From gritty survival experiences to jump-scare-filled co-op adventures, this collection presents a more than decent offering to players. Steeled nerves and a willingness to be terrified are the only things needed (aside from a Game Pass subscription) to dive right in.
20 Amnesia: Rebirth
Amnesia: Rebirth perfectly bookends the collection of Amnesia titles you can play on Xbox Game Pass. If you’ve played through The Dark Descent, Justine, and A Machine for Pigs already, then Rebirth is the obvious next stop. One of the greatest things about this title is the emotional depth it gives its terrifying story. It would have been easy to just slap on a few more jumpscares and just lean into the your-light-source-is-a-quivering-matchstick mechanic, but Amnesia: Rebirth goes the extra mile when it comes to its narrative.
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Protagonist Tasi Trianon is going through horrific circumstances, but her overarching desire to see her unborn child live a fruitful life is the emotional backbone of the entire story. Not only can you follow this theme of hope to the end, fans of the original game get a lot of lore info about the series, such as how vitae works and what that ever-present orb can do.
19 Amnesia: Collection
One of the finest horror additions to the Xbox Game Pass library arrives in the form of the Amnesia: Collection. This install comes with The Dark Descent, A Machine for Pigs, and Justine, so that’s basically three terrifying horror games in one package.
Obviously, the jewel of the collection is The Dark Descent, which is a genre-defining title. Millions of people flocked to watch Let’s Plays of their favorite streamers and YouTubers attempting to uncover the secret of the Orb and relearn why they had to kill Alexander. The scares in Amnesia are expertly crafted, bringing a perfect balance of tension and fright. If you haven’t played these classic games, now’s the time to give them a try.
18 Soma
Soma is another one of Frictional Games’ masterpieces. It controls very similarly to Amnesia: The Dark Descent, but the narrative takes a definite upward turn. Philosophical questions about the exact meaning of consciousness are presented to you thanks to a narrative that deals with humanity’s attempt to cope with an extinction event.
However, despite these grandiose leanings, Soma does not wholly abandon its horror roots. Set in a dilapidated deep-sea research facility, Soma features deformed creatures kept alive by the area’s general AI, and they shamble after your character in these creaking and leaking hallways. If you love pondering the meaning of life while dipping into a fantastic horror experience, Soma is just for you.
17 Moonscars
It’s a bit cliché these days to compare a tough game to Dark Souls, but Moonscars’ unforgiving combat truly feels reminiscent of some of the more frustrating aspects of a typical FromSoftware game. Though you might think it is more akin to a Metroidvania (and there are similar elements), Moonscars leans into the complexity of its combat the way a Soulslike experience would.
It’s more action-oriented than your usual horror game, but its grim, pixelated art style is one of its major draws. So if you find overcoming difficult bosses and learning convoluted combat mechanics appealing when trying out a game, Moonscars might just be your next favorite title.
16 Inside
A game does not need to be riddled with bloody scenes or heartstopping jumpscares in order to be a top-notch horror game. As a matter of fact, the most important thing a game needs to have to be one with this genre is the right atmosphere. And Inside has atmosphere in spades. Without ever having a character in the game utter a word, Inside tells a gripping story of a boy running from hostile forces that are out to capture him, murder him, or worse. It does this by amazing environmental story-telling techniques.
Even though gameplay mechanics deal with platforming and puzzle-solving, excellent sound design, camera placement, and backgrounds clue players in to what’s going on. Inside never directly tells you about the world, and the ending is ambiguous as heck, but it keeps you riveted right through to the astounding conclusion.
15 Omori
Though many aspects of Omori will feel lighthearted and slightly zany, there are deep themes of loss, isolation, and other psychological traumas within the game’s narrative. There is a dark undercurrent to Omori’s story that is belied by its hand-drawn aesthetic. So while Omori will not necessarily make you jump out of your skin with sudden scares, it will easily disturb and challenge your expectations.
Without spoiling too much of the story, the game revolves around a young boy facing the many trials of growing up in both a real and a dream world. That’s probably vague and not descriptive enough, but we seriously don’t want to risk revealing too much about the plot, as its gut-wrenching twists are all part of what make Omori special.
14 7 Days To Die
Straightforwardly building itself as a “survival horde crafting game,” 7 Days to Die definitely leans pretty hard into the “survival” aspect of survival horror — but that goes for miles in terms of ratcheting up the tension of the horror aspect. The premise is simple: contend with the elements, your needs, and hordes of shambling zombies to eke out a living and survive.
While the zombies themselves are easy enough to evade during the day, nighttime is an entirely different story — when the sun sets, these brain-hungry horrors don’t just shamble, they sprint after you and don’t tire out. Your best bet is to huddle behind closed doors and keep quiet, which is much easier said than done, especially when you can hear them stomping around and groaning mere feet from your chosen hidey hole. Nothing says horror quite like waiting in the dark, with one errant noise or motion being all that separates you from seeing the sun rise one more time or meeting a grisly end in the night.
13 Telling Lies
More in the vein of a thriller than a gruesome horror game, Telling Lies nonetheless is a chilling title to experience. Players must examine various video recordings to piece together the truth of an event, and the scope of how little privacy the characters have is haunting. The very beginning is shrouded in mystery as you do not have a clue why your character has apparently tasked themselves with sifting through these videos.
Only by searching through the recordings and piecing together keywords from separate portions can you uncover what your job is, what happened over the period of time these videos take place, and who is/isn’t telling the truth. Nothing will jump out and terrify you, but the mystery will definitely creep you out.
12 Prey
Of course, Prey is solidly within the purview of Arkane’s distinct brand of immersive sim before it’s anything else, but there’s a pretty solid case to be made concerning its survival horror elements. Largely following protagonist Morgan Yu’s struggle to survive aboard remote space station Talos I after a hostile, phantom-like alien species known as “Typhon” have slaughtered most of the people living there, Prey channels both psychological and sci-fi horror elements over the course of its run.
Supplies are scarce, Morgan’s mortality is well-emphasized, and it’s difficult to not find oneself incredibly unsettled over the very nature of the alien threat overtaking the installation. Prey’s sure to satisfy any horror aficionado’s craving for tense, hair-raising encounters and the occasional jumpscare.
11 The Evil Within 2
While the successor to the first Evil Within is not as grimly horrific as the original, it still maintains the same gruesome, nightmare-like visuals. Detective Sebastian Castellanos is back, but this time it’s personal. In an attempt to rescue his daughter, he must dive into the world of STEM once more. A purportedly idyllic mental community has been overrun by a sadist’s imaginings, and players have to trudge alongside Sebastian as he navigates through these horrors.
There is a campiness to The Evil Within 2 that is mostly missing from the first game, making it arguably less frightening. While you might guffaw at Sebastian participating in an arcade shooting minigame while his daughter remains in mortal peril, you’ll also cower in terror whenever ghost-lady Anima decides to show up for a visit.
10 Dead Space 2
The first Dead Space was frightening enough, but Visceral Games decided to outdo themselves with the sequel. Players return into the engineering shoes of Isaac Clarke as he struggles with horrific visions of his dead girlfriend and the rise of the gruesome Necromorphs. Even though Clarke is more than capable of tackling these monsters, the horrors that await him, from an abandoned, bloody elementary school to a Unitologist church are still terrifying.
And the return to the Ishimura is as fright-packed as you remember. Its availability on the Xbox Game Pass library is a horror lover’s dream. The sequel brings back everything you liked about the original, and then some. New Necromorph types, new weapons, new armor for Isaac, you name it, it’s got it. And the best part? Dead Space 2 improved the zero-G controls from the last game. ‘Nuff said.
9 Kill It With Fire
Look, spiders are scary. They’re positively frightening. This goes double for arachnophobes. In that sense, Kill It With Fire can be a scary game — it’s all about spiders, after all. However, Kill It With Fire is also a game about confronting those fears with a variety of ludicrously destructive implements. Knowing that a clutch of dastardly, despicable spiders could be lurking beneath every piece of furniture, behind every family portrait, or tucked away into practically every nook and cranny of your abode can certainly induce a cold sweat.
But once players recover from the initial terror and elect to burn down the entirety of their home utilizing an aerosol can and lighter, there’s an accompanying feeling of empowerment. The further one progresses, the more extensive their array of anti-spider weaponry becomes. Yes, it’s a simple little indie jaunt that’s fairly straightforward in execution, but if you hate spiders, it’s equal parts scary and satisfying. Give it a whirl next time you’re trawling for a timekiller.
8 Back 4 Blood
The world’s been waiting for a cooperative zombie survival experience that, at minimum, holds a candle to Left 4 Dead’s distinct brand of horde-slaying, run-and-gun madness for roughly eleven years — and that game has finally arrived with the fittingly titled Back 4 Blood. What’s more is that it’s a day-one full release on Xbox Game Pass.
Jump into the role of a “Cleaner” whose sole job is to dispose of endless amounts of “Ridden” that practically fall over themselves in the rush to swipe at you. Back 4 Blood’s campaign can be a breeze on the easiest difficulty setting and with three competent friends at your side, but the higher levels and intriguing card system ensure no two playthroughs will ever be the same.
7 Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
The immersion found in Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is top-notch. Players are placed in control of Senua as she seeks to save the soul of her dead lover by traveling to Helheim. However, her mental illness and its accompanying symptoms continually plague her, and players are given the opportunity to see what it is like to experience auditory hallucinations and visual disorientation as a result.
Senua’s journey is harrowing, and that’s the point. Grotesque figures attack Senua, and, whether they be real or figments of her mind, their danger to her is quite real. The horror of her struggles is quite unlike anything seen in other titles of the genre.
6 Dead Space
Something about mashing up the genres of science-fiction and horror has always managed to yield desirable results, and Dead Space is no exception to this rule. Guiding Isaac Clarke through the derelict halls of the USG Ishimura after a particularly unfortunate space-fender-bender is nothing short of tense, and the design direction of the Necromorphs is appropriately horrifying. In the interest of avoiding spoilers, let’s just say that the narrative presented in Dead Space has the psychological trappings of a horror classic, making it a must-play for survival-horror aficionados.
5 The Evil Within
Horror has a way of getting into a player’s head, and The Evil Within showcases this literally. Psychological horror is the name of the game, as players spend the entirety of the narrative wandering through the mind of a killer.
Walls shift into floors, landscapes change in the blink of an eye, and enemies are grotesque shapes that stem from the tortured past of the villain that created them. Fair warning: The Evil Within is not for the faint of stomach.
4 Doom 3
After a decade-long lull in mainline releases, Doom 3 brought a distinctly different flavor to the table by leaning hard into a survival-horror take on the genre-defining FPS franchise. This would prove divisive, but it’s hard to argue that it wasn’t impressive.
Stepping into the familiar role of a lone space marine stranded on Mars after a portal to hell is ripped open by the overly ambitious scientists of the UAC, it’s up to the player to stop the demonic onslaught by journeying into Hell — and hopefully back again. The measured, tense pacing and emphatic horror setpieces are a far cry from Doom 2016’s breakneck, adrenaline-fueled extravagance, but it’s still a worthy experience that strikes an interesting middle ground between first-person action and horror thrills.
3 Dead By Daylight
Asymmetric multiplayer titles can, ironically, turn out to be rather lopsided experiences, but Dead By Daylight’s horror spin on the formula really manages to pull itself off. Pitting one killer against up to four survivors successfully channels the tense vibe of a typical horror story setup as the killer punishes reckless individual behaviors.
Conversely, the killer can be stunted by well-coordinated cooperation. Dead By Daylight has seen continuous updates since its 2016 release, adding great bits of DLC channeling horror greats — packs are available that allow players to take on universes ranging from classics like Friday the 13th to more recent hits like Stranger Things.
2 The Walking Dead
Telltale’s The Walking Dead isn’t just a horror game, but the troubled studio’s lasting legacy in gaming as a whole. Borrowing the wildly popular universe established by Robert Kirkman’s comic book series of the same name, TWD follows the evolution of young protagonist Clementine as she develops from an impressionable and fearful child into a stalwart and seasoned survivor well-suited to the rigors of the zombie-infested post-apocalypse.
In true Telltale fashion, players will need to navigate dialogue options thoughtfully and remember the impact they will register on the other characters. If ever one needs a game that’s emblematic of Telltale’s design philosophy, this one’s it. Also, there are zombies.
1 Alien: Isolation
Alien: Isolation is a crowning achievement for the horror genre in video games thanks to the ingenuity of the Xenomorph’s AI. The titular Alien stalks players throughout the halls of Sevastopol Station relentlessly, raising the tension with every hiss and thumping footstep. Sweaty palms and an increased heart rate are constant companions while playing Alien: Isolation. This game does the franchise proud, and it is a shining gem in Xbox Game Pass’ collection of horror titles.
Next: Best Games On Xbox Game Pass
