Spooky Games We Love

As the weather turns chilly, we here at Candlelight Games are turning to some of our favorite spooky video games.🎃 Check them out below!

Until Dawn

Until Dawn is a thrilling, cinematic horror game that plays like a classic slasher movie, featuring an all-star cast including Hayden Panettiere, Brett Dalton, and Rami Malek. Set in a remote mountain lodge, a group of young adults reunite to honor two friends who died tragically the previous year—only to discover they’re not alone in the woods! The game embraces all the fun, campy tropes of the genre while delivering plenty of great scares.

As a branching narrative, Until Dawn gives players control over key decisions that have real consequences, including the potential for major character deaths. This game is especially fun to play with friends. I have fond memories of playing it in college with my friends screaming at me to make specific choices to avoid killing off our favorite characters. (I even had one friend, terrified of clowns, run out of the room during a jump scare!) 🤡

I highly recommend Until Dawn for anyone who loves watching horror movies during spooky season and wishes they could make—or avoid—the bad decisions that lead to those iconic slasher movie moments. Plus, with the recent release of the remake (and a rumored sequel…), now's the perfect time to dive in!

Luigi’s Mansion 3

Luigi’s Mansion 3 is a 2019 action-adventure game that follows Luigi’s quest through a haunted mansion to save his friends. Each floor of The Last Resort has a different theme (pirate ship, natural history museum, old-fashioned theatre), and there’s a multiplayer mode for both local and online co-op.

This game is delightful from beginning to end, with charming surprises around every corner. I played it co-op when I was still pretty new to games with my partner who is an experienced gamer, and it was the perfect mix of challenging and forgiving. My favorite part was playing as Luigi’s ectoplasmic twin Gooigi, especially when he falls through floor vents.

Silent Hill 2

Silent Hill 2 is a 2001 survival horror game that follows James Sunderland through the monster-filled town of Silent Hill. James is beckoned to Silent Hill by a letter that seems to be written by his deceased wife, Mary, saying that she is waiting for him there.

I still distinctly remember playing Silent Hill 2 to this day. I usually played the game at times when I really should have been asleep. I remember “NOPE”-ing out quite a few times, feeling like I couldn’t handle whatever the game was going to throw at me next. Yet when the next night came, much like James Sunderland, I kept returning to Silent Hill.

World of Horror

World of Horror is a brilliant indie gem that combines retro horror and cosmic dread, presented in a glorious 1-bit pixel aesthetic. Both the narrative and the art style pay homage to the works of Junji Ito, showcasing a similar knack for unsettling, grotesque imagery and a creeping sense of doom. Every image feels like a panel from a twisted manga, and every scenario draws you deeper into its eerie, Lovecraftian world. 

Across a series of narrative vignettes, you’ll face nightmarish threats like the three-headed Scissor Woman and the impossible geometry of Goizo, The Thing Forsaken By God. With the right combination of cleverness and luck, you might even survive.

Make no mistake, World of Horror is hard. The brutal combination of turn-based combat and random events will test your patience and your resolve, but the story is what will bring you back again and again. World of Horror is a must-play for horror fans.

SOMA

SOMA is a 2015 first-person psychological horror game, following protagonist Simon Jarrett as he goes in for a routine brain scan and awakens on the crumbling deep-sea research facility PATHOS-II. As Simon attempts to find a way off the station, he must evade horrific mutations, ally with untrustworthy survivors, and unravel a much larger mystery that dives deep into questions on the nature of identity and the self.

While plenty of horror games have spooked me, none has gotten under my skin as thoroughly as SOMA. From the first moment you round a hallway and find a broken-down piece of industrial equipment with the mind of a human inside screaming in pain and begging for a doctor, SOMA plunges you in a nightmare of existential dread and suffering, a world where you’re not merely fighting for survival, but struggling with the question of what it would even mean to survive.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

Hellblade is a story that follows protagonist Senua as she descends deeper and deeper into psychosis. The gameplay is a mix of walking simulator, light combat sequences, and perspective-based puzzle platforming. The setting is a desolate and bleak blend of Norse mythology and history.

Played in the dark with headphones on, Hellblade perfectly captures what it feels like to be alone, questioning what is real, and battling with the voices in your head. When Ninja Theory released for free a VR mode for the game, my second playthrough took that terrible and wonderful feeling of discomfort to a whole new level. I highly recommend the experience, but it’s absolutely not for the faint of heart.

As you can see, everyone at Candlelight Games enjoys different levels of terror😅 but we hope you can find something that fits your vibe this fall season. Have a safe and happy Halloween! 👻