Halloween is nearly upon us. Let’s take a trip down memory lane for the old school horror fans and look at the top retro horror games ever made. This list will feature multiple entries from the same franchises: Resident Evil and Silent Hill. There is a reason that developers Capcom and Konami are remaking these classic horror games. It is recreating these legendary, unforgettable games onto newer consoles to bring forth a new fanbase who may not have been able to play the originals. With better graphics and fluidity in the gameplay mechanics, Silent Hill and Resident Evil has grown up with its loyal fanbase, into a newer, polished version of its original self.
Some of the greatest horror games ever made are over 20 years old. Newer horror games such as Outlast, Alien Isolation, Until Dawn and Penumbra will be remembered in 20 years as horror classics. But for now, in 2022, you just cannot beat the classics from 1995 to 2005. With that being said, this is our list of the Top 10 Retro Horror Games that you need to play if you have not already.
Top 10 Retro Horror Games You Need to Play, Ranked
10. Sanitarium (1998)
DotEmu’s 1998 Sanitarium follows Max, a man who wakes from a coma after a car accident. Max finds himself in a sanitarium, his face covered in bandages. How did he get here? Other patients surround him: a man repeatedly slamming his head against the wall, another talking to “spirits”, another falling off the edge of the platform to what sounds like an endless drop to the bottom. Max appears to be the only person with his logical and critical thinking intact. But who is he? Where did he come from? Even Max himself does not know.
Explore the sanitarium where you are transported to different obscure locations via a talking religious statue. Learn of the ways of the sanitarium, seek the truth and uncover the mystery of Max’s identity. Throughout the game you are visited by various memories that are recovered through interactions with the strange characters you come across.
Sanitarium is a point-and-click adventure horror game. It is a unique psychological retro horror encapsulated in surrealism. Is this world real or is Max still in a coma?
9. Silent Hill (1999)
Driving into Silent Hill, Harry Mason swerves the car to avoid hitting a girl standing in the road. Upon waking up he sees that his daughter Cheryl is missing. There is something strange about this town, it’s simply too quiet as walk through the foggy streets. Where’s Cheryl? The goal is simple, you must find your daughter. But it is more difficult than you could have predicted. For there are hostile creatures roaming the fogged town. You see glimpses of what looks like your daughter in the distance but it’s too hard to see. You chase her into narrow, bending alleys. Animal bodies ripped into shreds lay on the ground beneath you. It’s getting darker now, but you cannot go back. Not when Cheryl is alone out here.
Silent Hill follows Harry Mason searching for his daughter in a town that houses unspeakable horrors. Its horror is perfectly encapsulated in the first sequence as you walk through the alleyways. The world around you transcends into darkness where your only means of seeing is with a lighter. The fixed third-person camera angles locked onto Harry makes you feel like you are being watched. It is anxiety and panic-inducing in its perfect pairing of tank controls making you feel as though you are running out of time to escape the horrors of Silent Hill.
8. Silent Hill 3 (2003)
Silent Hill 3 opens inside Heather Morris’s nightmare, the setting of Lakeside amusement park (previously seen in Silent Hill 1) where she is killed by a roller coaster. You wake in a burger restaurant and give your father a call telling him you will be home soon. A detective approaches you, he says he knows information about your birth. After you evade him, uninterested in what he has to say, things escalate rather quickly. You find a gun on the floor in a room. A giant, long-limbed creature wearing what looks like a skirt towers over a body, consuming flesh. Its long neck and monstrous face jitters as it approaches Heather. She shoots. “What the hell is this thing?”
The mall is now filled with monsters set on hunting down Heather. The walls are blood-soaked and rusted over, her nightmare comes true. You are told that you will bring forth Paradise and that the Otherworld is here to witness the new Beginning. Your head hurts. Something is wrong. There is something familiar about all this to Heather, something locked away in her past that is catching up to her. Traverse the world of Silent Hill 3, and find out who Heather is and what she has to do with this mysterious woman.
7. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (1995)
Imagine spending 109 years being tortured by a sentient artificial intelligence. AM (Allied Mastercomputer). Originally constructed by the United States to oversee a global too complex for our human comprehension. Upon gaining sentience, AM absorbed the other supercomputers of Russia and China and used its new power and hatred for humanity to destroy the majority of the human population. Leaving 5 humans alive: Gorrister, Benny, Ellen, Nimdok, and Ted, AM brings them to the centre of the Earth to torture them for all of eternity. Transforming their biological body to live indefinitely and alter their minds through humiliation and fear.
Based on the Harlan Ellison’s short story of the same name. I Have No Mouth is a challenging horror game filled with varying puzzles to match the fears of our 5 protagonists. Join their personalized adventure of torture crafted by AM. Use your wit to beat him. This retro horror has 7 endings, which will you get?
6. Silent Hill 4: The Room (2004)
You awake, it’s an ordinary day. The same as the day before. You peer outside your bedroom windows and see the lives of ordinary people, cars streaming past, people rushing to work, heading into the Underground station. The air in your apartment is heavy and suffocating. You exit into the front room, its lonely and isolating. The walls are moving, almost crying out to you in agony. There are faces. Upon closer inspection a ghostly figure crawls through, birthed from the walls of flesh. You awake once more, this time as Henry Townsend. Your apartment door is covered in chains, you have not been able to leave your apartment in 5 days. On the door it reads: DON’T GO OUT!
Silent Hill 4: The Room, contrary to popular opinion, is a great horror game. Yes, it is very different to its predecessor in that The Room does not take place in Silent Hill. However, the horror experience of The Room is fantastic, split into two perspectives of first and third-person horror (something we have not seen in its previous installments).
The Room offers two very uniquely different experiences of horror. Your apartment is claustrophobic and lonely, haunted by the ghosts of the past. 15 bloody handprints line the wall opposite your apartment, who do they belong to? A permanent reminder of your future. The nightmarish dimensions are accessed through an implausible, supernaturally placed hole in your bathroom into worlds similar to what we know of the Silent Hill franchise- puzzle-solving, combat, and ungodly creatures at every turn. With only one way to go, your only choice is to crawl through that hole.
5. Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly (2003)
Set in the abandoned fictional town of Minakami, Japan. Fatal Frame II follows twin sisters, Mio and Mayu Amakura who are roped into a previously failed sacrificial ritual, appropriately named the Crimson Sacrifice Ritual which consequently let to the vanishing of the Minakami village residents. Best part of the ritual? Twins must be sacrificed. Fantastic timing of Mio and Mayu to be exploring on their own. When Mio is mistaken to be another twin who escaped from the previous ritual, the twins are roped into completing the Crimson Sacrifice Ritual as the new Twin Shrine Maidens.
Best known for its ambiance and jumpscares, Fatal Frame II is a terrifying and tense horror game from start to finish. The cutscene of the falling woman on the staircase really did a number on me. Armed with an enchanted camera, players must defeat ghosts and evil spirits. This unique gameplay mechanic sets it apart from other retro horror games, forcing you into a first-person viewfinder mode to use the Camera Obscura to damage your foes. But this drastic shift from third-person gameplay to first increases your stress and anxiety as you maneuver around the spirit to take the perfect shot.
4. Haunting Ground (2005)
The I Am Legend of horror games. Follow Fiona Bell, a young woman, and her new trusty companion Hewie in the 2005 horror, Haunting Ground. You awake in a dungeon; all you remember from the previous events is being in a car crash with your parents. Memories fuzzy, your only choice is to explore the gothic castle and unravel the mystery but as with all retro horror games, beware. Whilst the door to your cage was unlocked, there is nothing friendly inside the walls of the castle. As the game progresses you will have to evade from four enemies. Solve puzzles, find a way to escape the castle and remember, you can only trust Hewie.
The castle is dark, eerie and vast. In true retro horror fashion, you must solve puzzles and evade enemies. Haunting Ground is a horror game gem. We can only hope Capcom will someday remake this amazing horror game. With its value gradually increasing, sitting at $80 at its minimum asking price. It is still an underrated game in the horror genre.
3. Resident Evil 2 (1998)
Raccoon City, 1998, two months after the events of Resident Evil 1, is devastated by the destruction of the T-Virus. Streets filled with zombified humans, bloodthirsty, itching for that next hit. Survival seems futile. Even the Raccoon Police Department is empty. Or so we thought. Join Leon Kennedy on his first day on the police force. What a time to join the forces! Play as Claire Redfield searching for her brother, Chris (protagonist of the first Resident Evil) taking a different route through Raccoon City. Experience the horrors of the T-Virus: zombies, lickers and Cerberus dogs. Explore the city and find a way out of the chaos and destruction.
Beware, you are being stalked. There’s something in the shadows. Something tall, ghostly white and built like a tank. Mr. X is on your tail. Fight off what you can, use your resources wisely, you never know when you’ll face The Tyrant. Using a similar format to its predecessor, Resident Evil 2 has great atmosphere, level design and challenging puzzles. Players have time to fully take in the scenarios you are placed into as each setting is perfectly made, completed with obtainable items and well-executed puzzles. Can you escape Racoon City and in doing so, find out its secrets?
2. Resident Evil 4 (2005)
Resident Evil 4, set this time in 2004, 6 years after the T-Virus outbreak sees the return of heartthrob Leon Kennedy. Now a US government agent. Good on him. This time you are tasked with locating and rescuing the US Presidents daughter, Ashley Graham. Kidnapped by Los Iluminados cultists and taken to Spain, Leon must find Ashley before she is the Las Plagas (a mind-controlling parasite) next victim.
As soon as the game starts Leon is thrown into the deep end, attacked immediately by crazed men with a high resistance to pain. The police officers who transported him to the rural village are gone, the car blown into pieces. Explore the village, face enemies and find Ashley. Resident Evil 4 is the perfect action survival horror game, combining consistent action gameplay with the horrors of the village. The only con to this installment is the stiff controls but as Resident Evil 4 Remake is set to release March 24th, 2023, we hope for a polished remake similar to that of Resident Evil 2.
1. Silent Hill 2 (2001)
Silent Hill 2 is a retro horror masterpiece. It is a tragic love story encapsulated in a twisted, melancholy atmosphere of a broken guilt-ridden man. Walk as James Sunderland, a man looking for his late wife after receiving a letter from her, detailing him to return to their special place. James and the narrative of Silent Hill 2 is some of the greatest storytelling in video game history. The town of Silent Hill is similar to the fogged town of its predecessor but different. This time round the monsters appear trapped themselves, not as hostile abominations chasing after James but as creatures begging to put out of their misery. Creatures bound by straitjackets, faces twisted into something unidentifiable, movements stiff and bodies contorted. There is something familiar about them, an uncanniness to their humanoid figures.
Konami announced the remake of Silent Hill 2 on October 19th, 2022. If you never had the chance to play this game after its initial release, then this remake may spark some interest in you. We cannot wait for the return of great puzzles and terrifying monsters and can only hope that fixed camera angles will make a well-deserved comeback. Traverse the fogged town, find Mary, find the truth. Face the monsters. Face yourself.
For more horror content, check out 10 Best PS1 Style Horror Games.
