I am fascinated by games with 2D art that still manage to give you a good scare. I guess what I find interesting is if a game can manage to translate the scares and audio design which we know from 3D environments and movies. I have never really played any though. I would love to hear some suggestions, especially with Halloween coming soon!
I found Limbo and Inside to be pretty creepy. Not quite scary but a generally dark atmosphere.
I enjoyed these games, but as you said, they are not very scary, especially after you get used to the atmosphere.
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Is there a reason Limbo is being talked about these days? My 10 year old nephew was going on about it at the weekend. Did some streamer play it recently?
The lead gameplay designer for Limbo and Inside, Jeppe Carlsen, recently released another game, Cocoon. It’s excellent, but not a horror game. I highly recommend it.
Doki Doki literature club
Darkwood is terrifying especially with perma death on. Less emphasis on jump scares, more on terrifying environments and suspense.
Less emphasis on jump scares
That’s a good point. The “scary” genre spans a really wide range of games. Might help if OP lists some games that they particularly liked, and maybe any that aren’t quite what they’re looking for.
Consider some games that might be considered scary (not selecting these as the “scariest” or 2D, just examples of how broad a variety of scary games might be):
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Gone Home. There’s no killing, no monsters. But it’s got a spooky ambience – I mean, you’re wandering around an house where people are missing, trying to understand what happened. I don’t know if I’d call it a horror game, but there are definitely people who might call it “scary”. I felt tense while playing it.
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World of Horror. This has no shortage of gore, but its graphics are 1-bit and low-resolution.
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White Night. That’s also black-and-white, but entirely-different, derives most of the scary factor from ambience and limited visibility. No gore. You can definitely die, though.
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The Lurking Horror. Just text.
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Resident Evil: Village. High-end, realistic graphics.
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Super Lone Survivor. 2D, color pixel art with 3d hardware effects.
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I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream. A core element of the game’s horror is that the characters cannot die.
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Among the Sleep. You’re a mostly-helpless toddler.
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F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. You’re a decidedly not-helpless special forces operator, lots of jumpscares.
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The Forest. Open-world, not driven by a story.
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Inscryption. A deckbuilder.
Holy hell, they made a game of I have no mouth and I must scream??
That’s going on the list
It’s pretty old now. I just was grabbing it because I remembered it and wanted an example where death wasn’t an issue, not looking for recommendations.
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Signalis is my vote.
Even though it’s technically 2.5D I’d also recommend Inside.
Oxenfree messed me up when I played it a few years ago. It’s got this super eerie vibe to it that really ratchets up the tension and sense of dread.
A game I played recently might do the job too, it’s called Signalis. It plays a bit like a 2D Resident Evil game, but with a slightly more interesting story.
Oh, I did play Oxenfree! Heh, until you described it like you did I never thought of it as a horror game, but you are absolutely right, it is pretty creepy! Thanks for recommending Signalis, I will check it out
Might be too retro for many, but Deadeus is really good.
This looks great! It’s not too retro at all!
Fear and Hunger and its sequel, Fear and Hunger 2: Termina, but with the caveat that you take its content warnings seriously. They’re pretty intense and very explicit. There’s censor mods for both if you’re not too keen on huge swinging monster dongs, but i’d recommend going in vanilla if you’re up for horror.
The two games are survival horror / immersive sims taking place in a medieval dungeon and a remote ww2 era town respectively, and they do what they do pretty well. There’s a point where you might feel in control, but thats only after more than a couple playthoughs when you’re ending hunting, the first runs through are nerveshredding. And even then, there are extra difficulty modes for when you need more chaos and tension.
Darkwood, Fear & Hunger and Faith are some of the spookiest games I’ve played, and they are all 2D. They create horror via suspense and dread instead of just jump scares.
Seconding darkwood - one of the few that matches Amnesia in its ability to make you fear what you cannot, should not see. You pray to whatever gods you believe in that your light lasts and that thing that goes bump in the night does only that.
I liked juppie psycho, it’s kinda scary but the story is great. Also I wanted to start The Coma 2 Vicious Sisters, it’s supposed to be good 2d Horror. Finally I played some lone Survivor a long time ago. That one was actually too scary for me. I remember that the sound atmosphere was great.
I played a bit of yuppie psycho a while ago. It’s pretty humorous, but doesn’t make any sacrifices on horror in doing so. Still need to beat it, but would recommend.
Uncanny Valley (2015) is an option. It’s polarizing though. Might be worth a try of you get it real cheap.
Check out the Rusty Lake games! They’re some of my favorite horror indies; hand-drawn-looking point and click games. Don’t be fooled by the simplistic art style, it has plenty of spooky animations and sound direction. Very Twin Peaks inspired.
Start with the Cube escape collection on steam, and then work your way through by release date from there. They’re pretty short so it shouldn’t take too long!
Deadwood
Hide and Seek [Story of Dorothy]
There’s a collection of spooky indie game reviews on Errant Signal’s channel. Faith looks like something you could be interested in.
Metroid Fusion has some very scary segments, and my understanding is that Metroid Dread does some of the same things, though I haven’t played through that one yet.
I finished Dread, amazing game, but I don’t remember any scary sections.
“Scary” may also be the wrong word; “tense” might be closer to the mark. In Fusion there are these sections where you’ll be exploring and then suddenly your doppleganger will show up and start hunting you. It’s surprising and actually pretty unnerving; you have to get away, but the thing can move basically as fast as you can and there’s really not much room to maneuver. I was under the impression that the “EMI” sections in dread were basically a refinement of this, but maybe I was misinformed.
