It’s almost Halloween, that means the media is churning out “scariest video games of all time” lists. Cross-referencing recent lists in a most unscientific manner, we attempted to find as much consensus as possible in order to list only the best of the best. Our analysis indicates that Resident Evil 2 is the scariest game of all time, but it’s very difficult to rank them beyond that. Anyway, it seems the scariest games of all time (in no order) are Silent Hill 2, Dead Space, Outlast, Alien: Isolation, System Shock 2, Evil Within, Until Dawn, Condemned, Eternal Darkness and F.E.A.R. Be sure to note we decided to list only one game per franchise, as Resident Evil and Silent Hill games would have arguably rounded out the whole list. Interesting to see that no zombie FPSs make the list (is Left 4 Dead really scary?), nor did more cerebral experiences like Alan Wake. The key seems to be a sense of dread and jump scares. Addendum: some here at Sandbox argue 1986 arcade game Chiller is the scariest game of all time, but sadly time has seemingly forgotten this classic “torture simulator”. It didn’t show up on a single list, calling into question each writer’s methods.
[Image: Chiller]
