8 Video Games That Redefined The Horror Genre

Everyone loves a scary game once in a while - especially played at night with the lights off and the curtains closed. Or played alone for those who are feeling particularly brave.

While all horror games were created scary, some were created more scary than others. Whether it's horrific graphics or a sense of impending doom, they all aim to scare in their own unique ways. Otherwise they wouldn't be scary anymore, right?

Some games have done scary so well that they've spawned as many sequels as the devil has minions, but others have just quietly done their scary thing and gone relatively unnoticed in the scary world. Some games utilise the player's imagination to really get inside your head, whereas others go out of their way to be so grotesque you'll want to throw up.

While how scary a player finds a game is purely subjective, and can depend on a myriad of factors from personal experiences to a love of zombies, here are some games that are undeniably terrifying.

Let's get going shall we? Unless you're too scared to read on...

While not technically a horror game, the Scarecrow levels in Arkham Asylum are terrifying, a lot more so than any iteration of Scarecrow in Batman films.

The Arkham games do well to emulate the gritty DC comics better than Christopher Nolan ever did, and the sheer number of characters make them great fun to play through. However, the Scarecrow levels in particular are what qualify Arkham Asylum as a horror game.

After Scarecrow administers his fear toxin to Batman, the caped crusader begins to hallucinate memories of his parents' deaths, as well as a giant version of Scarecrow looking for him. These levels require Batman to keep out of sight, and shine Bat-Signals representing a manifestation of his willpower to blind and defeat Scarecrow.

The developers were genuinely original with their designs of such a well-known character, and used the fear toxin to good effect, scaring Batman and the player one and the same. They also did well to steer clear of previous representations of Scarecrow, and led the way for licensed games to be considered their own art form in themselves, rather than just extensions and copies of large corporations' existing products.