize in movement and stealth, able to catch off guard even the most experienced of Survivors.
2 Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective: Saving Lives with Household Objects
In this stylish cult classic on the Nintendo DS, you play as a ghost named Sissel. After waking up in a dump without any memories of who he once was, Sissel learns that by possessing the bodies of the recently deceased, he can travel back in time to exactly four minutes before they died. Using this power, he saves the life of Lynne, a detective investigating Sissel’s death.
You’ll be saving lives a lot during your playthrough, and you’ll do so by moving from object to object, animating them in just the right order and at just the right time to change the course of fate. The process may seem a little trial and error at first, but every failed attempt gives you more knowledge about how the scene will play out. Use that knowledge to your advantage the next time around.
1 Spiritfarer: Who Says Ghosts Can’t Give Warm Hugs?
Described by its developers as “a cozy management game about dying,” Spiritfarer is a game full of life and love. You play as Stella, a new Spiritfarer (and Player Two can play as Stella’s cat, Daffodil.) As a Spiritfarer, your job is to bring ghosts aboard your boat, build them a home, and take care of them to the best of your abilities. Eventually, they will be ready to pass on from the world, and you must say farewell to them forever.
Despite living in a world of spirits, Stella’s status as a ghost isn’t explicitly stated until near the end of the game. In life, she was a nurse specializing in end-of-life care and despite her child-like appearance, is implied to have lived to roughly her early '40s. Even in the afterlife, Stella hasn’t stopped taking care of others.