What is horror? Is the genre limited to Silent Hill, Eternal Darkness, F.E.A.R., and Siren? Which Resident Evil games are horror as opposed to action games? Is Resident Evil 4, for instance, a horror game?
Every October, we spend more time debating these questions at The Punished Backlog than I care to mention, so this year we decided to take a different approach for our Halloween Edition of Punished Favorites. I asked our writers: What horror game moments did you find most scary (so far) in 2024? *Looks nervously at the first two weeks of November.*
The responses are joyfully eclectic, ranging from the “traditional” horror of Dead Space to the abstract terrors of everyday life. They’re written both by folks who find joy in the horror genre (shout-out to one of my favorite podcasts) and by those with a dangerous curiosity about the things that scare them (namely, Amanda). The following entries prove that maybe—just maybe—fear and chills can come from anywhere in gaming.
– Written by Clint Morrison, Jr.
Watching the Trailer for Slitterhead
I am a horror game novice (aka a big scaredy baby). I love the idea of being good at horror games, but in reality, I just scream alone in my house with all the lights on. I’ve always had a hard time with horror in any genre—I think I’m too empathetic, so any super intense content just really overwhelms me. Plus, you add in the natural everyday fear that comes from Being In A Femme Body On Planet Earth, and I just sort of implode.
But when it came time to do our Waiver Wire draft for our Fantasy Gaming League, I knew I had to watch the trailers for all the horror games Clint recommended. Alan Wake 2′s Lake House DLC looks great, as I would expect, having already played the 2023 hit. Silent Hill 2 was vibey (and I ultimately drafted it). The Blumhouse collection made me chirp noises of panic intermittently. But about 30 seconds in, the trailer for Slitterhead caused me to shriek and I exited out of the tab in panic.
Then… I waited a moment… and opened it back up and willed myself to watch the whole thing. Blood spatters! Possessing people! Bug legs! So many bug legs! Creepy music in a gloriously neon city! Slitterhead, coming out on November 8, looks like it’ll be a joy for anyone who wants to try to survive being chased by gross monsters. Not me. But, you know, somebody (it’s Clint… this game was made for Clint).
Platforms: Slitterhead releases on November 8 for PC, PlayStation 4 & 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
– Written by Amanda Tien
House Beneviento from Resident Evil Village
Spoilers ahead.
As this site’s Old Games Guy, I’m one to go back and replay games from years past pretty frequently. In a (somewhat recent) revisit to 2021’s excellent Resident Evil Village, I was of course reminded (in a particularly horrifying fashion) of the danger awaiting me in House Beneviento, by far the scariest sequence in an otherwise action-heavy game.
Most of Village tasks the player with exploring a handful of Zelda-like dungeon areas that surround a creepy village hub, with each new area coming with its own take on horror aesthetics and gameplay challenges. While three of the four areas rely heavily on creative gunplay and basic survival mechanics, House Beneviento takes a completely different approach: In a sequence heavy on supposed hallucination, the player is stripped of their weapons and items and must find their way through this creepy mansion, solving environmental puzzles along the way.
Once all puzzles are solved, though, things get scary FAST.
Following a brief blackout in a basement, the player hears a faint sound in the background of a baby crying. After stepping out into a dimly lit hallway, you realize the baby is actually a GIANT BLOODY FETUS THAT KILLS AND EATS YOU IMMEDIATELY UPON CONTACT. You can’t fight it; you just have to stealth your way out of there in a terrifying panic.
My favorite part of this sequence (which truly is one of Village’s highlights) is that it forces you to become fully aware of your surroundings and what you’re able to do even if you don’t have a trusty pistol at your side. The player has to be mindful of crawl spaces and measure distance by sound; you can’t brute force your way through or away from the GIANT BLOODY FETUS THAT KILLS AND EATS YOU IMMEDIATELY UPON CONTACT. I’m not much of a horror guy, but I really do have a soft spot for House Beneviento.
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch (via cloud)
– Written by Sam Martinelli
Falling From a Skyscraper in Little Kitty, Big City
For anyone with a fear of heights, Little Kitty, Big City may be sCaRy! In Little Kitty, Big City, you play as a black cat who gets lost in the city after falling from a windowsill of a skyscraper. Poor little thing is just taking a nap, and all of a sudden is dropped into this scary world full of strangers! Thankfully, the kitty suffers no injuries after that incredible tumble, especially since it’s the very first moment of the game.
As you explore the city to find your way home, you’ll make new friends, complete fetch quests and achievements, and cause some chaos along the way. One thing that’s fun is that there’s a bunch of hats to collect, which your kitty can wear and look adorable in.
During your adventure, the kitty will gradually gain more stamina, which allows it to climb higher up on buildings. But it’s not just the beginning of the game where you’ll fall; it happens throughout. As someone who has knee-jerk reactions to heights and falling in video games (thanks for making this my fear, Breath of the Wild), this is GREATLY UNCOMFORTABLE to watch. These falls happen fairly often because the jumping controls aren’t as clean as they could be, making it easy to miss a jump.
I love having a visceral reaction in a cozy game like this because it’s definitely unexpected during what you expect to be a chill gaming session. There are other moments in Little Kitty, Big City that drive suspense, like when you trip someone walking down the street, wander a construction site, and attack a bird, but they don’t stand a chance against the feeling of dropping off a skyscraper.
Platforms: PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch
– Written by Allison McDaniel
The Casual Cruelty of Life in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Major spoilers to follow.
Some of the best pieces of horror don’t focus on jump scares, creepy killers, or spooky skeletons. Instead, they focus on the perverse horrors of real life, maybe amped up a bit, but grounded in the terror that living brings. For instance, critics and audiences uphold Midsommer from Ari Aster as a high-water mark of modern horror for its grounded nature and internal terror. Any supernatural or mystical elements are discarded, with the film focusing on how cruel life itself can be and how easily people can be broken.
Infinite Wealth broke me by focusing on how large beings can be laid bare by life itself. I was a latecomer to the Like a Dragon/Yakuza series, but I always knew who Kazuma Kiryu was. Kiryu was a larger-than-life figure inside and, outside of the series, a modern mascot of masculinity tempered with kindness and a drive to do good. Even without playing the games, I knew Kiryu ruled. I knew Kiryu was a hero, a sacrificer, someone willing to move mountains for the people he cared about. Someone with a jaded history who loved his orphanage and a good bout of karaoke. Kiryu always seemed like a king. So it has been a joy getting into the series itself, to see the trials and triumphs Kiryu has survived. Everything I built him up to be in my head was justified on screen.
And then, shortly after connecting with new(ish) protagonist Kasuga Ichiban in Infinite Wealth, Kiryu collapses, weak and unable to stop coughing. Instead of knife fights or angry yakuza members, fire or falling, Kiryu reveals he will die of an incurable cancer. Working a job to send more money to the orphanage he loves, Kiryu was a normal man. He was no larger than life, and life decided he would die coughing.
It terrified me. How cruel normal life can be; how much one’s achievements don’t matter to the reaper. Death comes for us all in the most banal, mundane way possible. We all die. Even kings.
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S
– Written by Gary Wilson
Giving Up on the Dead Space Remake
The terrifying Dead Space remake brings back the haunting corridors of the USG Ishimura with upgraded graphics, eerier sound design, and gameplay that feels all too real and all too scary. I avoided the original after watching a friend play, when he walked past a seemingly lifeless Necromorph, only to watch in horror as it sprang to life, tearing him apart. That image stuck with me, but after braving Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil Village’s nightmarish “baby scene,” I thought I was ready to finally confront Dead Space.
I was wrong.
Once I saw the game was on Xbox Game Pass this year, I dove in. But after a brutal, zero-gravity gauntlet in the ship’s grotesque centrifuge, where I barely survived wave after wave of creatures harassing me and clawing at me through the vacuum of space, I grew exhausted. The adrenaline rush left me on edge; my heart raced as I walked through the area’s last airlock.
Just as I thought I could finally breathe, a monstrous tentacle snapped out of the darkness, latching onto my leg and dragging me down a dark hallway. I shut my system down immediately. That night, I slept with the lights on, as I tried to shake off the feeling of constantly being hunted. I kept one eye on the air vent in my bedroom, just in case…
Platforms: PC (via Steam), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S
– Written by Donovan Harrell
The Nightmare World of Metaphor: ReFantazio
Okay—so Metaphor: ReFantazio obviously isn’t a horror game; it’s a turn-based JRPG that pulls from the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series before it. But while there are no jump scares, or hulking zombies, or tense corridor action, there’s enough death and suffering to give Resident Evil a run for its money.
For those uninitiated: Metaphor tells the story of a fantasy world not too dissimilar from our own. In this world, there are so-proclaimed superior tribes (the Clemars and Roussaintes) and then all the rest. “Halfbloods” are looked down upon and treated as freaks. A small oligarch rules the many, and the main religion, Sanctism, has indoctrinated its followers. Even the right to shop or pray depends on your race.
Planet Earth may not be as bad as the land of ReFantazio, but dammit, we’ve seen this movie before. From the U.S.’s history of slavery, to the Holocaust, to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, discrimination and inequality follow us at every turn. And though plenty of fictional works have tackled these injustices before (Wolfenstein II, Attack on Titan, etc.), I’ve never quite seen a world as diverse yet devoid of compassion as ReFantazio’s.
Platforms: PC (via Steam), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S
– Written by David Silbert
The Terror of Revenge in Fate/Grand Order
Major spoilers for the Japanese version of Fate/Grand Order ahead.
A problem that lies at the heart of all gacha games is the emptiness of the main character. Since they have to function as a stand-in for the player, they can’t really develop their own character or express any real desire, want, or need that would disconnect them from the idea that they exist for you—the player—to insert yourself into. There are exceptions, like in Honkai: Star Rail, but usually these characters aren’t allowed to be themselves.
While Fate/Grand Order isn’t really an exception to this (arguably it’s one of the forebears of making your main character boring as sin), Ordeal Call II: Irreversible Trash Heap, Id, one of the most recent story chapters, tries to circle this square by focusing on the horror of the main character.
Early on in the story, set in an illusionary version of Tokyo made out of the main character’s memories (it’s complicated), the stand-ins for the player’s family are murdered in cold blood. The case doesn’t get investigated and the main character starts having dreams of an infernal path laid out before them. Throughout the course of the story, several characters toy with the main character’s sense of self. They start to nudge them toward a more violent path, one where they can let their desire for revenge run rampant, free to do whatever they please for the sake of the ones they lost.
And the main character is horrified by it.
Utilizing subtle narration and dialog choices, usually unseen in the rest of the game’s script, writer Hikaru Sakurai dots the script with layers of dread and horror, managing to accentuate the contradiction of the MC’s invasive lust for violence and their rejection of it. Reading it truly made my skin crawl, mainly because this type of writing was extremely unusual for the game itself. Yet despite that, it was a welcome, new approach for a game that I’ve felt has been lacking in evocative, surreal writing, especially one produced by titans of the visual novel industry.
Platforms: iOS, Android
– Written by Eithan Rosemberg
Sakura Head in Silent Hill: The Short Message
Silent Hill: The Short Message may not have been the full return to the heights of the franchise’s PlayStation 2 run or a P.T.-style teaser, but it did have its share of terrifying moments. The game’s introduction to Sakura Head, designed by the brilliant Masahiro Ito, left me with a rush of adrenaline that I’m not sure I’ve experienced since first seeing Pyramid Head in Silent Hill 2.
Unlike James Sunderland’s initial run-in with Pyramid Head, Silent Hill: The Short Message protagonist Anita doesn’t have a weapon to defend herself against Sakura Head. The creature covered in cherry blossoms and wire chases Anita during heart-pounding sequences. These sequences also transform the world around Anita into a nightmare aesthetic (I love Silent Hill’s recurring Otherworld).
The creature’s beauty captures horror in a different light than most modern horror games. This isn’t a wholly grotesque being, covered in blood or necessarily violent in demeanor. Not every horror game needs excessive blood or gore to be scary. Sometimes, the threat of something beautiful catching up to you and impaling you in a maze is enough.
Platforms: PlayStation 5
– Written by Clint Morrison, Jr.
What are your favorite horror game moments of 2024? Let us know in the comments!
