6) Outlast (2013)
Inspired by: REC, The Shining, Session 9
There’s something inherently unsettling about Red Barrels’ debut first-person psychological scare-‘em-up. Sneaking around in the dead of night with your camera’s night-vision as your only means of lighting your way through a derelict insane asylum is enough to give anyone the willies, but throw in a handful of mad, murderous schizophrenics hellbent on seeing what your insides look like, and you’ve got the fail-safe recipe for an instant horror classic.
With an emphasis on tense psychological terror, as well as a pinch of good ol’ fashioned jump scares, Outlast is that rare experience that strips the player of any meaningful defence and sets you free in a terrifying maze brimming with madness, blood and guts. Yikes.
Not for the faint of heart.
5) Dead By Daylight (2016)
Inspired by: Halloween, Saw, A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Fans of Dead By Daylight have been treated to a wide variety of playable iconic killers from various cinematic properties, that have been drip-fed into the game over the course of its first year on the market.
From Halloween’s Michael Myers, to A Nightmare On Elm Street’s Freddy, to Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, to even Saw’s very own Pighead (breathe!), it’s clear that Behaviour Interactive is trying to inject some classic cinematic nostalgia into their asymmetric 4v1 hunt-em-up. And why the heck not?
With a playable character roster that’s this recognizable and unequivocally (in)famous, it’s hard to not at least admire how the slasher horror experience has evolved into what it is today.