Focused on exploring dark themes and the declining mental state of its characters, psychological horror stays with you for its content, imagery, and delivery.
Psychological horror has grown increasingly more popular over the years, especially in the indie horror sphere. There are multiple ways horror games dive into the psyche. Some are more subtle than others, focusing on abstract imagery that masks the darker themes bubbling underneath. Others are more obvious about their wickedness and bravely choose to put a spotlight directly on it. Psychological horror, when done correctly, is difficult to consume, but there’s something alluring about it that makes you keep playing.
This list looks at the best psychological horror games that have both disturbed and scarred us, being our go-to when we want to navigate the human psyche. We’ve separated this list into three categories: horror that messes with the player’s psychology, dark themes and delivery that disturbed us, and the more layered psychological horror where you must scratch underneath its surface to fully understand its sheer complexity.
Most Disturbing Psychological Horror Games
5) Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk
Helping a girl go get a bag of milk, she decides to view her world today as if she’s a video game character and you’re part of her story. Milk inside a bag of milk hits too close to home for its intense depiction of depression, social anxiety, and how a mind can obsess and overanalyze the tiniest details in the most monotonous of tasks. Monsters, the use of red, the distinct sound design, and the cryptic imagery of the girl’s home paint a very disturbing picture of the girl’s mind as we perceive the world through her eyes.
4) Doki Doki Literature Club
Love is blind and can make you do some questionable things, but nothing is as devastating as being rejected by “the one” (that’s how these girls see the world, at least). Don’t be distracted by its beauty, this entry is disturbing for its setting and take on teen drama. Doki Doki Literature Club has imagery that’ll etch itself into your brain, ruining slice of life anime series for good.
3) Higurashi When They Cry
Every June, someone dies, another goes missing, and it’s always connected to the Watanagashi Festival. A slow burn of paranoia and bloodcurdling madness, the cuteness of Higurashi is short-lived when no one can be trusted. Perhaps the murders are getting to people, or maybe there’s something else going on. Regardless, the violence and distressing storytelling that builds in this intense visual novel will never leave you.
2) Mouthwashing
Can you take responsibility and own up to your choices that have left a trail of bodies behind you? Mouthwashing has incredibly dark and disturbing themes hiding in plain sight. Through abstract hallucinations that act as a reminder of your past mistakes, there are clear signs warning you that something isn’t quite right here.
1) The Song of Saya
Surviving a near-death experience that killed his parents, Sakisaka’s world transforms into gore with everything inside it a misshapen amalgamation of flesh. But a single girl, shining bright amongst the revolting landscape, is a beacon of hope. Song of Saya pulls you in with its atmospheric and brooding soundtrack, which then disturbs with pure Lovecraftian unpredictability, cunningly disguised as a tragic love story.
Psychological Horror Games That Mess With You
5) Who’s Lila?
An unsettling story about figuring out what happened to your missing friend, Who’s Lila is an uncomfortable and distressing point-and-click game where you must manhandle William’s face to appear human during conversations. What unfolds on screen doesn’t make much sense as it’s abstract in its design. Yet, the atmosphere is eerily tense and has a sound and art design that feels like it’s communicating with you, pulling you further into its existence. You’re a part of this now.
4) Devotion
Piecing together the past through the eyes of a broken father, Devotion toys with you as you navigate across a fractured mind, which always leads to one place: the bathroom door. The one constant, the thing you’ve locked away for the pain of opening it would be too much, it’s your calling to keep pressing on. Yet everything in this walking sim is screaming at you to stop prodding and to leave the past where it belongs.
3) Eternal Darkness
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Standing off against ancient gods is one thing, but the fascinating take of the sanity meter turned Eternal Darkness into a corrupted software that felt alive. It’s almost as if the game itself was cursed. Sanity drains and the screen turns black, the volume lowers, save files delete itself, and the blue screen of death says hello—all because your character saw too much. It was horror outside of the game that directly targeted you—the player.
2) Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Your teeth grind and you back is up as you know something is wrong here. You see a silhouette of a person in the distance, yet you don’t recognize them. In fact, you don’t remember a thing. Nothing stays on the screen for too long. It’s all in your head. It’s that fear of the unknown that pulls on your soul slowly, creating effective tension that makes Amnesia: The Dark Descent a difficult horror to escape for the idea of something following you is always there. The hairs on the back of your neck, the shiver going up your spine. That’s it.
1) P.T.
The descent into madness, P.T. has you partake in Albert Einstein’s Insanity Theory as you’re forced to look directly into your mind to face the atrocities you committed. Haunted by the ghosts of your past, you’d never know what waited around every corner of that repeating corridor that made you feel so helpless, empty, and lost. It’s a lingering feeling that never leaves you, for it’s a lifelong journey, made up of your experiences and mistakes.
Excellent Psychological Horror Games That Stay With You For Their Subtlety and Symbolism
8) MOTHERED
Your mother looks after you as you recover from major surgery. Your memory may be a little fuzzy at the moment, but you remember how your mother looked, what her voice sounds like. This mother is different. There’s the unfamiliarity that this house, your family, isn’t yours. MOTHERED tricks you into thinking there’s a clear villain in the story, when it’s really just about a broken family and their inability to accept change.
7) Still Wakes the Deep
The oil rig is collapsing and its crew is no longer human. You’re being followed by a parasitic Lovecraftian entity you accidentally woke in the drilling operation. The threat is left ambiguous, making it all the more terrifying as it’s beyond our comprehension. A story about perspective, acceptance, and holding onto hope, Still Wakes the Deep shows the internal journey of coming to terms with who you truly are.
6) OMORI
Reality is split into two; your past is desperately trying to remind you of a dark truth you denied yourself. Hiding behind your sunny personality won’t save you. A portrayal of isolation, depression, and trauma, OMORI shows what a mind will do to free itself from devastating pain.
5) Sanitarium
An amnesiac awakes in a foreign land, his appearance covered in a hospital gown and bandages. Traverse across the strange world where not much makes sense. A journey about identity, you piece together what you can from this surrealistic realm, only understanding how you came to this place to begin with. The point-and-click adventure of Sanitarium feels like a fever dream of a man trapped in a mind that forgot him.
4) I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
Chosen as the final five to present humanity, you transfer across all unwilling participants, forced to partake in cruel experiments to appease AM, the supercomputer that destroyed the world. An eternity spent looking directly into your deepest and darkest fears, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a story about suffering and the terrifying outcome of artificial intelligence turning against its creators.
3) SIGNALIS
Clones of manufactured humans called Replikas collect dust in the dilapidated land, yet you continue to press on as one of them, in search of the pilot for the shuttle you crash-landed in. A story about identity and losing oneself, SIGNALIS is an existential crisis happening on a continual loop, affecting Elster and her surrounding counterparts. Questions arise on whether you truly exist or are just part of a larger corroded machine.
2) SOMA
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You go for a brain scan and wake up inside an underwater research station. Humans will do whatever it takes to survive, but in such a hopeless situation, what options are there? Having one of the worst fates in video game history, SOMA is pure existentialism that poses the fascinating question on what truly makes someone human.
1) Silent Hill 2
You return to Silent Hill in search of your late wife, Mary. A morbid tale about denial and acceptance, being able to move on means you must face the past and accept the present, otherwise you’ll be lost forever. Wandering in circles for a truth that doesn’t exist, or standing still because moving is too hard, Silent Hill 2 is profound for its story of love and loss.
