The best abstract horror games

Key recommendations

• Horror in games can be more than monsters and jumpscars; abstract horror can create feelings of unease and dread.
• Games like Escape The Backrooms, No One Lives Under The Lighthouse, and Iron Lung excel at abstract horror elements.
• Titles like SOMA, World Of Horror and Mouthwashing delve into deeper themes of humanity, guilt and surreal horror.

Horror in games comes in many forms. From jumpscares by Five Nights at Freddy'sfor his monsters resident evil and silent hillto the atmospheric fright of Alien: Isolation. There is a horror game for every player, some co-op, some solo, and somewhere there is fun to scare friends. Somewhere in between is abstract horror.

Creating horror not from explicit monster encounters, gore or jumps, but rather finding horror in absence and atmosphere. You feel safe, uneasy and not quite sure what is waiting around the corner or if anything is real. These games embody this bizarre feeling in unique and terrifying ways and are therefore the best abstract horror games.

8 Escape The Backrooms

Déjà Vu Made Dangerous

Escape The Backrooms was released after the Backrooms craze that took social media by storm. While many may dismiss this game due to its somewhat “meme” status, the setting in Backrooms has real abstract horror elements. The feeling of déjà vu in every corridor lit by sickly yellow fluorescents and the knowledge that there is no way out is truly maddening.

There are creatures in each of the levels in Backrooms, but it's not their appearance that makes the player fear them (although it helps). It is the total lack of knowledge of what is out there. Well-lit corridors don't do much to hide giant creatures, but they still lurk around corners, causing the player to fall into paranoia.

7 Nobody lives under the lighthouse

Lovecraftian terror with PS1 graphics

Nobody lives under the lighthouse makes a show of intentionally outdated graphics. While the latter sections of the game devolve into explicit creature-horror, where the game thrives is the uneasy feeling that the player is overtaken and left alone on an island to tend a lighthouse, or almost alone. Surrounded by vague shapes and blurred lines, both the player and the main character will begin to question their minds.

Sometimes the player sees through the eyes of the object that haunts the island, forced to maneuver the character with reversed controls from an outside perspective. It will mess with anyone's mind, ultimately culminating in a weird and uncomfortable game that unfortunately gets a little too action-oriented towards the end.

6 Iron Lung

Minimalism at its best

Iron Lungnow turned into a feature film by YouTube legend Markiplier, it's a strange game, even on this list. The player takes control of a submarine exploring an ocean of blood, completely sealed and only able to see outside through a blurry camera and proximity sensors. Sealed in a metal tube, the player must navigate the ocean of blood to photograph certain coordinates to slowly discover what lies beneath.

Surrounded by strange noises and overwhelmed by the fact that oxygen is limited, the player has no choice but to continue, deeper and deeper into the blind unknown. It's really annoying, and without background music to calm the player's nerves, it's easy to start hearing things that may or may not even be outside that thin metal casing.

5 challenge

What does it mean to be human?

challenge is a game that, similar to Frictional Games' other projects, makes the player feel claustrophobic and hunted, unable to fight the horrors that lurk in every dark corner. Where challenge differs from other similar games is by questioning consciousness and humanity. Every robot the player encounters in this dystopian future looks human and is absolutely convinced that they are. The player, so sure of who they are, is slowly whittled away until they are left to wonder what really makes something or someone human.

There is much to be said for the eerie atmosphere and violent encounters with creatures of unknown origins, challenge thrives on his philosophical debates about humanity and life. It's hard to know what to think when every “human” character is revealed to be an AI, a copy of someone's consciousness, or not real at all.

4 The world of horror

Junji Ito meets text-based adventure

The world of horror it's a difficult game to fight, but it's worth fighting through the confusing control scheme. If a player can get past the tough onboarding process, they'll be greeted with a truly fantastic horror experience, hence the game's title. Inspired by the works of Junji Ito and HP Lovecraft, The world of horror explores multiple stories set in various Japanese locations with more than a few creatures based on Japanese folklore. As each of the main characters, the player must discover what is happening in each story before facing horrors in battle.

However, no matter how much the player discovers, they will never truly understand the full picture. The game is also random, with each door entered there is a new horror to discover, forcing the player to come to terms with the fact that nothing is under their control.

3 Home Safety Hotline

Analog horror in video game form

Have you ever wanted to experience the banality of working in a call center, except now there are horrors beyond human understanding lurking around every corner? Home Safety Hotline fills that niche perfectly. Encapsulating the analog horror aesthetic that has taken the internet by storm, Home Safety Hotline makes both horror and comedy out of nostalgia. The entire game has the image of an old computer screen as people ask for help with random problems around their house.

As the player answers calls and gives correct advice, he will discover more possible problems, which become more and more disturbing and abstract. There's also the creeping fear of failure, like if enough calls go wrong, the company may fire its newest hire, and no one wants to lose their job.

2 Mouthwash

Blame, The Game

Mouthwash it can be a difficult, if not triggering, game to play. Although short, with simple controls and stylized graphics, Mouthwash it's a really creepy game. The player takes control of two characters, both past and present captains of a spaceship, one before a devastating accident and the other after. They have to figure out how to keep crew morale up, all the while working with the knowledge that there is limited food, limited oxygen, and limited sanity.

The game frequently devolves into truly mind-blowing visuals, making the player wonder if anything is real or if many of the actions are just figments of the pain-filled mind. While much of the horror comes from the dire situation and the feeling of uncertainty in one's reality, some very unpleasant visuals in the game heighten the sense of dread cultivated in the player.

1 Belief: Unholy Trinity

Pixel graphics have never been creepier

Belief: Unholy Trinity is a game about faith and its loss. The player takes control of a priest tasked with completing an exorcism that went wrong years ago and is attacked by demons from all sides in this pursuit. Through collected letters and flashbacks, the player is slowly told what happened and why it must happen again, all the while being chased by creatures trying to kill the priest or steal his faith.

While the simple graphics may fool some into thinking this game couldn't possibly be scary, each of the death scenes is rotoscoped, creating an eerie effect as the pixel graphics move in uncomfortably realistic ways. The constant religious imagery is another point of horror, forcing the player to believe or not believe in a god who may or may not save them at some point. To say more about Faith would be to ruin her, as she is truly best experienced with as little knowledge as possible.