Best Psychological Horror Games

While many horror games rely on jumpscares and gory violence to creep players out, the more narrative-driven ones use atmospheric settings and ingenious writing to infiltrate our minds.

We often refer to these games as psychological horror since the player’s own notions regarding characters, events, and locations set the tone for what’s to come.

In this list, we’ll highlight the best psychological horror games on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch that take place in distorted realities.

This includes games that typically fall under the category of survival horror or horror adventure while incorporating more mental elements.

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Our initial recommendation for a new psychological horror game is Martha Is Dead, a somber first-person thriller that manages to blur the lines between reality, superstition, and the calamity of war.

Set in 1944 Italy, the game uses the continuing struggle between German and Allied forces as a backdrop for its narrative centering on the defiled body of a drowned woman.

Taking on the role of her twin sister, players must tackle the profound trauma of loss and fallout of Martha’s murder while confronting mysterious folklore and extreme horrors to uncover the truth.

MADiSON is another modern indie horror title that prominently features psychological terrors in both its story and gameplay design.

In it, you assume control of a young man who discovers he’s gradually being possessed by a demon and sets out to stop it before the wicked ritual is complete.

Armed with a camera, players must solve puzzles using photographic clues while avoiding a host of supernatural horrors throughout the house.

Rendered in retro pixel art graphics, Faith: The Unholy Trinity is a story-rich psychological horror game about a young priest’s battle with demons, insane cultists, and self-doubt.

Spanning three narrative chapters, it draws motivation from classic 8-bit gaming as well as the “Satanic Panic” religious hysteria of the 1980s.

Despite having a relatively simple art style compared to most modern indie games, Faith still manages to create tension using bone-chilling visuals and skin-crawling sound design.

Mothered is another lo-fi horror game that’s emulating retro-style graphics while relying on uncanny imagery and psychological horror to establish its atmosphere.

The story centers on a young girl who returns from a mysterious surgery procedure only to find a strange mannequin in her home claiming to be her mother.

Over the course of a week, players get to decide whether to comply with their new mother’s orders or rebel and suffer the consequences.

Supporting both virtual reality headsets and traditional desktops, Deathwatch is a psychological horror game that tasks you with observing and recording paranormal phenomena from inside a security room.

Using every tool at their disposal, players will cycle through different scenes and gather data that suggest supernatural threats are unfolding.

This involves watching security cameras, audio devices, and the area around you for unusual things and entities that may make you question your own sanity.

Para Eyes is another spot-the-difference-style horror game reminiscent of the I’m On Observation Duty series with unsettling undertones designed to mess with players’ minds.

In it, you’ll flip through security cameras looking for “anomalies,” that don’t align with what you would anticipate to find in the real world.

As the night advances, these threats will become more active, forcing you to challenge your eyes and memory to have any chance of surviving.

Taking its cues from the ill-fated Silent Hills successor P.T., Visage is an independent horror game that turns sanity into a literal game mechanic.

Your character is tasked with exploring a haunted home whose possessions hold a great deal of history and layers tied to its previous residents.

While collecting items and solving puzzles, you’ll find yourself having to take pills to avoid being driven insane by the ghosts and other terrors that stalk you.

Red Candle Games is a renowned indie horror game developer that built its reputation off of the fantastic 2D psychological horror game Detention.

Paying homage to classics like Silent Hill, the game relies on ambiance, story-telling, and Taiwanese/Chinese mythology to pull players into its warped setting.

In it, you play as a student who falls asleep in class and wakes up to find their high school completely abandoned aside from one other student and countless demonic entities.

Blending both psychological and hallucinatory horror, Layers of Fear is a standout entry in Bloober Team’s vast catalog of horror games focusing on story and exploration.

The story takes place in an ancient Victorian-era mansion and has you assuming control of a painter struggling to create his supreme masterpiece.

This leads him on a journey of despair through constantly shifting corridors and rooms occupied by ghastly visions of the painter’s dismal and tragic past.

The psychological tricks in Doki Doki Literature Club start long before you even download the game as it presents itself as your typical anime visual novel with adorable schoolgirls.

However, it’s not long before the façade is broken and players find themselves in uneasy scenarios ridden with bleak imagery and disturbing themes.

The ideal way to experience this gradual burn of a psychological horror game is via Doki Doki Literature Club Plus, an expanded version with supplementary content.

Cooking Companions is another psychological horror visual novel that tries to not-so-subtly distract the player from seeing what’s really going on in the story.

The premise is as follows: you’re trapped in a cabin in the forest with a group of companions who come to the shocking realization that there’s not enough food for everyone to survive.

What ensues is a delightful-yet-disturbing adventure into depravity as you’re forced to make tough choices that will result in some of your peers, maybe even you, ending up on the chopping block.

Next on our list is Fran Bow, a highly praised point-and-click horror adventure game about a young girl struggling with a mental disorder and a series of calamities.

After coming home to find her parents brutally murdered, she ends up in a twisted asylum where she’s plagued by nightmares of her beloved cat that’s nowhere to be found.

To escape the asylum and reunite with her last living relative, Fran will have to solve puzzles, beat mini-games, and overcome disturbing visions.

Few indie horror game franchises manage to reach the level of success that Red Barrels has with its first-person survivor horror series Outlast.

The biggest obstacle in these games is the fact your character is virtually defenseless against their pursuers, forcing you to hide in lockers, under beds, and the like.

This coupled with the fact that you can only view the world via a nighttime vision camcorder with a limited battery supply makes each entry feel like a resource management mind game.

Frictional Games is another significant player in the psychological horror space and really came onto the scene with Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

However, the studio’s follow-up SOMA manages to hit the same psychological high notes while introducing even more haunting settings and tackling morally complex themes.

Having undergone an enigmatic medical procedure, your character awakes to find he’s trapped in a deep ocean research facility on its dying legs, prompting him to seek out answers and escape.

Another entry on this list that comes courtesy of developer Bloober Team, Observer is an unconventional horror pick that’s more cerebral and disturbing in its storytelling.

In it, you take on the role of a detective tasked with tapping into other people’s minds to obtain evidence using a special device called a neural link.

The catch here is the more you use this device, the more memories begin to bleed over into the real world and cause you to have terrifying nightmares.

A psychological horror staple that was recently remastered for PC and modern consoles, Alan Wake casts you as a disturbed author investigating his wife’s enigmatic disappearance.

Things quickly spiral out of control when his hometown of Bright Falls becomes overrun with malevolent forces inspired by his latest horror novel.

To stay alive, Alan will have to use every tool at his disposal to avoid succumbing to the supernatural horrors that stalk him and uncover the truth.

Widely acclaimed for its narrative focus and authentic depiction of mental illness, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is psychological horror at its finest.

Grounded in a Norse mythology-inspired world, it tells the story of a Viking warrior suffering from psychosis and the loss of her departed lover.

Hoping to restore her life, Senua crosses the threshold into the underworld, where she’s compelled to confront her demons in ways she never imagined possible.

Seeing as we touched on it earlier, it seems only fitting to wrap up this list with what many consider Frictional Games’ finest game to date, Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

In this psychological horror masterpiece, players are cast as a man subjected to sinister and supernatural torture while trying to escape a mysterious castle.

The game’s main selling point is its use of sanity as a gameplay mechanic that challenges players to burn candles and avoid creatures lest they risk going mad in the gloomy darkness.