The Best Horror Titles on PlayStation Now
Lets say you want the latest PlayStation games but also have fantastic internet. It sounds like it’s time to give PlayStation Now a shot. The service lets you stream a selection of games from PlayStation 2, 3, and 4. Plus if you’re using it on a PlayStation 4, or 5, you can download and play the PlayStation 4 games as well. There’s quite a few games on the service, so I took a look at what you may want to give a shot in your spare time.
Alone in the Dark: Inferno
I’m not going to lie: the 2008 reboot of Alone in the Dark isn’t exactly a good game. The PlayStation 3 version, which refined the game and added in a new boss fight, is only slightly better. However, it’s a rather weird and experimental title, something really unusual for a AAA game. It tried a bunch of strange new ideas, and even if they don’t work out, stuff like the advanced physics, the inventory management, and the right-stick focused combat system is still neat to try out. Also, the soundtrack is straight-up amazing.
Anna – Extended Edition
I don’t know why people choose to explore abandoned sawmills, but that’s what you’re doing in Anna – Extended Edition. Sure it may look nice at first, but it isn’t long before you discover the place is a bit of a hellscape. Full of creepy wooden dolls and cryptic puzzles, you’re going to be discovering the character’s history as told by, well… seemingly demonic forces. The game got missed by coming out very late in the PlayStation 3’s life, but it’s worth taking a look at if you want moody horror.
BloodRayne: Betrayal
In the early 2000s, the BloodRayne series managed to have a duo of well-liked third-person shooters. Then, in 2011, some hope that the series would make a come back was lit when BloodRayne: Betrayal came out. While this 2d action game didn’t revive the series, it is a solid action game that you may not want to miss. Get past the extreme difficulty and you have fun vampire action and lots of monsters to slay. The best kind to slay. Just be ready to die a lot as the game is insanely difficult.
Get Even
Have you ever been trapped inside a haunted house while wearing a VR headset? This is the basic idea of the first-person shooter Get Even, where you need to relive your memories while trying to figure out how you ended up in the madhouse. What follows is a rather interesting sci-fi mystery with a solid batch of stealth, shooting, and horror thrown in. Survive long enough and you just may figure out the truth behind the twisted story.
Infamous 2: Festival of Blood
I know horror isn’t really what most people think of when they think of the open world super hero series Infamous, but hear me out. Festival of Blood is the stand-alone expansion to Infamous 2, and is a rather interesting non-canon story about main character Cole being turned into a vampire. In addition to shooting lightning, he can suck blood and turn into bats. The expansion brings a rather campy b-movie horror vibe to the series, and it’s totally worth experiencing if you haven’t yet.
Lone Survivor
A game I’ve seen described as “a 2d Silent Hill” by more than a couple people, Lone Survivor is seeking to scratch a pretty specific itch. That itch is “what if Silent Hill but 2D.” Disturbing and twisted, it tells the story of a man trying to survive in a city that has been overrun by otherworldly horrors. You’ll have to decide if it’s worth helping other people, or even eating correctly, while trying to figure out how to escape the city. Well worth it if you need that classic scare.
Mordheim: City of the Damned
What’s not to love when you get a bit of tactics to go with your Warhammer? Mordheim: City of the Damned is a turn-based tactics game set in the Warhammer universe and based on the tabletop game of the same name. You’ll control teams of characters who do battle with monsters and other teams of characters. All of this is set to a rather gorgeous dark fantasy setting. It may not be super unique or anything, but it’s nice to see a bit of dark fantasy from time to time.
Observation
Do you remember that one scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey where HAL betrays the crew? Well, Observation isn’t too different from that. However, the twist? You play HAL. You’ll be a spaceship AI who has to figure out what happened after a mysterious event cut power to the ship, while also trying to keep the crew’s sole survivor alive. Or kill them, if that’s what the AI tells you to do. If there’s another crew, well, they don’t all need to survive. A solid dose of cosmic terror.
Plague Road
It’s not every day that you get to hear narration by popular YouTube games reporter Jim Sterling. This is one of the big selling points of Plague Road, a turn-based RPG set in a bizarre world of robotic horror. You play as the plague doctor in a disease-ridden world, one where half the characters appear to be robots and the other half are overgrown monsters. So how is the doctor going to cure this disease? By shooting it, of course. That’s what the doctor does best.
Savage Moon
In the early days of the PlayStation 3, Sony released quite a few little experimental games onto the PlayStation Network. One such game was Savage Moon, a tower defense game with a bit of a twist. The game saw your base attacked by aliens, and you had to build towers to stop them. However, you could also hop into any tower and control them from first-person, letting you get down and dirty. It’s a solid little tower defense game, and worth it for fans of the genre.
Shadow of the Beast (2016)
In 1989 Shadow of the Beast was released and well loved thanks to its absolutely stunning (for the time) graphics and soundtrack. In 2016 it was remade. It wasn’t quite as revolutionary as the original game, but the end result was a solid bloody 2.5d action platformer. The biggest thing the game has going for it is a rather interesting combat system where everything, including yourself, can die in a single hit. You’ll need some well timed counters and attacks to survive this one. Also you can find and eat the souls of dead players, which is pretty cool.
Siren
Ok I didn’t mean to have three Sony games in a row, but it turns out they have a trio of solid games that start with an S. Siren, or Forbidden Siren if you live in EU, is a classic PlayStation 2 horror game from 2004. The game wasn’t too unlike other horror games of the time, but the big gimmick was that you could use psychic powers to see through the eyes of the game’s monsters. There’s always something terrifying about looking through a monster’s eyes and knowing it sees you, after all.
SOMA
When your horror claim to fame is the Amnesia series, you know you got something good going. SOMA is a sci-fi game with the same idea of first-person horror as Amnesia. However, this time around you play as a man trapped in an underwater lab with no idea of how he got there. Soon he learns that the world has been ruined by an apocalypse, the rest of humanity is currently living inside a virtual city, and there’s twisted robots and former-humans out to kill him. It’s a thrilling game, and a terrifying story.
Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack
In the 1958 horror movie classic The Blob, a giant blob consumes everything. In Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack you play as that giant blob. A platformer where you start out as a tiny micro-organism and eventually evolve into a giant planet consuming monster, your goal is to eventually eat Earth. Along the way you can complete levels and consume all sorts of things to keep adding more mass to your blob. It’s a good time. For you, at least.
The Darkness
I dare someone to find a more criminally overlooked first-person shooter. The Darkness, a 2007 video game adaption of a comic book series, is all about a guy who becomes an evil dark-loving monster. It’s fantastic. Purposefully slow and tank-like, you get a real sense of power while playing as Jackie and his horrible monster friend. Spearing someone and then throwing them at their buddy is a wonderful mechanic. It did get a 2012 follow-up, also on PlayStation Now and also a solid fun game, but there’s nothing quite like the original.
The House of the Dead 3/4/Overkill
One series I’d kill to play in arcades again. While arcades may be gone, The House of the Dead lives on. There are three games available on the service, and all of them are great in their own way. 3 is your classic on-rails shooter, 4 is more like a modern update to the series, and Overkill decides to drench the whole thing in grindhouse fun. All three games are worth playing, even if you can beat them all in a weekend. Bring your friends.
Until Dawn
Yep, it’s another Sony game. Perhaps one of the biggest love letters to slasher movies, Until Dawn is a narrative adventure about seven friends that hang out in a mansion in the woods. The bad news? Well, there’s a psycho killer setting up tests and trying to kill them one by one. The worse news? That’s not the real threat. If you’ve ever wanted to see if you’d actually survive a horror movie, this seems like the game worth playing.
Whispering Willows
While a horror game may be scary, that doesn’t mean it can’t also be lovely. Such is the case with Whispering Willows. Featuring some absolutely lovely 2D art, the game manages to instantly use that to captivate. You play as Elena, a woman who is exploring the Willows Mansion to find her missing father. Sure enough, there’s plenty of ghosts in there, and before long she has to use her ability to connect to the spirit world to help these ghosts move on to the afterlife.
Zombie Tycoon II: Brainhov’s Revenge
It’s not often someone combines the genre of RTS with horror. While Zombie Tycoon II: Brainhov’s Revenge plays a little more on the humor side, the game is some solid B-movie zombie joy. You’ll play as one of two mad scientists, each of whom have their own zombie army with different traits. You’ll order them around, fighting the other army and eating humans caught in the middle. It’s a solid fun experience, and one totally worth trying out.
Just so many Resident Evil games
Look, I tried to avoid bringing up Resident Evil, alright? Everyone knows about it. But yes, there’s a lot of Resident Evil games on PlayStation Now. To be more specific, the service has Code: Veronica X, 4 through 6, both Revelation games, Operation Raccoon City, and its super terrible follow-up Umbrella Corps (please don’t play that one.) It also has The Umbrella Chronicles and The Darkside Chronicles, which is the pair of on-rails shooters originally released for the Wii then later for the PlayStation 3. Those two are actually super cool, and if you haven’t played them before you absolutely should.
