It’s been a pretty good year for horror games, as we’ve had a wide range of titles from established franchises as well as new originals. There have been plenty of traditional survival horrors to jump terrifying adventures, as well as a lot of narrative projects from Supermassive’s catalog. We are certainly not hungry for horror games in 2024, but at the same time, the best this year has to offer is a remake, and that also sets a precedent for the kind of year this has been.
5. Casting Frank Stone
I was pitching to put the remake of Until Dawn in this spot instead, because I don’t think any of the games in Supermassive’s catalog this year are too far apart. Sure, Until Dawn has a better and tighter story, and the re-created visuals and cinematic focus make it look striking, but it’s also a far too expensive product that’s unnecessary given how the original still holds up. Hence, I selected The Casting of Frank Stone instead. This game feels like the lethargic last breath of Supermassive’s now overused format, but this does not detract from the fact that it is also terrifying and interesting and has enough player choice and freedom of choice to make the story feel your own. There are undoubtedly better Supermassive games out there, but this is still one of the better horror developers in the world and that holds true here.
4. Reveal
With Pixelsplit’s first-person psychothriller launching in March, it’s easy to forget about it over more recent releases, but honestly, Reveil could be the scariest video game of the year. For the horror genre, that has to mean something. This title is all about diving into the fractured psyche of a troubled man to discover what happened to his family and how the creepy Nelson Bros. Circus is involved. With dark, creepy paths to follow, stalking enemies, fast-paced action, terrifying threats and soul-crushing audio, Reveil is not for those who moan and cringe at less creepy horror offerings.
3. A quiet place: the road ahead
I really wasn’t sure how A Quiet Place would translate into an interactive video game format, especially a survival game with horror elements, but the folks at Stormind Games managed to complete this task with class. The Road Ahead captures the most brilliant and terrifying elements of A Quiet Place and enhances it with niche and quirky gameplay options that meant staying as quiet as possible in real life. Yes, it could have been better with a different focus on environmental choice and mechanical setup, but in terms of the task of delivering A Quiet Place game, this one got the job done with flying colors.
2. Still awakens the depths
If I had been a little stricter and firmer about how I treat remakes in awards discussions, Still Wakes the Deep might have come out on top this year. Instead, it falls a bit short by being the runner-up in this category. The psychological horror of The Chinese Room took us to a collapsing and falling oil rig in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland in the mid-1970s to dress up as a man fighting to escape and survive this terrifying ordeal, while a strange creature hunts him and steadily destroys the rig beyond repair. If running for your life is your favorite part of horror games (you crazy), then Still Wakes the Deep is an absolute must-play from the 2024 catalog.
1. Silent Hill 2 remake
No surprises here. When you take one of the most influential and acclaimed survival horror games of all time, give it a truly striking and beautiful graphical improvement, improve the AI and enemy behavior, offer a more unsettling world to explore, and most importantly, revamp the controls to make them feel like they belong in 2024, there aren’t many reasons why Bloober Team ‘s remake of Silent Hill 2 shouldn’t be at the top of this list. There was tremendous potential and risk that it would not be delivered with the same quality and standard expected of this modern classic, but the Polish horror masters made it work and served up an excellent final product that reminds us to this day why the town of Silent Hill is so scary and why Silent Hill 2 completely changed and redefined the horror genre.