It’s October! It’s Friday the 13th! This sort of spooky combination of dates won’t happen again for many years, so you’d better take full advantage and play some scary games today. Of course, now that we have an official Friday the 13th: The Game out there, you might think that’s the way to go. And sure, it’s a solid horror experience. But I want to branch beyond that. Here’s five games to play on Friday the 13th, that aren’t Friday the 13th: The Game.
Silent Hill 2
Silent Hill 2, to me, is the scariest game ever made and it perfectly encapsulates the horror of both Halloween and Friday the 13th. The game isn’t about jumping out and scaring you with loud noises, though those will pop up here and there. Instead it is about getting inside your head and showing you the true horrors of this crazy world known as Silent Hill. You’ll face demonic creatures, mutilated mannequins, and the always dreadful Pyramid Head, and you’ll do it all with just a few bullets and a lead pipe.
Resident Evil 7
Jumping to a much more modern game, Resident Evil 7 brought the venerable survival horror series back to its roots in a big way. There’s no giant action set pieces here, just slow burn psychological terror. If you have Resident Evil 7 on PS4, and you have a PSVR headset then you can even play the whole game in VR, and it’s pretty terrifying. Stare right into the face of the evil Baker family as they torture and maim you. It’s classic fun!
Alien: Isolation
One of my all time favorite franchises had somehow not had a truly great horror game until just a few years ago. That was rectified by the superb Alien: Isolation. It’s a true slow build horror game, putting you into the world of Ripley, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, and the titular Alien, then offering a unique adventure that stars Ellen Ripley’s daughter Amanda. You’ll face off against rogue AI and desperate humans, but all of that will pale in comparison to the Alien’s presence. The key to the scares is that the Alien is almost always around, looking for you, hunting you, and ready to strike. Sound like anyone familiar?
Dead by Daylight
I’ve included a lot of slow horror experiences on this list, so here’s one that more closely fits the gameplay of the game that I won’t mention, we’ll call it Thursday the 12th: The Prequel Game instead. Dead by Daylight features the same asymmetrical multiplayer, but in what many consider to be a more refined experience. One player is the madman, choosing from some of the biggest horror icons of the past or ones closely based on them, the rest of the players are people just trying to escape. They’ll do this by working together and communicating, but the villain is always nearby, ready to strike…OK, this is getting too similar.
Rocket League
Rocket League isn’t scary, and it doesn’t fit with the theme of Friday the 13th or Halloween. It’s just a really good game. You should play it.
