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Indie Horror Games: Scary Survival Horror Titles to Terrify You

Many things can scare us. Is it creepy grimaces, horrible creatures, or much more the invisible, paranormal, which drives you crazy? We got you covered.

Felix Rauhut
By Felix Rauhut
Last updated:
Layers of Fear is a lot about painting, as illustrated in this screenshot: We are looking at a light gray stone wall with two rectangular wooden poles set into it at a certain distance. The gray wallpaper is torn off in many places, revealing the stone wall behind it. Several oil paintings of different sizes in various golden frames are mounted on the wall at different heights and distances. All the paintings are oil portraits of specific people. In the middle, slightly elevated, we see a grotesque portrait of a person whose bloody skull can be seen instead of the face. The frame of this painting is also soaked in blood at the bottom, which has already heavily run down the wallpaper and formed a red puddle on the floorboard below. The screenshot has a strong black vignetting so that the view falls clearly on the images and they are highlighted in terms of light.
Paintings in Layers of Fear (Source: Bloober Team)
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Halloween is knocking at the door. Do you have the courage to face the really nasty titles and survival horror games? To make sure you’re prepared for the 31st of October, we’ve picked out five indie horror games that will teach you to fear.

Face the self-experiment and find out what really frightens you. The time has come, after all, and Halloween is approaching. We hope our list will be useful for you.

 

5. Phasmophobia

In this game, you’ll go on a ghost hunt alone or in a team with up to four players. Together you’ll create a lobby, assemble your equipment, and start your investigation. You have to track down and identify many different ghosts at different locations with the appropriate equipment. But it is not that easy! You may not stay too long at one location. Otherwise, your mind will be in danger and haunted by ghosts. All the doors are going to be locked, and you’re trapped. Of course, the ghost is after you now, and he is striving for death.

Here we see a screenshot from the game Phasmophobia, in which the player is in a dark room with a display for paranormal activity. We are in the first-person perspective here and hold the meter in our right hand. The room is very dark and only somewhat lit by two ceiling lights. In front of us, a little lower, there is a running camera on a tripod that captures the room. In the center of the room are two wooden tables with wooden chairs and on the wall in the background is an abandoned slightly curved bar counter. To the left and right is a closed door, and further to the right is another hallway leading into absolute darkness. One of the particularly good indie horror games.
Phasmophobia (Source: Kinetic Games)

The game is available on PC, and you can purchase it via Steam.

 

4. Slender: The Arrival

This title embodies the Boogey-Man nightmare in its purest form! The sequel to the previously released short horror experience Slender: The Eight Pages takes the basic principles of its predecessor and combines them with higher audiovisual quality and immersion. Also, you’ll have to collect various objects while trying not to fall into Slenderman’s clutches. Indie horror games like “Slender: The Arrival” are especially convincing for their extremely creepy atmosphere, which can even make you feel a little paranoid.

Indie horror games like Slender: The Arrival are particularly terrifying, as this screenshot shows: You're standing in a forest with tall pine trees, and you can see the Slenderman in the distance as a large black silhouette, in the center of the image in a clearing. The image is heavily desaturated. The sky in the background is very bright, illuminating the grassy ground near the Slenderman. To the left and right of the image, the forest turns almost black, creating a sort of silhouette as an effect.
Slender: The Arrival (Source: Blue Isle Studios)

The title is available on PS3, PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Wii U, Android, iOS, and you can get it for PC via Steam.

 

3. The Forest

This survival horror is a mix between Ark and Minecraft. You have to survive on an island alone or with friends and set up a camp. Collect, hunt, or become the hunted: Because on this island live cannibals who want to find and kill you! Some of them follow you at a certain distance, find out where your base is, and wait for the right moment. Others attack you directly, and some even run away when you chase them. Survival horror games like The Forest are especially convincing because of their excellent AI and immersive experience.

In this survival horror game you have to survive in a forest and fight against cannibals, as seen in this screenshot: In first-person perspective, we catch sight of two cannibals armed with a Molotov cocktail and a lighter in daylight, which is shown in the image's middle ground on the right half of the screen. They look like primitive natives, are topless and only lightly accompanied by cloth, and with paintings on their faces and bodies. The right cannibal carries a kind of backpack, which consists of radially running arms. Both spot the player at that moment. The sun strongly floods the forest, which consists of many tall trees, with light. In the front, at the bottom right of the image, there is a shrub with leaves. The Forest is one of the most recommended indie horror games.
The Forest (Source: Endnight Games Ltd)

The game is available on PS4, PS5, and you can download it for PC via Steam.

 

2. DayZ

Another highly recommended survival horror is DayZ. After a zombie apocalypse, you’ll have to explore the areas in a huge open world and try to survive. Find weapons, food, and medicine, while you have to avoid zombies that are stalking you. The interaction with other players is especially exciting. How will you behave towards them and vice versa? Trust plays a significant role. In this survival horror shooter, it can never go wrong to team up with several players to possibly fight off enemy forces to avoid being killed or robbed. But it can also easily drift in the other direction too.

Try to fight for your life in one of the most popular survival horror games. In this screenshot, we can see the player in a third-person view in a Russian uniform and helmet, holding a Kalashnikov in his hand. He is in the middle of a gray, rainy, Russian city. In the center of the image, a zombie in a soldier's uniform is shown running toward the player who is about to shoot him with his rifle. To the left and right of him, dead zombies are already lying on the ground. In the background, you can see a bunker made of sandbags on the left, a large brass statue in the middle, and several trees around it on a lawn.
DayZ (Source: Bohemia Interactive Studio)

This game is available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and  can be purchased for PC via Steam.

 

1. Layers of Fear

Curtain up for a very special horror experience. In Layer of Fear, you can’t rely on anything, not even your own mind! You’ll dive into the story of an artist who lives in a mansion and wants to finish his painting, returning to his empty mansion. There you must follow various clues and solve puzzles, but the place is hopelessly cursed: Paintings transform when you look at them, or doors disappear that you just passed through. Indie horror games like Layers of Fear unleash your deepest fears precisely because you lose your sense of security and orientation and are thus thrown off your psychological balance. A masterpiece of horror.

In Layers of Fear, the pictures and doors are not what they seem, as this picture shows: A long wooden corridor. which runs straight from the front into the background, and can be seen in first-person perspective. There are blobs and traces of various garish oil paints all over the floor, ceiling, and wooden walls, very much in contrast to the rather dark room. At a certain distance, opposite wall sconces illuminate the corridor, which at the end runs into absolute blackness.
Layers of Fear (Source: Bloober Team)

This game is available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, Linux, iOS, and you can get the regular Edition for PC via Steam or immerse yourself even more with the VR edition on Steam.

 

In case you want to discover more creepy worlds

We invite you to check out our list of multiplayer horror games. Or are you looking for something exclusive? Then we have something special for you: The P.T. video game, a singleplayer jewel that was a teaser for a canceled Silent Hill game. A title that frightened us to our bones. Play it if you dare.

 

Beyond Indie Horror Games

If you’ve changed your mind and creepy isn’t your thing after all, then feel free to check out our list of the best Survival Games on PS4 / PS5, the best free FPS games, or have a look at our lists of the best free RPG games, games like Dark Souls, or the best RTS games.

What are you most afraid of in horror games? Feel free to let us know in the comments below.


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