Horror games that feature co-op without sacrificing tension

Key recommendations

• Horror games thrive on player isolation, making single-player experiences ideal for capitalizing on solitude.
• Some horror games still manage to instill fear and dread, even when played with friends, thanks to eerie locations and masterful sound design.
• Multiplayer horror games like
  Dead in daylight
  and
  Endurance trials
  offers terrifying experiences with the teamwork required to survive.

Horror games it often thrives when the player feels truly isolated from others, because when people are alone, they are even more vulnerable. Because of this, most horror games are single-player experiences to take advantage of the player's solitude, with only gruesome creatures and creeping horror to keep them company.

Horror games that can still evoke dread, tension and fear even when played with friends they are a true testament to the developers' ability to create a truly horrifying experience. Strange locations, masterful sound design, and a terrifying atmosphere can still keep players in a grip of dread, even when in the company of others.

8 Dead By Daylight

Certain killers on the list aren't scary at all

There is no other game in the world where gplayersamers can run away from the Demogorgon Strange things while playing as Resident Evil's Jill Valentine and team up with Nicolas Cage. This is the major key to Dead in daylight success, as their rosters of killers and survivors are both full of licensed characters from iconic horror IPs.

As an asymmetric horror game, those playing as survivors either team up with friends or other random players to try and survive the ordeals ahead. They must repair the generators while avoiding the killer's squeeze to escape through the exit doors or hatch. while Dead in daylight is closer to a party game than a horror game, there are still times when the killer will scare the wits out of the survivor, either because of their sudden, stealthy appearance or the killer they're facing. There are few things more terrifying than being stalked by the Xenomorph, for example, or the scratched mirror Michael Myers, which completely removes all warning that he's near, leaving players stuck in a limbo of suffocating suspense.

7 Escape The Backrooms

Explore the weird and wonderful spaces with friends

Originating on 4chan of all places, The Backrooms has become one of the most famous fictional places of modern times. It encompasses several different settings, but the yellow wallpaper and wet carpet are the bread and butter of this liminal space. Anyone who enters The Backrooms is said to do so by accident, cutting through the fabric of reality to reach this alternate realm. It is also said that anyone who falls here may face the dangerous entities that call this place home.

Escape from the back takes place in this fictional setting where up to four friends must survive The Backrooms and find a way to get back home. Trapped in an eerie, spine-tingling ambience, players must keep their wits about them and listen for any dreaded sound that breaks the silence, other than the sound of their friends. With a total of 12 entities in the game, players never know what to expect, which only makes encounters more terrifying.

6 Resident Evil: Revelations 2

Work together to survive the horror

resident evil is normally a single-player adventure, with one person dealing with survival horror alone, solving puzzles, exploring a location, and killing their fair share of horrible, mutant creatures caused by an Umbrella Corp virus. or another. Resident Evil 5 began the series' brief foray into co-op play, specifically designing the game with the idea that it wouldn't be played as a solo experience with its underwhelming AI partner.

Resident Evil 6 continued this trend and was then implemented in Resident Evil: Revelations 2. The first entry brought the game back to its isolated, claustrophobic horror roots, which was continued in the episodic sequel. The twin stories tie together Claire and Moira's captivity on the island, along with Barry's search for his missing daughter. Teamwork is the whole point of the game here, but it does nothing to take away the tension from the strange locations, which definitely feel haunted. However, players won't be dealing with ghosts, just classic mutant creatures that were perhaps once human and are absolutely terrifying. Even as a team, these creatures can cause a lot of scares and the landscape a lot of tension.

5 Endurance trials

Avoid psychosis or witness The Skinner Man

survive began as a single-player survival horror experience, taking players first to an abandoned asylum and then to a rural farming village in the sequel. With the gaming industry placing a heavy emphasis on multiplayer, it was no surprise when survive entered this market resulting in The Enduring trialsa four-person co-op horror experience.

Playing as alleged “volunteers” for new methods of brainwashing and mind control masquerading as therapy, players must complete various trials involving different locations and objectives to gain their freedom. The problem is that there are plenty of enemies standing between players and their goals that are undeniably terrifying. By far the scariest enemy is the Skinner Man, a hallucination that appears when a player's morale drops to zero. Psychosis isn't just a dangerous state to be in, it causes an entity that cannot cause a nightmare.

4 Lethal Company

Encounter hostile creatures during rescue

A fun game designed for multiplayer, Lethal Company requires up to four players to travel to different planets and search for salvage to bring back to the Company in order to reach their mandatory quota. Failure to meet the quota within the given time will result in their dismissal…right out of the blue.

If the horrors of dystopian capitalism weren't enough, players also come face-to-face with all manner of hostile alien life as they search buildings on each planet for valuable scraps. These places are most often dark and maze-like, which can make running to safety doubly difficult. Despite being often seen as a silly little game to enjoy with friends, Lethal Company packs a surprisingly scary punch with its monster design that includes large spiders, a creepy ghost girl, and the reel head, all of which are uniquely terrifying.

3 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Based on the iconic slasher film

Another asymmetric multiplayer horror game many thought it might finally dethrone dead in the daylightThe Texas Chainsaw Massacre is based on the film of the same name. Three players will control a member of the Sawyer family, including Bubba, and four will take on the role of the unfortunate victims who find themselves in the crosshairs of the family, starting off locked in a basement from which they must escape.

From the moment a match is loaded, the atmosphere of horror immediately sets in. The victims are more or less hopeless against the Sawyer family as they have very little means of defending themselves. The best they can do is try to keep as quiet as possible, but certain actions they must take to escape will generate noise and alert the family.

2 Phasmophobia

Hunt down ghosts while avoiding becoming part of their Legion of the Undead

Those looking for something more in the paranormal vein should definitely check it out Phasmophobiaas it might be the scariest ghost game on the market. Playing as a group of drastically underpaid paranormal investigators, the team will travel to their chosen location, armed with as much equipment as they can afford. They must then go through their equipment to see what triggers a response to narrow down which entity is haunting the premises.

There are a lot of possible entities that require thorough investigation and a lot of courage to identify them. The locations the players travel to are always abandoned and dark, creating the perfect atmosphere to terrify the players. The ghosts' activities can also be amazing, especially when they go into hunting mode and might end up killing one of the unfortunate players in their path. With the addition of VR compatibility, Phasmophobia it never lets up with its oppressive atmosphere and haunting terror.

1 Dark Image Anthology

A narrative series that players can influence together

from Until dawn fame, studio Supermassive Games went on to create more immersive, choice-based horror games known as Dark Image Anthology. The first season started with The man from Medan and concluded with The Devil in Mecomprised of four scary games in total, each with its own clever twist that completely alters the story. While these games are great to play solo, there is also the option to play with friends locally or online.

How this works is that they will control another character on the screen and be tasked with making that character's decisions. This can create moments of tension or chaos, especially in The Man from Medan when characters suffer hallucinations to make it impossible to tell friend from foe. Intricate, well-crafted stories and plenty of scares make these games fantastic, and the sense of dread never lets up, even in multiplayer.