The Persistence is a smart VR horror rogue-like set in a monster-ridden spaceship. The full-body immersion and restrictive viewing angles mean you're never quite sure what's around you, and make jump scares or surreal monsters all that more affecting. It’s also on Xbox Game Pass.įew mediums are as perfectly suited to horror as VR.

In our review we gave The Medium a solid four and a half stars, calling it “smarter than your average horror game” for the way it “does a brilliant job of slowly building an atmosphere that has you on edge throughout.” The Medium is not a long game, clocking up around 11 hours of play, but this game packs a lot of good stuff into that time and could really scratch an itch for a short, sharp thrill between long, open-world games.

What follows is a story with plenty of twists and unsettling characters, bolstered by an atmospheric score which work together to form a classic and clever horror game. As Marianne you travel to an abandoned hotel, looking to find the answers behind visions of a dead girl. In The Medium you play as, funnily enough, a medium called Marianne who lives between the ‘real’ world and the spirit world. If you like your horror games to lean more into psychological scares than jump scares then The Medium could be exactly what you’re looking for. In this guide, you’ll find our choice of the best horror games that you can play on PC and consoles today, from recent AAA games to older PC classics. These elements still play an important role in the genre, but game developers now approach horror in a smarter, more nuanced way than ever before. Horror games have matured over the years, going way beyond simple gore and easy jump scares.

It's a whole lot harder to laugh at on-screen characters making stupid and clichéd decisions when you're the one making them. When you're the one holding the controller and making choices that could mean life or death, every moment is tense and significant – especially thanks to the haptic feedback in your controller or gaming headset. What’s scarier than a horror movie? Feeling like you’re in one. There are many brilliant and seriously scary horror movies to make you jump out of your seats - take a look at our best horror movies guide - but games often go that extra distance by making scares feel way more immersive and interactive.

Steam free to play horror game demo