20 Scariest Video Games Of All-Time

Oh, is that a zombie dog crashing unexpectedly through a window? No, thank you.

Outlast Game
Red Barrels

Nobody is really sure, exactly, as to the appeal of purposely scaring the sh*t out of ourselves - and yet across the span of the entertainment medium, we regularly seek to do so. Scary movies, books in the horror genre, and, yes, terrifying video games, make up just some of the ways in which the average human person will set out to give themselves a potential heart attack.

Why, though?

Do we take some deep-seated, primal pleasure in being made to jump, coupled with the exhilaration that we were briefly terrified? What we do know is that scary games cling to their own brilliant appeal, and over the years developers have purposely set out to render virtual worlds in which the sole intention is for willing players to - in scientific terms - "defecate in their pants."

There are a specific class of gamers, of course, who thrive on the knowledge that they're playing a scary game - the fact that the game has been designed to frighten and disturb them injects it with an added appeal. Thankfully, so many of these "scary" games are classics.

What follows, then, are the best of the best: the 20 scariest video games of all-time, most of which were intentionally crafted in order to make you call out for mommy...

Contributor

Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.