Horror is a genre that doesn’t let any kind of game escape without it, even hidden object games. Despite many hidden object games not being scary, if you look close enough, it’s almost the perfect setting for horror— searching for clues to a murder, for example, or trying to find the materials you need to escape from something before it gets to you.
One of the easiest ways to scare someone is to make them paranoid, often tricking them into thinking they saw something out of the corner of their eye, and a game where the entire purpose is to search the screen for something is the perfect place to lay these traps.
10 Grim Tales: The Bride
When your sister vanishes without a trace on her wedding day, only you can find the truth in Grim Tales: The Bride. Everyone thinks she’s dead, but everyone has a different idea of how, from drowning to a car crash. However, her body hasn’t been discovered. It will take a trip to the abandoned family mansion to find the clues you need to solve her disappearance and hopefully find her again. With a mix of hidden object levels and horror game puzzles, there’s a lot of gameplay to enjoy.
9 Dark Asylum: Mystery Adventure
In Dark Asylum: Mystery Adventure, you’re investigating the strange happenings at the local asylum. This physiological horror will make you speak to some of the current inmates to progress your investigation.
Still, as you search through room after room, the distant screams and occasional random whispers when no one is near begin to be a hindrance. Combining adventuring and hidden object games, a lot is awaiting you when you try to solve the mystery of the asylum.
8 The Curse of Silent Marshes
If you ever want to be scared of your own home, The Curse of Silent Marshes is for you. When you return home for a visit, things take a turn for the worst rather quickly when the power goes out and a creepy clown attacks. This spirit takes your friends away and leaves you alone. It’s up to you to solve this mystery and save them, completing multiple hidden object levels to find everything you need. Can you save your friends before it’s too late?
7 Fear For Sale: The Curse Of Whitefall
In Fear For Sale: The Curse of Whitefall, you’re sent to investigate a hotel construction site in Alaska when paranormal occurrences have halted its construction. The investigation quickly turns when you begin to see dark apparitions, and suddenly, you find yourself transported into the past.
Now trapped in an old mining town, you must figure out a way to keep history from repeating itself to save yourself and get the hotel’s construction up and running again. With hidden object levels and other puzzles to lead you along, do you have what it takes to escape?
6 Haunted Hotel: Death Sentence
Haunted Hotel: Death Sentence is just one game in a long series of hidden object horror games. You and your friend, James, have worked together now for several years, solving all kinds of mysteries, mainly in the supernatural. However, things change when you get a letter written by James that claims he’s dead, pointing you to the Holy Mountain Hotel for answers. When you arrive; however, you find it’s completely abandoned. Dig deeper into the mystery to try and see if your partner really is dead and if you can find the person responsible for bringing you here.
5 Phantasmat 3: The Endless Night
The Phantasmat hidden object series brings Phantasmat 3: The Endless Night as a horror story on prom night. You’re taking your daughter to her high school prom when something terrible happens. However, you quickly discover secrets about your hometown that you never knew before.
Play through a combination of hidden object levels and puzzles throughout the game as you manage to bend time, try to solve a 50-year-old mystery, and save yourself and your daughter in the process.
4 Maze: Subject 360
Waking up with no memory is a classic horror trope that Maze: Subject 360 utilizes. As the titular subject 360, you are welcomed to the maze by a mysterious child-like voice. The task of escaping the maze might seem straightforward enough, but the threat and mystery surrounding the maze and the small town outside it bring danger to each twist and turn. Will you make the right choices and manage to escape, or will you become a victim of the maze?
3 Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst
Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst is set in the Ravenhearst Manor, which has been surrounded by various rumors for decades. Recently, the diary of Emma Ravenhearst was uncovered, and it may hold the key to figuring out the truth behind the manor.
The only issue is pages are missing. Take on the detective role in this story and enter the manor to search for these pages, along with other clues that will help you discover the story and, eventually, the entire mystery of the manor.
2 Bonfire Stories: The Faceless Gravedigger
The first of several games in a series, Bonfire Stories: The Faceless Gravedigger, takes place in the abandoned Quiet Grove resort. After several guests disappeared years ago, rumors blamed a figure known only as the faceless gravedigger. However, without any bodies to find and no evidence, the case went cold for years until you and your partner arrived in search of a news story.
Not only do you discover that everything surrounding the disappearances was true; you also now have to escape from the faceless gravedigger themself, who is chasing after you now that you’ve found their secret. Try to escape from this terrifying situation or find yourself becoming another victim, never to be found.
1 True Fear: Forsaken Souls
The psychological thriller True Fear: Forsaken Souls brings you into a thick, blinding fog on a street you don’t recognize. When you pause and see a house with candles flickering in the windows, something compels you to walk up to the house, finding it’s sealed shut and has been for several years. However, a presence you feel is trapped inside it, waiting for you. With twists and turns waiting at every corner, choose your way through the house and rediscover your past.