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Grab your flashlights and weapons — it's time to get scared.
The PS5 may still be relatively new, but that doesn't mean a collection of horror games isn't starting to grow. In fact, some of the best PS5 games available right now are horror titles, perfect for getting in some spooks and scares during Halloween or all year-round. As such, we've rounded up the best PS5 horror games to play, no matter what the occasion.
It's worth noting that while the PS5 is backward compatible with the PS4, we've opted to focus on including native PS5 games, with one exception. Native PS5 games run better than PS4 titles, loading faster thanks to the ultra-fast SSD and also taking advantage of features like ray tracing and the PS5 DualSense haptic feedback and adaptive triggers.
Alan Wake Remastered
Alan Wake Remastered is the Remedy Entertainment game fans know and love from all those years ago. For the first time ever, it's available on PlayStation! The developers implemented new character models, improved textures, a higher framerate, and more for this remaster while keeping the overall classic experience.
The story sees writer Alan Wake suffering from a severe case of writer's block. While on vacation with his wife Alice, she disappears, and Alan loses a week of his memory after a severe car crash. Worse yet, as shadowy figures attack him at night, he keeps finding pages of a manuscript he wrote, pages that seem to be coming to life. Players use a flashlight, flares, and guns to overcome the darkness, burning away the armor-like coating of dark that's infecting this strange town.
Alan Wake isn't a pure survival horror game, and really, the strength is in its narrative. The characters and writing are fantastic, leading to clever reveals and a gripping thriller divided over several episodes. If you're a fan of Stephen King, Twin Peaks, or the Twilight Zone, or you've played some of Remedy Entertainment's later games like Control, then you need to check out Alan Wake.
Alan Wake Remastered
$30 at Amazon $30 at Best Buy $30 at GameStop
Alan Wake is a writer, but he will have to fight his way out of this dark mystery. If you've never played this classic from Remedy Entertainment, this is the way to go.
Little Nightmares 2
Little Nightmares 2 from Tarsier Studios and Bandai Namco tells the tale of two children making their way through a mysterious city. So naturally, everything is twisted and wrong, from the murderous puppet children, the distorted adults, the strange obsession everyone has with static-filled TVs, and more.
Little Nightmares 2 expands on many ideas from the original game, adding in situational combat and horrifying new threats to overcome. It's a game that the less you know better about, the better off you'll be. The PS5 version includes a higher framerate and ray tracing for the reflections, meaning this gloomy story looks and plays even better than before.
Little Nightmares 2
$30 at Amazon $30 at Best Buy $36 at Walmart $30 at GameStop
This dark tale builds on the foundation of the original Little Nightmares, bringing a range of frightening new scenarios for players to escape as they make their way through the city.
Resident Evil Village
Resident Evil Village is number eight in the mainline games for the long-running Resident Evil franchise. Developed and published by Capcom, it's a direct sequel to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, retaining the first-person perspective introduced in the former game.
When Ethan Winters suffers a terrible tragedy: his daughter is abducted, he ends up in a mysterious European village. Ethan must confront nightmarish creatures like packs of Lycans and the Four Lords, including the extremely popular Lady Dimitrescu, also known as the Tall Vampire Lady. From the vampires and werewolves to further reveals, the entire game retains everything that makes Resident Evil unique while embracing classic, cheesy horror icons.
The PS5 version runs at 60 FPS and uses ray-traces to improve the overall image quality, meaning it's one of the best ways to play through this incredible horror journey.
Resident Evil Village
$50 at Amazon $50 at Best Buy $50 at Walmart $50 at GameStop
Capcom explores Gothic horror with the eighth mainline entry in the Resident Evil franchise. Ethan Winters is once again thrust into a nightmare, with a dark mystery at the heart of this ominous village.
Returnal
Returnal isn't a pure horror game. Instead, it focuses first on being a third-person science-fiction story. Developed by Housemarque, one of the many teams at Sony Worldwide Studios, the main protagonist is Selene, an explorer whose ship crashes on the planet Atropos. Selene soon realizes that every time she dies, she wakes right back up at the site of the crash, making it her mission to explore Atropos and try to find a way out even as she fights to remember everything and not lose her mind.
Returnal retains the action-filled gameplay that Housemarque is known for, with various alien weapons available to blast through hordes of strange creatures. The environments and enemies are unique, drawing inspiration from the world of Prometheus. Fittingly, the story also takes a dark turn, and things get more and more unnerving as Selene finds more information about just what is happening on Atropos.
If you're looking for a big challenge to overcome while also trying to find some scary science-fiction, Returnal is definitely a game for you to play.
Returnal
$50 at Amazon $70 at Best Buy $50 at GameStop
Returnal blends Housemarque's classic arcade combat with a third-person cinematic story. It may not be a pure horror game, but there's plenty here that'll unnerve intrepid explorers. Can you escape Atropos?
Until Dawn
Until Dawn is the aforementioned exception, as this technically isn't a true PS5 game. However, with that in mind, it runs at a locked 60 FPS on Sony's latest machine, meaning it's a significant upgrade over the experience of playing it on PS4, so we've opted to include it.
Developed by Supermassive Games, this is essentially a high-budget narrative game, similar to the kind made by Telltale Games. A group of friends gets together for a winter getaway on the anniversary of a tragic loss. However, even as this happens, there appears to be someone or something else on the mountain with them. As players swap between the different characters, they'll have the opportunity to make decisions, determining how the cast sees each other and helping or hindering you in the future.
What's really special about Until Dawn is that your actions genuinely have consequences. Everyone can live or die based on what you do, so it's extremely replayable. This is also a great game for introducing gaming as a whole to a friend or partner who doesn't really play games.
Until Dawn
$16 at Amazon $10 at PlayStation Now $10 at PlayStation Plus Collection $19 at Walmart
Until Dawn is a love letter to horror tropes, providing a strong narrative adventure. If you've ever yelled, "What are you doing?" watching characters in a slasher, this is your chance not to make the wrong decisions.
by Samuel Tolbert