5 Nerve-Wracking Free Horror Games 

Free horror games are a topic that surfaces every year when Halloween creeps closer. It is because many people like the sense of the mysterious and the unknown, as the unknown, represents one of humans’ fundamental fears. While people in real life may not seek danger willingly, they take solace in the fact that they can experience the emotion through games. 

But why do people seek horror games even if they are scared? It is because they feel an adrenaline rush hard to come by in the real world. The sense of immersing oneself in danger brings a sense of excitement and gets the heart pumping, giving one a sense of pleasure, even if it’s a scary sensation.

An abundance amount of horror games are available on the Internet, but many of them require money to purchase. For example, famous horror game series like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Left 4 Dead. Thus, despite being three months early, we at Player.me decided to dwell on the issue and bring you a listicle of the 5 pulse-pounding free horror games.

Related: Here Are the Places to Buy the Resident Evil 4 Remake

5 Free Horror Games You Can Download on Steam

1. Dark Deception

If you ever play Pac-Man, you will love Dark Deception as you must navigate through the maze, collecting pink shards instead of tiny yellow balls and preventing terrifying monkey bellhops from catching you instead of the ghosts. Sounds simple enough, right? 

However, rather than simple straight-line mazes, you are placed in a dismal labyrinth with nowhere to hide and catch your breath. Every turn you make could lead you to an enemy, and if you do decide to stop and take a breather, the monkeys could swarm you from every escape route, resulting in your demise. 

To make matters worse, the developers decide not to implement an escape mechanism in this free horror game. Thus, it lights out when the monkeys catch you, so get sprinting and avoid traps while the bloodthirsty enemy from your nightmares swarmed you in every direction.

2. Doki Doki Literature Club!

A Japanese visual novel with fan service and a horror aspect? Japan can create anything, huh? You sure bet they can. In 2017, Doki Doki Literature Club! debuted in the horror genre, immediately capturing the communities attention. 

While it starts as a typical dating sim with multiple heroines, you will quickly notice the strange and eerie signs of their habits. If you are someone psychological, you may recognise early signs of manipulation, deception, possession and even depression from the characters. However, before you satisfy your curiosity, please don’t look up any info on this visual novel masterpiece, as playing it blind is most of the fun.

All in all, this free horror game is nothing short of spectacular, as the psychological horror and mental gymnastics you will experience from playing this game will definitely leave you with a mental scar.

3. Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft

How can a free horror game be more thrilling? What about playing with a VR headset on? That’s right, Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft is a 3D game of madness you can experience in VR.

Inspired by the fictional work of H. P. Lovecraft, this game introduces you to a face-to-face encounter with the monster Cthulu. When you load up the game, you will step into the shoes of a troubled former ship officer who wanders into the madness of the “Stygian Abyss”. 

As the game is only 30 minutes long, try not to go mad through the narrative experience of the twisted mind that created Cthulu and its forsaken world. 

4. Tiny Bunny: Prologue

We all have that dreaded feeling of fear as a child when we are in a forest, and it only magnifies when one of your friends suddenly goes missing. This free horror game perfectly encapsulates the fear we experience in that situation and presents it as a visual novel.

Based on the story by Dmitry Mordas, this free horror game takes place in a quiet rural town surrounded by forest, and the main protagonist coincidentally moves here as children suddenly go missing. Then, as fate determines, he is dragged into unforeseen horrible events unwillingly.

If you are smitten with the series and the prologue is not enough for satisfaction, you can consider picking up the complete game at $12.99. However, be warned that you may not see rabbits as the same again, as rabbits symbolise evil, as documented during the Middle Ages.

5. SCP: Secret Laboratory

Finalising our list, we have a free horror game that requires multiplayer gameplay. SCP: Secret Laboratory is a game built on the SCP Foundation — an organisation tasked with securing, containing and protecting creepy fictional tales and crowd-sourced entries about objects and strange entities that violate natural law. 

In this game, players take on different roles with a first-person perspective while coming into contact with objects and beings that are simply otherworldly. The roles include Class-D personnel, Scientist, Nine-Tailed Fox, Chaos Insurgency and Facility Guard. The game randomly generates the facilities and roles for each round, thus creating different sensations and experiences every round. The goal is simple, to win, one team must finish all its objectives.

If your cravings are unsatisfied with just the game, you can head to the SCP wiki page, which contains over 4200 dark writings of the World Wide Web to enjoy.

Also Read: 5 Best Games Like Sons of the Forest

Closing Statement

We, humans, are contradictory beings. We are scared of things we don’t know, yet we seek thrill and pleasure from them. Horror games allow us to experience such emotions in a controlled environment, thus which is why free horror games are the main topic every year before Halloween. As Tim Burton put it best, “Every day is Halloween, isn’t it? For some of us”.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is the Highest-Rated Horror Game Ever?

According to Metacritic, BioShock and Resident Evil 4 share a similar rating of 96, with BioShock edging out its competitor due to its reputation among fans. While Resident Evil 4 did pave the way for modern horror shooter games, the nerve-racking story and twists in BioShock take the cake in the horror gaming community.

What Is the Best Upcoming Horror Game?

Player.me horror specialists recommend Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl as the best upcoming horror game due to everything we’ve seen so far from the trailer. With a realistic representation of the post-nuclear disaster Chornobyl exclusion zone, Stalker 2 could define the modern horror genre.

Why Are Horror Games Addictive to People?

Adrenaline Junkies — refers to people who like playing horror games as they love the sense of danger and the thrill of getting spooked. Horror games are addictive to them because they get a sense of pleasure from being scared out of their wits. We won’t deny that it is quite a unique and exhilarating sensation when spooked by someone.