One of the most important factors in deciding if a horror game is good is the immersion it can create. If the game can’t make you feel immersed in its world, it’s gonna have a very hard time scaring you. So, we’re gonna take a look at some VR games, which are really good at transporting you into the game’s world.
15. Narcosis
Narcosis is a game that places you deep in the Pacific ocean. During the game, your goal is to find a way to escape before your oxygen runs out or before something hostile makes its way to you.
During the entire game, you will keep finding your dead coworkers and you will learn of their (usually gruesome) cause of death which is a great way to up the stakes. Each of the ways they have died could have just as well happened to you in this highly dangerous environment.
The game does a good job of making you feel alone and endangered. Just being that deep underwater is scary in and of itself, but there’s also deep-sea life you need to worry about on your adventures.
14. The Inpatient
Inpatient is a prequel to the well-known game Until Dawn. It’s a first-person interactive drama more than a game. Our protagonist wakes up in a restraining chair. He can’t remember much of his past. He gets taken into his room where he is informed he is a patient of the Blackwood Sanitorium.
The next day, our protagonist gets a roommate, who’s the core of the gameplay. You will talk with your roommate and do mundane tasks which shape the course of the game. The choices you make seem minor but have an impact on the ending.
The game is a very short experience, lasting only about 2 hours, but it’s nice to see the Until Dawn lore become larger. The game may be a bit slow for some people’s taste, but it’s an interesting journey nonetheless.
13. Affected: The Manor
Affected: The Manor is a simple game that lets you freely explore a creepy haunted house. Although the game takes only around 20 minutes to beat, it features multiple pathways you can explore if you’re not satisfied with only 20 minutes of gameplay.
The game doesn’t have much of a story, its sole purpose is to let you, the player, explore its haunted house. And the game has done that well. As you explore, every room feels dreadful. You know you’re either gonna get jump-scared, or there’s gonna be a loud noise or there might even be a creepy kid laughing somewhere. You are never safe.
12. Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul
Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul is a game that throws you into a haunted house with a flashlight and lets you figure out how to survive on your own. The game boasts the fact that there’s no HUD or any on-screen directions that break immersion. It’s a short game with decent graphics and amazing unexpected spooks.
The game has a unique story based on the Paranormal Activity mythology. The game always makes you feel like you are not alone and like you’re constantly being watched and followed. You will always feel like there’s a scare around every corner waiting for you to let your guard down.
11. Five Nights At Freddy’s: Help Wanted
Well everyone that knows Five Nights At Freddy’s games knows why this game is on the list. The game follows the classic fnaf formula in which you are a late-night caretaker of a Freddy’s Fazbear pizzeria. The animatronics progressively become more and more hostile towards you and it’s your goal to survive five nights in this dangerous environment.
Any game in this franchise is a great idea since you don’t wanna get jump-scared by the creepy animatronics when you play on a monitor or a TV, but the stakes are VERY high if the animatronics pop up straight at your face at point-blank range.
10. A Chair In A Room: Greenwater
A Chair In A Room: Greenwater is a game that has you explore a few seemingly unconnected and noncoherent rooms while you solve puzzles. But due to its masterful soundtrack and great storytelling that at times asks more questions than it answers, it’s a genuinely horrific experience.
This short and simple game came out in 2016. It’s not one of the AAA horror games that everyone has heard of and loves - but it still boasts high production value and an amazing story.
As you play through the 6 chapters of this game, you will constantly feel uneasy. It’s a game that takes a step away from jump scares and “cheap tricks” and thoroughly scares you through its ambiguous atmosphere and storytelling.
9. Layers Of Fear
Layers of Fear is a game that was released in 2016. It was a pretty popular horror game due to the way it handled the storytelling and the everchanging victorian era atmosphere that made you always feel lost. It’s a game with a heavy emphasis on first-person exploration, so it was a perfect fit for a new VR version that it got 3 years later.
Making Layers Of Fear in VR means that all of the creepiness that came with the first one was heavily amplified since they both focus on atmospheric scares. Playing through this game feels like every next step you take plunges you deeper and deeper into chaos, and getting to play that in VR is as immersed as you can get.
8. Phasmophobia
Phasmophobia is a bit of a big name in the multiplayer horror niche. It’s a great game about exploring a haunted house with your friends (or random people online) and trying to find out who’s the entity that’s nesting itself in that house. Take on the role of paranormal investigators and explore creepy scenery with even creepier ghosts.
This game integrates well with VR. Exploring the house becomes a bit more immersive. The ghosts in the game are creepy, so the added focus will make playing the game quite interesting.
7. Here They Lie
Here They Lie is a game that starts off making you think you’re about to play a slightly creepy horror game about a protagonist that chases his lost love. Soon, however, you will realize that Here They Lie is a game about humanity’s sickness, humanity’s horrific tendencies.
Here They Lie was one of the games that were launched with PSVR. It’s not a well-known title, but it can boast high-quality gameplay. The game is mostly monochromatic and its world is made to make you want to explore it. You have the freedom to explore at your own pace and see the dirty reality this game’s world has in store.
6. Wilson’s Heart
Wilson’s Heart is a game in which you play as Robert Wilson as he wakes up in a seemingly abandoned hospital, wearing nothing but a hospital gown. Soon enough, you will start exploring the hospital and realize that the game’s story has MANY layers that you need to slowly unravel to fully understand the story.
The game is monochromatic, which is a genius design idea. The lack of color allows the VR consoles (which are way weaker than normal consoles) to have a higher level of detail. It also sets the mood similar to the older black and white horror movies like Nosferatu and Frankenstein.
The game’s main focus is the story. So it’s a great thing that the authors focused on telling the story innovatively and effectively. Everything works together - the color scheme, the sound design, and even minor objects you might not even notice work as a tool for storytelling.
5. Blair Witch
Blair Witch was released in 2019. At the same time, a similar version has been released for VR consoles. It’s not just a port that you play closer to your face, it’s the same story reimagined to best compliment the VR systems.
Since Blair Witch takes place in the Black Hills forest as you (and your cute dog Bullet) search for a missing kid, it’s certainly a great concept for a VR game.
Exploring the forest is creepy enough in the non-VR version. Besides the great story, the game’s best asset is the creepy atmosphere that’s a given when you’re exploring a pitch-black forest with a wicked entity hidden somewhere.
4. Lies Beneath
Lies Beneath is an eye-grabbing survival horror game with a unique comic book aesthetic and a well-thought-out atmosphere. It keeps the classic survival horror game aspects like resource management and it manages to build tension with its sound design and the foggy atmosphere.
The game’s art style speaks to me. It’s beautiful and unique and it works in the given setting. The combat has a focus on shooting, that’s always entertaining to do in VR. Seeing only 2 red dots in the fog before an enemy pops out is a great design choice that will always spook you a bit.
Getting to play this in VR is something I would recommend to everybody. The game does a great job of making you feel like you are in a completely different world. It completely succeeds in making you feel like you are playing a comic book.
3. Resident Evil 7
What do you get when you combine Resident Evil 7 - one of the best-received horror games in the past few years, and VR? You get a thrilling experience that will spook you with its great tension-building, claustrophobic map design, and startling jump scare.
Resident Evil 7 is a first-person survival horror game that starts with our main character Ethan going to a weird house in Dulvey because he got a message from his wife Mia who was presumed dead. Soon after arriving, he realizes he has gotten himself in a lot of trouble, as the homeowners show their true, grim nature.
2. Half-Life Alyx
The first 2 Half-Life Games have always been well-rated and are widely regarded as some of the best games ever made. The fans have waited for a long time for Half-Life 3 but instead got this game. Somehow, it still managed to blow everyone’s expectations away even though it had to compete with its 2 predecessors.
Half-Life Alyx has one of the most detailed and high-quality graphics I have seen in a VR game. Both the puzzle segments and the shooting parts are very crisp and HIGHLY enjoyable.
Half-Life may be one of the best science fiction worlds to adapt into a VR game due to its wide variety of creepy enemies, and the most notable - face-huggers that will lunge at your face.
1. The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners
The Walking Dead is one of the most well-known zombie franchises in all of existence. The comic series has had many game iterations, but none as brutal and immersive as this one.
The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is a first-person survival horror game in which you have to scavenge tools and supplies each day while avoiding or murdering your way through the zombie hordes. The game gives you the freedom to play at your own pace, there are many different types of weapons which are all very unique. Every melee weapon has a different animation, speed, and damage and their weight feels real.
This is a game that perfectly uses the VR console to completely immerse you into its world. There’s a decently long campaign, amazing weapons, and even story choices that make you even more invested in what you’re doing.
