Xbox and PC Game Pass has allowed many great games from the past to have a second lease on life, as more players have access to them all in one place and at a lower price. These games come from all kinds of places, but one of the most impressive genres available is horror. There are quite a few exceptional horror games on Game Pass that are just waiting to be played, many of which have been forgotten over time and ignored by players who may not even know they exist.
Horror fans can treat themselves to revolutionary titles that set the bar high for the genre, one-offs that experimented in terrifying new ways, and even a few unique titles that explore darker themes in a whole new light. With even more games being added to the Game Pass catalog each month, now is as good a time as any to jump into some of the best forgotten games the horror genre has to offer.
Carrion
Becoming The Villain
- A reverse horror game where the player is the monster.
- Gory action with pixelated visuals.
Carrion is a game that casts players as the monster rather than the victim, delivering a unique reverse-horror experience built around fluid movement and environmental destruction. Instead of surviving against an oppressive threat, players are instead free to roam the world and consume anything in their path. However, they’ll still needing to plan out routes and carefully position themselves away from danger to progress.
Carrion also has a pretty in-depth upgrade system that lets players mutate themselves into an even more horrific creature. Certain upgrades can make players feel more agile, while others can provide them with armor to keep them safe from incoming attacks. It might not be as jumpscare-heavy or filled with tension as other horror games, but it still delivers something completely new and stands out from the crowd for its visual design and subversive gameplay approach.
Doom 3
Overshadowed By The Rest Of The Series
- First-person action/horror hybrid.
- Darker feel and more claustrophobic environments.
Doom 3 marked a dramatic tonal departure for the franchise, trading frantic arcade-style gunplay for methodical, tension-driven horror. The slower pace makes the game feel far scarier and more intense than the rest of the franchise, and thanks to the lack of visibility, even a single enemy in the darkness can become a major problem for the player. A lot of work was done in terms of sound design, with every minute noise feeling closer and more threatening, creating an immersive experience that borders on suffocating.
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Revisiting the game today feels like taking a portal to another dimension, as the newer entries like Doom Eternal paint the franchise in a much more action-heavy light. However, back in the early days, Doom 3 made a push for something new, offering players the chance to explore an oppressive world full of horror and despair, while still holding the shooter DNA that made the series so popular in the first place.
Limbo
Sidescrollers Can Be Scary Too
- Simplistic aesthetics yet still deeply unsettling.
- Puzzle-oriented gameplay revolving around moving objects and avoiding enemies without combat.
Limbo is a unique horror-adventure game that relies less on impressive visuals and more on symbols and silhouettes to create a sense of fear in the player. The game employs a monochromatic art style to build an environment that feels haunting from the moment the game begins, with the backdrops adding more depth and giving players more things to pay attention to and more opportunities to be scared.
Tension is the key word, as with no real method of fighting back, players are at the mercy of their wits and their ability to avoid danger rather than confront it. At its core, Limbo acts as a callback to the early horror game days, where puzzle solving and observation took precedent over intense action sequences and fast gunplay.
Alice: Madness Returns
Anything But A Fairytale
- Reinventing the classic story with a darker twist.
- Dark world-building and deeply psychological themes.
Alice: Madness Returns takes the iconic tale of a girl stumbling into Wonderland and flips it on its head in every way possible. The entire world is depicted as gloomy and decaying, with familiar scenes becoming surprisingly sinister thanks to the darker atmosphere. Iconic characters are not immune to the horror, as even someone as lovable as the Cheshire Cat appears deranged, proving that even the most beloved literary figures can be made into terrifying creatures.
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The gameplay is also far from the carefree adventure of Alice in the books. Players need to slash their way through enemies, bloodying their blade and demolishing anything that gets too close. Even when they are just platforming around the environment, the aesthetic keeps things feeling grim, allowing the world to do a lot of the heavy-lifting in terms of fear factor and ensuring that there is never a second of comfort from start to finish.
The Evil Within
Survival Horror At Its Best
- Classic survival horror feel.
- Psychological themes mixed with zombie-like enemies.
The Evil Within feels like a love letter to the early days of the horror genre, but with a healthy dose of innovation that keeps it feeling unique in the space. That tracks, as it was directed by Shinji Mikami, the director of the first Resdient Evil. Players find themselves entering the darkest parts of the mind, exploring abandoned cities, infested villages, and even the brain itself, all while fighting off hordes of creatures that each pose a different threat. Gameplay behaves very similarly to something like Resident Evil 4, as there is a good amount of action and inventory management to supplement the horrific scenes that players are forced to confront.
Each area escalates the horror even further, sending players down a rabbit hole of psychological torture and pitting them against zombified people and twisted abominations that can only be taken down with a boatload of bullets or by running away. Many people will have already tried the newer, more polished sequel, but the original manages to create a far more visceral horror experience that feels scarier and more mentally draining overall.
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