Take a look at the 15 Best Horror Game Trailers
Love some good old horror? Let’s reminisce over some of the best horror game trailers ever.
15. Penumbra: Black Plague
We can’t pass up Penumbra, it’s a bit of an older game, but it is a classic.
This trailer shows Penumbra’s first person gameplay. The character uses a light stick to guide them in the darkness. Players learn that they need to pull and drag items around in order to navigate the environment and uncover clues.
A textual message tells the player that they need them to do something that only they can do. The message urges the player not to make the same mistakes that they did. A strange human looking creature emerges. It is entirely bone white except for its disturbing red smeared grin. When it attacks the player we can see that its eyes are sunken in and it looks painfully emaciated.
This trailer doesn’t leave us without plenty of dead bodies that are thrown around the area and actually falling from above. There’s even a huge and creepy worm out to get the character. This game has players covered on all fronts.
14. Silent Hill HD Collection
What’s scarier than one Silent Hill? Three Silent Hills, even if the poor original game didn’t make it into the trailer.
This trailer treats us to iconic cut scenes from Silent Hill 2 such as when James encounters an enemy for the first time and looks at himself in the gross bathroom mirror. The video swaps to Heather from Silent Hill 3 who wonders if what she is experiencing is a dream. She navigates Silent Hill’s amusement park that has become as rusty and blood soaked as the rest of the town.
We get plenty of disturbing visuals of the game’s monsters as they twitch and slither around. There’s even a clip of Pyramid head’s moment with the mannequins from Silent Hill 2, an image that is forever burned into our minds.
Let the Silent Hill nostalgia begin.
13. Daylight
In Daylight’s trailer a voice welcomes the protagonist, Sarah. We see her as she uses a smartphone in her right hand as a flashlight and map. Deeply concerned, she asks the voice where he is as she navigates the game’s various environments.
Sarah’s left hand alternates with various items, such as a torch, Bible, and possible voodoo doll. While her right hand constantly holds onto the smartphone. The game warns us not to look back. Perhaps Sarah did not listen to this warning as a twisted female ghost jumps into view.
We can only wonder what else this game has in store for players.
12. Alan Wake
This trailer feels like one that could be for a suspense horror movie. It opens with praises of Alan Wake as a writer. However, we learn that he has been in a writing slump for years and goes on a vacation with his wife. He hopes that this will be the mental break from his slump that he needs.
A creepy old lady in black hands him the key to the cabin he is staying in and things take a turn for the twisted. His wife goes missing and shadow like creatures attack. Alan finds pages of a book that he has no memory of writing, but is the author of them. He wonders if these pages are predicting a terrible prophecy or are rewriting reality.
Alan resolves to hunt down these pages in order to save himself from the chaos he is fallen into and find his wife. But this video couldn’t end without another image of the creepy old woman as she stands over Alan, then flashes directly over to us, consuming the screen.
11. Left 4 Dead 2
This iconic trailer gets to the point with what Left 4 Dead 2 is all about.
The trailer shows images of the Deep South. A voice over of one of the characters shares a conversation he had with his grandmother. She asked if he still prays, he tells her yes. She tells him to pray harder, since it’s not enough. But he tells us that he isn’t going to wait for salvation, he’ll fight.
Then there’s a shift to mass destruction, explosions, and tons of zombies. Gun shots fire at the endless army of zombies. Most importantly, the trailer ends with game’s party members showing up. This four person party is bringing the zombies down with chainsaws, axes, and even frying pans. They’ll fight with all of the zombie killing stables.
10. Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Once we get past the stellar reviews of this game, the trailer really starts. The protagonist wakes up in an empty castle and looks around confused. Then they emerge in a darker underground looking area. There are rooms filled with water, countless barrels, and mysterious sounds.
A strange sound follows the character and the tension builds. The character becomes frantic, running from room to room to escape this menacing sound. The area begins to warp and the character is on the floor once more. A fleshy creature approaches the character and strikes his face. For a moment the screen is marked with blood.
This trailer serves as a warning to future players, there are many mysteries and warped creatures that await them in Amnesia.
9. Dead Space 3
Return to the terrifying space horror that we all love with Dead Space 3. The trailer opens with the eeriness of deep space. Nightmarish creatures erupt from the darkness and devour carcasses. We hear that a crew member and their team went missing as they went to check out an uncharted planet and it’s the player’s job to rescue them from the hell they’ve fallen into.
As the characters navigate a frozen tundra, we see hulking space monsters tear up the environment and people. The trailer ends on an ominous note as a freakishly huge monster swallows the protagonist. We all want to know how to get out of that partially digested mess.
8. The Evil Within
A soothing instrumental song plays throughout this trailer. This song covers up the protagonist, Sebastian, as he painfully drags himself down a long hallway. A menacing voice follows him, belittling Sebastian and claiming that he knows all about him. He says that he will make Sebastian do terrible things.
This man is revealed to be heavily scared and burned, wearing a long, dingy white coat. There are quick flashes of bodies hanging in bags, twitching and bleeding. We are shown a decaying hospital room, city falling apart, and Sebastian held down in a chair and metallic device that is zapping him.
Strange zombie like creatures attack Sebastian along with large, bloated, bloody, and hulking monsters. This trailer ends with the scared man reminds us once more that he created this world and is in complete control. We are all subject to his will.
7. Outlast
Perhaps the mention of this game brings shivers down your spine. The Outlast trailer does not disappoint. It opens with strange Nazi descriptions and images as well as the history of an asylum.
The trailer shifts as we follow a man enter into a blood smeared elevator that takes him to a decrepit medical looking area. There are bodies limply hanging from the wall and more blood cakes the area. The tension rises with the sight of creatures running around in the distance.
As the man enters into a dark room he uses his video recorder to see in the darkness, unveiling more dead bodies and gore. Even better, we see a strange human looking entity that has the man in his sights. He quickly needs to navigate the environment, telling future players that there will be lots of climbing, diving, and running.
He finds a room empty except for a bed. The man hides under it and uses his video camera to look in the darkness once more. The creature is reaching for him under the bed and the video ends. On this note, players know what kind of twisted world they’re getting into.
6. Dead Island
Viewers have to piece together Dead Island’s trailer as they watch it, and maybe watch some edited versions of it online.
A young girl lies dead on the ground. But then we see her running throughout a hallway, chased by a horde of zombies. Then the video seems to go in reverse, her dead body that was on the ground is flying back to the window of a hotel.
When we reach a hotel room she’s on a man’s back, it’s clear that she is a zombie taking a bite out of his neck. More zombies are in this hotel room, attacking the man and woman inside. The video switches between the young girl, still a human, running down the hall, and the couple a few seconds later, dealing with zombies in their room.
The video takes us back in the hall with the human girl, she is on the floor and a zombie takes a bite out of her leg. In what we can consider to be the middle point in time of this video, the man enters into the hallway to save the girl.
It ends with him reaching his arm out to her’s, hope on his face. The two do not know what is to soon become of them. This trailer was made to stab us in the heart and let us know that this game is out to beak gamers apart.
5. Dying Light
Dying Light gets us going with a quote from Camus’ classic work, The Plague. This quote might not make too much sense to those who haven’t experienced the game yet, but it’s chillingly fitting.
We see a thick accented man talk to the protagonist. From the way he talks, we can tell he’s strong, in control, and letting the protagonist know who the boss is. Then we see a rag-tag group of “runners” who risk everything to save others.
Emotions run high as we see the characters as they travel throughout the city, trying to help others and fend of zombies. We learn that the protagonist is a parkour teacher and the trailer features lots of parkour action for future players to tackle.
Before the trailer ends the accented man tells us that chaos is the order of things. When we see the zombies at the height of their abilities at night, we know this to be all too true.
4. Alien: Isolation
This trailer opens up with some old fashioned VHS grain, a throwback to how watching the original Alien movie on VHS would be. This grain doesn’t take away from how extremely gorgeous the graphics are. The viewer’s tension and curiosity builds as Amanda Ripley is scavenging and picks up a toy robot.
We see a lurking entity flick its limbs and slither around in the background. Amanda knows she’s in trouble and quickly hides. As she hides she takes out the toy robot and tinkers with it until it becomes a kind of tracking device. But what it’s tracking is right above her, and it’s the Alien.
This trailer freaks us out in all the right ways, introducing some of the games elements, fantastic graphics, and most importantly enough screen time of the terrifying Alien.
3. The Last of Us
We are in for a real treat with this cinematic trailer. Despite coming out a few years ago, it holds up graphically with current game releases.
The trailer opens with dead, bloodied bodies in what seems to be an apartment complex. There’s a young human girl named Ellie and man named Joel. We see that this girl isn’t to be underestimated as she no problem searching the unconscious body of the man that Joel knocked out.
As they hear approaching zombies, the two flee the room. It’s clear that Joel is protecting Ellie. The zombie like entity that comes to attack them isn’t like the zombies we are used to. Its head looks like it has imploded. As Joel grapples with the zombie, Ellie comes from behind and stabs it. Joel gets in a good headshot and the two escape.
This trailer is only the tip of the iceberg for one of the best zombie games.
2. Lone Survivor
This is hands down my favorite trailer on this list. I feel inspired each time I watch this trailer.
We get treated to a totally amazing song throughout the video that begins when a pixilated character snaps his fingers.
A swarm of quick images and short clips fill the rest of the video. It isn’t easy to describe what is going on. This is the trailer’s way of enticing our curiosity and pushing us to play this game and uncover the truth from ourselves.
What we can tell from this game is that it’s a hardcore survival horror game, warped in a pixilated package. We see a man in a surgical mask who is subjected to the chaos of the world he is trapped in. There are fleshy monsters, abandoned buildings, messages written in red across walls, and a dying world.
How could anyone not what to play this game?
1. Dead Island 2
Apart from being freaky, this trailer is also really funny. We see an overly tan, bleach blond man about to begin a jog. He covers up a nasty looking bite, plays his mp3 player, and gets going. He’s utterly dim witted as he flirts with a passing girl and is blind to the zombie outbreak occurring behind him.
There are actual car accidents and plane crashes behind him, but this man is set on his run and looking good while doing it. His zombie bite catches up to him and he starts to decay, his wig and “good looks” fall off in the process. Even as a zombie this man won’t give up his run, and has some zombie pals to keep up with him.
Discover some great trailers? Have a favorite that isn’t listed? Comment below with your favorite horror trailer and check out the following horror articles!
11 Most Terrifying Video Game Monsters
10 Things Every Horror Game Needs to be Good
10 New Horror Games to Scare Your Pants off in 2015
