The Best Scary Games to Play This Halloween
It’s spooky season, and for gamers, that means only one thing: it’s time to fully immerse ourselves in the world of horror gaming. Who needs sleep anyway? Of course, you can play these games at any time of year, but for me, there’s something really special about the long October nights during the lead-up to Halloween that makes the perfect atmosphere to revisit my favorite spooky games. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the best spooky and scary games you should absolutely check out this month.
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Next comes the Silent Hill 2 remake, available to play on PS5 and PC. In my opinion, there’s no better way to get into the spooky season than engaging with this classic game, rebuilt from the ground up by Konami Digital Entertainment in 2024. A spoiler-free premise of the game is as follows: James Sunderland finds himself returning to the town of Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his wife, telling him to find her there. The catch? Mary, James’s wife, has been dead for three years.
This game is a masterpiece of horror storytelling. Everything from the famous foggy atmosphere to the frankly grotesque monsters, alongside the eerie score, will have you on the edge of your seat for the entire playthrough. What really sets this game apart, however, is its surprisingly beautiful and human story focusing on guilt, grief, and the terrible things suffering can cause us to become.
In the same vein as the Silent Hill two Remake, we have The Last of Us Part Two Remake, available on PS5 and PC. This is yet another game that has had a remake in recent years, giving it truly stunning visuals. This game is an absolute must for any zombie story lovers, but is also certain to be an incredibly unique experience. The story follows two main protagonists, Joel and Ellie, as they make their way through an apocalyptic America. A zombie virus, caused by the real-life fungus cordyceps, has completely racked their world, but in this mostly lawless society, the zombies are only one of the many threats the two will face.
Like Silent Hill 2, this game is well known for its impressive ability to blend terrifying horror with touching and often heart-wrenching storytelling. You’ll find it impossible not to root for Joel and Ellie as you progress through the game. Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson did a phenomenal job voicing these memorable characters. In fact, I think everyone at Naughty Dog Studios deserves a raise for this game. Plus, if you do end up loving the game, there’s a second one to play as well as a highly successful HBO TV series waiting for you to sink your teeth into
Now, Silent Hill 2 (Remake) and The Last of Us Part 2 (Remake) are pretty intense horror games, with an age certificate of 15 and 18, respectively. If you’re looking for something a little more tame, but still with a highly spooky atmosphere, then I cannot recommend Little Nightmares enough. This game is available on Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PS4. This is a unique puzzle-platform game set in a colossal and dark world known as the Maw. Players control a tiny character in a yellow raincoat named Six as she tries to escape. Despite the fact that this game has no spoken dialogue, it is still a highly engaging and, once again, surprisingly heartfelt game, perfect to play by candlelight on those long October nights. If you do enjoy the game, you can jump straight into Little Nightmares 2 and Little Nightmares 3, which is due to be released this month.
Extended Look at Silent Hill 2 Remake serves up a meaty breakdown of why this return to Silent Hill actually works. The piece walks through roughly ninety minutes of captured gameplay, highlighting the updated camera work, thicker fog volumes, and the slower, heavier combat that sells every encounter. You get clear examples of how lighting guides exploration inside apartments, how sound cues nudge you toward points of interest, and how the new enemy animations add tension without turning every hallway into a brawl. The article also calls out smart quality of life tweaks, like cleaner inventory flow and more readable map markers that cut down on backtracking fatigue.
Crucially, it frames all of this in service of James and Mary’s story, not just graphical flexing. The write-up notes where the remake expands character beats while still preserving the uncomfortable silences that made the original so haunting. If you are deciding whether to dive in on PS5 or PC, this overview is a perfect vibe check. It shows how the remake modernizes systems while staying faithful to psychological horror roots, the same lineage that put Silent Hill on the map alongside classics covered on Wikipedia’s survival horror page.