Open world horror games are truly one of the best things that happened to the video game industry. they didn’t take much time to dominate many franchises. They never disappoint with their large-scale worlds and frightening settings. The open world horror genre put many games on the map, and redeemed many others from their former failures. With that said, we wanted to give you our list of the top 10 best open world horror games that millions have enjoyed across the years.
10) The Evil Within 2
The Evil Within 2 is a third-person survival horror game where You play as the former detective, Sebastian Castellanos who realizes that he has a chance of redeeming himself and rescuing his daughter, Lily from a town called Union, which is simulated inside the Stem system.
You see, The Evil Within franchise is not even classified as open world. But when The Evil Within 2 took a disturbing and troublesome town simulation, and turned it into an unearthly world with different key areas to explore and suffer, it proved itself to be something unusually unique and ambitious.
Union is an unsettling world that seems to always find a way to make your experience more unsettling if not traumatizing.
One thing that’s for sure about The Evil Within 2 is that it’s definitely hard to forget. You’ll definitely find it a challenge to focus on your finding your daughter while struggling around this world and trying your best to keep it out of your nightmares.
You can play The Evil Within 2 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
9) S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat
S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat is an FPS survival horror game where you play as Major Alexander who is sent into the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exclusion zone to investigate a series of crashed helicopters.
The nuclear wasteland inside Ukraine is divided into three areas: Zaton, Yanov, and Pripyat. You’ll have to progress in the story to gain access to each one of them, but you may say that’s the beauty of it.
When you journey inside the Zone, you find it to be a living world where everything you do has a consequence.
It’s really unforgiving with everything trying to kill you from the Zombified Stalkers and the mutated creatures like the Chimera and Bloodsucker to actual people who’ll try to take advantage of you whenever the opportunity presents itself. Even as you go through the wasteland at night by yourself, something will at least be stalking you and waiting for a chance to creep up on you.
But fear not fellow stalkers! You see most people that you’ll encounter in the game are actually part of a stalker clan that can help you in your journey if you do good enough by them. There are nine of these, each with their own values, endgames, and privileges if you befriend them.
It’s not that easy to find a series of games that gave as much as the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games to this genre with matching consistency. In fact, you might as well play all of these games.
Each one of them is actually very faithful to the narrow field of open world horror games. They’ll definitely give you something to remember while you wait for the next one.
Oh! did I not mention that? The next installment in this franchise, S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2: Heart of Chernobyl is actually in development as we speak, and is set for release on April 28, 2022.
In the meantime, you can play S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat and all of its prequels on PC.
8) 7 Days to Die
7 Days to Die is an open-world survival horror game set in a zombie apocalypse where your goal is simply to survive this treacherous world for as long as you can.
In 7 Days to Die, you can craft everything from clothing and armor to weapons and tools. You can even build vehicles ranging from the Bicycle to 4×4 Truck and the Gyrocopter.
You get to build your own base by either establishing your home in a demolished building and upgrading it or taking it into your own hands to build yourself something from the ground up. Whatever the case, bases are really great in 7 Days to Die because you can always add defensive structures such as Auto Turrets and Traps.
It also wouldn’t be much of a surprise If you don’t feel safe settling somewhere like a sitting duck and waiting for zombies to attack you in large numbers every seven in-game days. Especially since the alternative would be to build yourself a car and take your chances in the wasteland out there.
You can play 7 Days to Die on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
7) Dying Light
Dying Light is a zombie survival horror game where you play as the undercover agent Kyle Crane who is sent by the GRE to the zombie-infested city of Harran to recover a file that was stolen from the agency.
When Crane parachutes down the streets of Harran, he gets ambushed by a couple of bandits who leave to be feasted on by the infected before he gets rescued by a friendlier group of survivors.
In a city where most people are infected with the zombie virus, the streets of Harran seem to be always ironically alive. It’s almost like an ongoing survival party where you never know what challenging undead foe you’re going to have to brutalize next.
And if you don’t want to walk down the streets, the sky is the limit since you can literally climb and run across anywhere and anything you feel like.
Though, everything changes by night. The seemingly endless types of zombies that you stumble upon by the day become less relevant at night. You become more focused on escaping the clutches of the Volatile infected who seem to always find a way to make your heart beat faster. They’re really not for the faint of heart.
Every time a player thinks he’s done everything in Dying Light, another thing pops up. It’s a ruthless world with a less bleak take on horror than the rest of the games on this list.
You can play Dying Light, and its bold DLC, The Following on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
6) Mist Survival
Mist Survival is a survival stealth game where you play as a viral outbreak survivor who’s immune to the virus that left the world dreadful and bleak.
You spend your days scavenging for components to help you build yourself a decent base and an apocalypse-worthy car to protect yourself from the waves of infected, bandits, and hostile wildlife.
You may get lucky and find a couple of survivors that you can help break out of a bandit camp, but one thing’s for sure, and it’s that once the mist comes, you’ll be running back home and praying that the infected who come with it don’t get their hands on you.
This vast, lonely world will have your heart racing as soon as you walk away from your tent. Everything has a chance at actually killing you in Mist Survival, including the weather, your injuries, and hunger, etc.
You can play Mist Survival on PC. So, don’t waste your chance, and check it out. It has already come a long way.
5) Metro 2033
Metro 2033 is an FPS survival horror game set in a post-apocalyptic Moscow. You play as Artyom. A silent Spartan Ranger who lives in one of the many underground metro stations. Your quest is to try and save the lives of the surviving semblance of humanity in Moscow by launching a wave of missiles at the enigmatic Dark Ones. Creatures that seem to prey on the mind and soul of humans.
Metro 2033 takes place in a post-apocalyptic Moscow. A nuclear catastrophe left the world inhospitable due to the high levels of radiation on the surface, and the mutated monsters that roam the earth, hunting the last of humanity at sight.
Your journey is no mere feat. As you go through the metros, you need to be as silent as you can because if you so much as stumble across one of the many types of mutated creatures, endless waves will follow. You also occasionally have to interact with people in metro stations, or hostile bases where you need to apply tactics, and strategy to either stealthily escape, or survive a shooting frenzy with the many self-oriented factions in the game.
Metro 2033 certainly accomplishes its goal of instilling fear in your heart by putting you toe to toe with many unforgettable waves of enemies that stalk you in the equally horrifying metro tunnels as your character Artyom narrates your morally endangered path in Morgan Freeman Style.
You can try to survive the tunnels of Metro 2033 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
4) Days Gone
Days Gone is an action-adventure survival horror game that really teases you at the beginning. It starts off like a promising The Last of Us knock-off, but then turns out to be really superior in what The Last of Us was lacking.
You play as Deacon ST. John. A bounty hunter in a post-apocalyptic Oregon. Two years after a global pandemic ends civilization as we know it, he discovers that his wife - whom he and his friend Boozer were forced to be separated with when the world fell into chaos – could still be alive.
Everywhere from the roads to the wilderness and local towns are overrun by Freakers (AKA zombies). And when they’re not, you still get to enjoy the fascinating environment that remains untouched for so long after the pandemic hit the world.
You stumble upon many Freakers and ruthless gang members on your journey. But you can always find your way out of the worst situations with the right strategy, and a lot of customizable weapons and traps. Not only that, but you also get to upgrade your set of skills, and your Drifter Bike in order to make more impact in the game.
Days Gone shines in a world where everything is dynamic. From the Freakers and their different mutations to the simpler things like the weather and local wildlife, everything in Days Gone leaves you in awe.
Whatever seems to be lacking in Days Gone’s narrative seems to be always made up for by its dynamic open world experience and feisty hostile encounters.
So, saddle up and hit the roads on Days Gone as you play it not only on PS4, but now, also on PC.
3) Subnautica
Subnautica is an open-world survival where you are the survivor of a spaceship crash in the ocean on an alien planet dubbed as planet 4546B. You craft, build, and investigate the whereabouts of your fellow crewmates in this vast alien planet and its underwater depths.
You always find yourself either in awe, or terrified by the mysteriously advanced accomplishments of the alien species who seem to have inhabited this planet, and the deep-sea creatures that make this ocean an eat-or-be-eaten environment.
Though, you’re also never lacking in equipment or preparations since you have more-than-capable technology at hand to build your own bases, vehicles; and craft weapons and tools that aid you in your fascinating exploration adventures.
Subnautica is a mysterious survival game that pits you against an unfamiliar world where you have to always make ends meet in order to maintain your livelihood.
What’s amazing about it is how its narrative works. Not all players go through its events in the same order. You’re totally free to explore this world at your own pace.
You can explore the world of Subnautica on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
2) Metro Exodus
Metro Exodus is the third installment in the FPS survival horror-based Metro series. It finds you roaming the post-apocalyptic Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan.
You play as the Spartan Ranger, Artyom who embarks on a journey to the east along with his wife Anna, and a group of fellow Spartan survivors aboard the Aurora train to find a safer place to settle than the nuclear wasteland of Moscow.
You journey across this beautifully horrifying world that spans a whole continent. But don’t be too distracted by the visual excellence of Metro Excellence. Everything here is trying to kill you from the creatures that horribly mutated along the years of the nuclear apocalypse, to the many hostile humans who will stop at nothing to become the superior factions.
You scavenge and craft your own weapons along the way, and do your best to survive this world where everything is dynamic in its own right, including day, and night; and weather.
The Metro series will always find its way into these lists, but what Metro Exodus has accomplished from tying the story of the whole series together to showcasing its independent magnificence as an FPS survival horror game is truly amazing.
You can play Metro Exodus on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
1) The Forest
The Forest is a survival horror game set in a peninsula where your plane mysteriously crashes. Your main goal here is to find your son who was kidnapped by one of the cannibals post-crash.
But your journey takes many turns that seem to have a tendency of always changing the scale, and direction of this story.
You craft your own armor, weapons, traps, and tools. You also get to build yourself a fully customizable base that you only need to make sure that it’ll stand against the waves of raiding inhabitants of the peninsula.
This peninsula is open to you for exploring to find out what happened to your son, any other crash survivors, and many cool weapons that are appropriately fit for surviving this enigmatic world.
Endnight Games really came a long way with The Forest. This game took the survival horror genre to a whole new standard, and seems to be completely ahead of its time.
You can explore the peninsula of The Forest on PS4, and PC.
The Forest is a survival horror game set in a peninsula where your plane mysteriously crashes. Your main goal here is to find your son who was kidnapped by one of the cannibals post-crash.
But your journey takes many turns that seem to have a tendency of always changing the scale, and direction of this story.
You craft your own armor, weapons, traps, and tools. You also get to build yourself a fully customizable base that you only need to make sure that it’ll stand against the waves of raiding inhabitants of the peninsula.
This peninsula is open to you for exploring to find out what happened to your son, any other crash survivors, and many cool weapons that are appropriately fit for surviving this enigmatic world.
Endnight Games really came a long way with The Forest. This game took the survival horror genre to a whole new standard, and seems to be completely ahead of its time.
You can explore the peninsula of The Forest on PS4, and PC.
The Forest is a survival horror game set in a peninsula where your plane mysteriously crashes. Your main goal here is to find your son who was kidnapped by one of the cannibals post-crash.
But your journey takes many turns that seem to have a tendency of always changing the scale, and direction of this story.
You craft your own armor, weapons, traps, and tools. You also get to build yourself a fully customizable base that you only need to make sure that it’ll stand against the waves of raiding inhabitants of the peninsula.
This peninsula is open to you for exploring to find out what happened to your son, any other crash survivors, and many cool weapons that are appropriately fit for surviving this enigmatic world.
Endnight Games really came a long way with The Forest. This game took the survival horror genre to a whole new standard, and seems to be completely ahead of its time.
You can explore the peninsula of The Forest on PS4, and PC.
