Best Horror Games On Xbox Game Pass (September 2024)

Horror titles are no longer the niche genre they used to be, with terrors and frights now a remarkably popular medium for both films and games. Luckily for fans of fear and Xbox Game Pass owners, there is a downright treasure trove of horror games available on the Xbox Game Pass library.

From gritty survival experiences to jump-scare-filled co-op adventures, this collection presents a more than decent offering to players. Steeled nerves and a willingness to be terrified are the only things needed (aside from a Game Pass subscription) to dive right in.

19 Still Wakes The Deep

A major draw in a horror game is a unique and engrossing atmosphere. Dead Space would be less than half as scary as it is without the Ishimura, and Outlast’s fear factor would be minuscule without the halls of Mount Massive Asylum to wander around in. As with these iconic horror titles, Still Wakes the Deep features monstrous enemies you need to escape from, but what makes this such a phenomenal horror experience is its environment: an oil rig out in the middle of the inhospitable North Sea.

You play as an electrician stuck on the rig after drilling goes horribly wrong one day. And this location will play an important role in the feelings of despair and claustrophobia you undergo as you try to find a way off. From climbing (and nearly drowning) in the flooded lower compartments to the near complete lack of communication with the outside world, experiencing everything this title has to offer is heightened by this isolated setting.

An oil rig on its own is a daunting place. Throw in Lovecraftian terrors, and you’ve got one heck of a recipe for horror.

18 Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II

As its predecessor did, Hellblade II rattles your mind with quiet discomfort rather than inundating you with jump scares. You take control once again of Senua, a warrior who grapples with both external and internal threats. And it’s the internal threats that prove more terrifying than any foe you can swing a sword at. Senua still suffers from an intense psychosis that causes voices to whisper doubts in your mind (and in your headphones).

Nothing is more unnerving than crawling through a dark and damp tunnel, with water dripping and rocks ominously cracking, and then hearing a panicked whisper mutter about how something is moving in the shadows. And whether there is something lurking in the dark or if Senua’s voices’ suspicions prove inaccurate, the constant feeling of not knowing for sure is what makes Hellblade II a potent title in the horror genre.

Plus, the game’s visuals look absolutely stellar. Even if the nightmarish creatures they render do not.

17 The Quarry

The Quarry fits neatly into Supermassive’s “playable horror film” (or “interactive drama,” if you fancy) catalog and swings with the best of them. It doesn’t have quite the pedigree or roots of the Dark Pictures Anthology, but it packs in ample thrills, chills, and of course, a healthy dash of that late 80s/early 90s-era slasher campiness.

The game-movie’s plot has you follow and attempt to guide a squad of teens fitting into various social archetypes — the popular one, the jock, the guy-who-listens-to-podcasts, etc. — through the trials and travails of a classic horror setup; they’ve been stranded at the Hackett’s Quarry summer camp after their travel arrangements fall through, and are thus forced to stay for one more “memorable” night.

Players aren’t greeted with anything groundbreaking or particularly out-of-sorts in terms of gameplay. Plot developments and outcomes are generally determined via dialogue trees and quick-time events, and naturally, each of the playable characters can potentially meet their ends in a myriad of grisly ways depending on how well they’re navigated. Simple and agency-averse gameplay mechanics notwithstanding, The Quarry is an excellent way to spend a popcorn evening with friends, especially with its well-implemented local and online multiplayer support.

16 Resident Evil 2

Honestly, if almost any Resident Evil game gets added to Xbox Game Pass, you can bet we’re going to add it to this list of the best horror games to play there. This time around, one of the best RE experiences to date has made it onto the Game Pass library. Resident Evil 2’s 2019 remake is a jaw-droppingly good example of how remakes should be done. You can feel the love and care that went into preserving the iconicism of the original, but the updates to the control scheme and the graphics make everything monumentally better.

If you love good horror games, nay, if you love good games period, then Resident Evil 2 needs to be on your must-play list. It combines the joy of a good collect-a-thon with the tension of a slasher film (tip of the hat to you, Mr. X) all to provide one of the best gaming experiences currently available to Game Pass subscribers.

15 Dead Space (2023)

If you want to experience a more modern take on one of the greatest horror games of all time, the 2023 version of Dead Space is now available to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers, courtesy of EA Play. The necromorphs are back, baby, and they’re more gruesome than ever. Every time you shoot one of them with the plasma cutter, you can see their flesh get blasted off their limbs one chunk at a time. The eerie environments of Dead Space have also been enhanced to perfection.

Might be wild take, but I actually prefer the Dead Space remake to the Resident Evil 4 remake when it comes to which horror game I enjoyed most in 2023.

The lighting is creepily poignant, and don’t get me started on the sound design; I can’t even begin to describe how perfectly horrifying it all is. No longer is the USG Ishimura cut up into sections by loading screens and new chapters. Plus, you can traverse nearly the entirety of the ship without a single interruption, barring a few locked doors, of course. The Dead Space remake is now the definitive way to play the game and experience the harrowing journey of one Isaac Clarke.

14 Lies Of P

Lies of P feels like a puppet-themed successor to FromSoftware’s Bloodborne, and just as with Bloodborne, though the game does not include a myriad of jump scares, its creep factor stems from its gorgeously rendered environments. You wander through the rain-soaked streets of Krat, a city that has come under siege from its previously docile puppet automatons. Known as the Puppet Frenzy, the slaughter of Krat’s citizens by these Victorian-attired, string-less marionettes is apparent everywhere.

From bodies piled on the streets to the shambling puppets themselves, horrific details of what happened are around every corner. So while you might start Lies of P for that delicious Soulslike gameplay that both thrills and infuriates, you’ll stay for the horror of which disfigured, twitching puppet boss is going to destroy you in a beautifully decrepit cobblestone arena.

13 Amnesia: The Bunker

This is not the only Amnesia game we have on this list, and that just goes to show what a master of horror Frictional Games is. However, what sets The Bunker apart from The Dark Descent and Rebirth is its deviation from Frictional’s linear roots. Where the other Amnesia games have a heavy focus on story as you trudge from section to section, vainly attempting to maintain your sanity meter, The Bunker gives you almost immersive-sim-like freedom when it comes to approaching your objectives.

If a locked door stands in your way, you can throw a chunk of brick at it multiple times to break it (if you can find a large enough block), you can blow it up with a grenade (if you want to risk attracting the monster with the explosion), or you can fumble in the nearby dark rooms to look for a key (if there even is one). The unforgiving save system also heightens the terror as you wonder whether or not you should risk making noise to progress. Having to return to a single safe room to save in the titular bunker makes each venture out one of risk versus reward.

I would compare Amnesia: The Bunker to Alien Isolation when it comes to the sheer relief you’ll feel when you make it back to your safe room, though the Xenomorph AI is still miles above the creature’s here.

It’s an overall shorter experience than what you might be used to, but it is also a challenging new take on Frictional’s style that is well worth the effort.

12 Ghostwire: Tokyo

To be clear, Ghostwire: Tokyo is not as terrifying an experience as you might have assumed after seeing its trailers. Despite covering a wide array of monsters and myths from Japanese folklore, the game itself does not reach the heights of horror that some other titles on this list do. That said, the action and creepy atmosphere packed within this game are enough to satisfy most horror fans. It’s a beautiful game in terms of visuals, and environments more than anything will be what ups the tension and draws you into those moments of perfect unease.

You play as a hapless young man who has to partner up with a spirit in order to uncover the mystery (and combat it) as to why Tokyo’s denizens have gone missing, leaving nothing but abandoned buildings and pieces of clothing floating in the fog. If that premise alone isn’t enough to draw you in, the satisfying combat courtesy of Tango Gameworks (the developers behind The Evil Within and Hi-Fi Rush) should at least pique your interest.

11 Darkest Dungeon

Darkest Dungeon’s core is that of a roguelike RPG, but it wears its Lovecraftian dark fantasy trappings so well that it’s sure to sate any horror hound’s thirst for thrills both corporeal and psychological. As the unlucky inheritor of a cursed estate, the player’s job is to hire, manage, and guide an initially hardy band of adventurers as they purge the recently-acquired lands of an ancient evil awakened by their ancestor.

However, battling unnamable cosmic horrors takes tolls both physical and mental. The heroes can become unwound by the stresses of combat, falling to madness as often as they fall to blades, teeth, and tentacles. The art style of Darkest Dungeon is worthy of enough praise, but the voice talent of the narrator and game’s roguelike nature serve to really drive home the horror aspects in a way that’s entirely unique.

10 Inside

A game does not need to be riddled with bloody scenes or heartstopping jumpscares in order to be a top-notch horror game. As a matter of fact, the most important thing a game needs to have to be one with this genre is the right atmosphere. And Inside has atmosphere in spades. Without ever having a character in the game utter a word, Inside tells a gripping story of a boy running from hostile forces that are out to capture him, murder him, or worse. It does this by amazing environmental story-telling techniques.

Even though gameplay mechanics deal with platforming and puzzle-solving, excellent sound design, camera placement, and backgrounds clue players in to what’s going on. Inside never directly tells you about the world, and the ending is ambiguous as heck, but it keeps you riveted right through to the astounding conclusion.

9 Prey

Of course, Prey is solidly within the purview of Arkane’s distinct brand of immersive sim before it’s anything else, but there’s a pretty solid case to be made concerning its survival horror elements. Largely following protagonist Morgan Yu’s struggle to survive aboard remote space station Talos I after a hostile, phantom-like alien species known as “Typhon” have slaughtered most of the people living there, Prey channels both psychological and sci-fi horror elements over the course of its run.

As you get stonger, Prey starts to lose its scare factor, but those opening moments when you haven’t installed too many neuromods are sublime.

Supplies are scarce, Morgan’s mortality is well-emphasized, and it’s difficult to not find oneself incredibly unsettled over the very nature of the alien threat overtaking the installation. Prey’s sure to satisfy any horror aficionado’s craving for tense, hair-raising encounters and the occasional jumpscare.

8 The Evil Within 2

While the successor to the first Evil Within is not as grimly horrific as the original, it still maintains the same gruesome, nightmare-like visuals. Detective Sebastian Castellanos is back, but this time it’s personal. In an attempt to rescue his daughter, he must dive into the world of STEM once more. A purportedly idyllic mental community has been overrun by a sadist’s imaginings, and players have to trudge alongside Sebastian as he navigates through these horrors.

There is a campiness to The Evil Within 2 that is mostly missing from the first game, making it arguably less frightening. While you might guffaw at Sebastian participating in an arcade shooting minigame while his daughter remains in mortal peril, you’ll also cower in terror whenever ghost-lady Anima decides to show up for a visit.

7 Dead Space 2

The first Dead Space was frightening enough, but Visceral Games decided to outdo themselves with the sequel. Players return into the engineering shoes of Isaac Clarke as he struggles with horrific visions of his dead girlfriend and the rise of the gruesome Necromorphs. Even though Clarke is more than capable of tackling these monsters, the horrors that await him, from an abandoned, bloody elementary school to a Unitologist church are still terrifying.

And the return to the Ishimura is as fright-packed as you remember. Its availability on the Xbox Game Pass library is a horror lover’s dream. The sequel brings back everything you liked about the original, and then some. New Necromorph types, new weapons, new armor for Isaac, you name it, it’s got it. And the best part? Dead Space 2 improved the zero-G controls from the last game. ‘Nuff said.

6 Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

The immersion found in Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is top-notch. Players are placed in control of Senua as she seeks to save the soul of her dead lover by traveling to Helheim. However, her mental illness and its accompanying symptoms continually plague her, and players are given the opportunity to see what it is like to experience auditory hallucinations and visual disorientation as a result.

Senua’s journey is harrowing, and that’s the point. Grotesque figures attack Senua, and, whether they be real or figments of her mind, their danger to her is quite real. The horror of her struggles is quite unlike anything seen in other titles of the genre.

5 Dead Space

Something about mashing up the genres of science-fiction and horror has always managed to yield desirable results, and Dead Space is no exception to this rule. Guiding Isaac Clarke through the derelict halls of the USG Ishimura after a particularly unfortunate space-fender-bender is nothing short of tense, and the design direction of the Necromorphs is appropriately horrifying. In the interest of avoiding spoilers, let’s just say that the narrative presented in Dead Space has the psychological trappings of a horror classic, making it a must-play for survival-horror aficionados.

4 The Evil Within

Horror has a way of getting into a player’s head, and The Evil Within showcases this literally. Psychological horror is the name of the game, as players spend the entirety of the narrative wandering through the mind of a killer.

Walls shift into floors, landscapes change in the blink of an eye, and enemies are grotesque shapes that stem from the tortured past of the villain that created them. Fair warning: The Evil Within is not for the faint of stomach.

3 Doom 3

After a decade-long lull in mainline releases, Doom 3 brought a distinctly different flavor to the table by leaning hard into a survival-horror take on the genre-defining FPS franchise. This would prove divisive, but it’s hard to argue that it wasn’t impressive.

Stepping into the familiar role of a lone space marine stranded on Mars after a portal to hell is ripped open by the overly ambitious scientists of the UAC, it’s up to the player to stop the demonic onslaught by journeying into Hell — and hopefully back again. The measured, tense pacing and emphatic horror setpieces are a far cry from Doom 2016’s breakneck, adrenaline-fueled extravagance, but it’s still a worthy experience that strikes an interesting middle ground between first-person action and horror thrills.

2 Dead By Daylight

Asymmetric multiplayer titles can, ironically, turn out to be rather lopsided experiences, but Dead By Daylight’s horror spin on the formula really manages to pull itself off. Pitting one killer against up to four survivors successfully channels the tense vibe of a typical horror story setup as the killer punishes reckless individual behaviors.

Conversely, the killer can be stunted by well-coordinated cooperation. Dead By Daylight has seen continuous updates since its 2016 release, adding great bits of DLC channeling horror greats. Packs are available that allow players to take on universes ranging from classics like Halloween and Silent Hill to more recent hits like Stranger Things.

1 The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season

Telltale’s The Walking Dead isn’t just a horror game, but the troubled studio’s lasting legacy in gaming as a whole. Borrowing the wildly popular universe established by Robert Kirkman’s comic book series of the same name, TWD follows the evolution of young protagonist Clementine as she develops from an impressionable and fearful child into a stalwart and seasoned survivor well-suited to the rigors of the zombie-infested post-apocalypse.

In true Telltale fashion, players will need to navigate dialogue options thoughtfully and remember the impact they will register on the other characters. If ever one needs a game that’s emblematic of Telltale’s design philosophy, this one’s it. Also, there are zombies.