Sunday Scaries: What Are Some of the Best Horror Video Games?

The Sunday Scaries are upon us once again! Yes, as the weekend concludes, most of us feel an oncoming sense of anticipatory dread about the week ahead. Anxiety about work manifests itself into a feeling that’s known as the Sunday Scaries. However, we at Awards Radar are here to combat that, by taking back the name. Now, we want you think about a horror-centric piece on the site when you hear the term. So, let us continue on with another installment of the Awards Radar Sunday Scaries! For this week’s column, I’m returning to the world of video games, and specifically horror games…

Two years ago, I wrote here about horror video games and the franchises that could potentially be adapted into good films. Today, I’m taking a different approach. I want to run down a list of the some of the best horror games of all-time…or at least my favorites. Could some eventually turn into movies? Sure, though that’s not necessarily the focus.

Below, you’ll see my pick for ten of the best/my favorite horror games. I even recruited our own Myles Hughes to contribute his ten as well. We didn’t do commentary, though it’s possible we’ll mention this list on the next Awards Radar Podcast. However, I will note that zombies tend to be the predominate villain on both of our lists. Though, I actually have a few movie properties that managed to really impress me. You’ll see shortly…

We’ll start with ten that Myles would like to highlight as his favorites:

1. Resident Evil 4

2. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem

3. Friday the 13th: The Game

4. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

5. Bioshock

6. Bloodborne

7. Resident Evil 2 Remake

8. Condemned: Criminal Origins

9. Until Dawn

10. Little Nightmares

Now, on to mine, which will share a few similarities to Myles’. Note: neither of us included The Last of Us, since it’s more horror-adjacent. Arguably, both of those games would be in my top three, so at the very least, it opened things up a bit. Other than that, you’ll see that I have limited experience with a few major franchises, so that led to a few other inclusions that perhaps we wouldn’t have seen here otherwise. We’d love for you to chime in as well here. Do you have a favorite horror video game? If so, let us know! Now…on to my picks:

Special Citation: P.T. (Only a demo but maybe the scariest video game of all-time)

Honorable Mention: Bioshock, Dead Rising, F.E.A.R. Little Hope, and System Shock 2

10. Manhunt

9. Condemned: Criminal Origins

8. Dead Island

7. Until Dawn

6. Dying Light

5. Silent Hill 2

4. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

3. The Thing

2. Resident Evil 4

1. Alien: Isolation

Stay tuned for another Sunday Scaries installment next weekend!