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Somehow, it’s scarier to be stuck in the dark with only a meager beam of light to aid you as opposed to being in total pitch blackness. The flashlight has become a staple tool for horror games and, while it has been used in a variety of creative ways, they all share the common theme of going hand-in-hand with terrifying content.
Limited vision forces players to be extra attentive by squinting, leaning, and honing in on the action on a tiny fragment of their screen. Inevitably, this makes whatever upcoming jump-scare, strange noise from the woods, or chase scene all the more immersive.
8 Slender: The Eight Pages
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It’s been a long while since a free-to-play PC game was as influential, obsessed over, and strikingly minimalist as Slender: The Eight Pages. Players begin in an unassuming forest at night, with only a flashlight and the sound of their footsteps to accompany them. Navigating the forest, players must collect eight randomized pages whilst being stalked by the controversial, Creepypasta-born Slenderman. The ground-breaking 2012 game was a stark reminder of how less can often be more, leaving only you and your imagination in a dark woodland with a nightmarish stalker.
7 Left 4 Dead 2
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Despite not being an outright horror game, the FPS co-op zombie-slayer certainly had its spooky moments. Whether players were navigating abandoned hotels teeming with infected or running for their lives through wet and windy cornfields, having the flashlight equipped became not only quintessential to their survival but also their horror experience. Opening doors to pitch-black rooms only to unveil a hiding Witch or Boomer at the click of a button was made all the scarier when they were the sole occupant and focus of your screen, bordered by total darkness.
6 Dead Space
Regardless of their genre, games set in space nearly always share the element of eeriness. With that being said, when a game solely commits to being a horror experience set aboard an alien-infested spaceship, it can really ratchet up the terror. In Dead Space, resources are as scarce as light, both of which would be a great help in this unfortunate setting. Isaac is guided by the minimal glows and beams provided by his weapons, making surprise ambushes from Necromorphs even more panic-inducing and chaotic. These detriments to your vision make the fleeting encounters in combat increasingly isolating and amplify any feelings of helplessness.
5 The Forest
Not only does The Forest put you in a tricky enough place as it is, washed up on a cannibal-infested island with next to nothing for defense, but it also makes you dread the dark. This real-time survival horror forces players to prepare for nighttime, and consequently limited visibility if you’re not ready. Searching for his missing son when a plane crash leaves them stranded on a remote island, Eric is forced to fight to stay alive. He’s not alone on the island, as he’s stalked by a tribe of humans and deformed mutants that are intelligent in their approach. Whilst some exercise caution, others merely watch from afar, making nighttime encounters constantly unpredictable and terrifying.
4 Doom 3
Whilst Doom 3 remained faithful to the predecessors in the series in its hectic combat, roster of monsters, and superfluous gore, it also took a major step in another direction.
In 2004, Doom 3 was revealed to be much more focused on the survival horror elements, equipping players with flashlights as they explored the ruins of Mars-based research facilities overrun with havoc-wreaking creatures from hell. Though a daring move from developers id Software, the horror aesthetic of battling teeth-bearing, creepy-crawling beasts in pitch-black corridors not hugely dissimilar to Dead Space, was received to great acclaim, making the project one of id Software’s most profitable to date.
3 Blair Witch
It’s always a celebratory moment when a game adaptation of a movie lands successfully. This stealthy survival horror takes place in the setting of the 1999 classic The Blair Witch Project, the Black Hills Forest, where players search for a missing boy in the much-feared woodland. Just like the pitch black of space is a fitting setting for scares, the isolation and impenetrable darkness of a forest can also be absolutely terrifying. Your weak flashlight and dog, Bullet, are your accomplices as you ward off volatile, ghost-like apparitions whilst investigating the ever-thickening plot in the ever-thickening fog.
2 Outlast
Somehow, Outlast managed to up the ante even more in the sub-genre of flashlight horror gaming. Popularly regarded as one of the scariest games of all time, the asylum-set FPS horror put a twist on the flashlight mechanic, allowing players to illuminate their surroundings with a night vision camera instead of a torch.
Being able to see but not be seen added a major element of sweaty palm-inducing anxiety and breath-holding paranoia, and if that weren’t enough, you’re relying on batteries too before you plummet into total darkness with an array of cannibals, experiments-gone-wrong, and bloodthirsty killers. It's one of the ultimate found-footage-style videogames.
1 Silent Hill 2
This legendary, game-changing horror sequel sees players control James Sunderland as he looks for his dead wife in the town of Silent Hill. Whilst the game is almost completely free of jump scares, its devastating horror is powered by a psychologically-torturous plot, the unholiest of antagonists, an overwhelmingly dark and depressive tone, and some of the greatest, most unsettling ambient music you’ll ever hear in a game. Players are accustomed to this lack of clear vision though, given that the entire town of Silent Hill is shrouded in an impenetrable fog.