It’s not a stretch to say we’re currently experiencing the best run of horror video games since the PS2 era. The past few years have seen the genre revitalised, in part thanks to nostalgia for a time when survival horror was at its peak. The result has been cutting-edge remakes, retro throwbacks, and new experiences that find fresh ways to send shivers down our spines.
Things in the horror space are so good that last year, for the first time, IGN introduced the Best Horror Game category for its annual awards. And it was pretty easy to bring it back for a second year, so good has the selection of spooks been in 2024. We were treated to the uneasy, claustrophobic terror of Still Wakes the Deep and its infected oil rig; the grisly Saw-ish challenges of The Outlast Trials; Bloober Team’s impressive recreation of Silent Hill 2, and the horrifying twists and turns of Mouthwashing, among others.
But only one can be crowned the best horror game of 2024. What did the IGN team judge to be the most worthy? Let’s take a look at the results…
Honorable Mentions
Thanks to the expansive array of experiences offered up by the current horror game renaissance period, the IGN team’s votes went to a wide range of 2024 releases. While not getting enough votes to secure runner-up status, we’d like to give honourable mentions to two extra games.
Still Wakes the Deep from developer The Chinese Room is a gorgeous narrative horror set on an oil rig that’s been infected with a The Thing-like creature. It’s enjoyably Scottish in tone, painted in the depressing shades of 1970s Britain and powered by the unknowable fear of Eldritch literature. It’s much more engaging than its walking sim fundamentals would suggest, too, with exciting chase set-pieces and creepy stealth encounters.
We also have to tip our hat in the direction of Slitterhead. While our reviewer ultimately struggled to fall in love with it, several IGN team members enjoyed its idiosyncratic approach to an Invasion of the Bodysnatchers-style scenario. The latest game from original Silent Hill director Keiichiro Toyama certainly has its fair share of quirks and unusual presentation, but there’s something fundamentally fascinating about its core concept. Hijacking bodies and using different people to further your investigation into Lovecraftian monsters that wear humans like skin suits is unlike anything we’ve ever done in a horror game before. In an industry that plays it increasingly safe, Slitterhead is unafraid to embrace the bizarre.
Runner-up: A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead
The strength of the original A Quiet Place movie is in its simple concept: a world where you have to stay silent to survive. A snapping twig or a rustling snack could be your downfall. On paper that’s not just a good elevator pitch for a story, but the driving mechanic of a great video game. And so, somewhat unsurprisingly, we’ve landed a pretty good movie companion game in A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead.
As you’d expect, this is a tense survival game rooted in stealth systems. Stalked by the same alien creatures seen in the movies, you must carefully navigate through levels filled to bursting with noisy objects. Every opened drawer and door is a risky move, lest the squeak of a hinge alert the beast. Adding even more stress to the situation is the fact that your protagonist is asthmatic, meaning strenuous tasks like climbing over obstacles can push you closer and closer to a noisy respiratory attack that will summon your hunter.
Developer Stormind Games clearly had a limited budget for this project and so The Road Ahead is often a bit rough around the edges. Its cat-and-mouse gameplay isn’t quite the Alien: Isolation successor you’d hope for (see last year’s Amnesia: The Bunker for a better alternative). But despite that, this is a great proof of concept as to how well suited A Quiet Place is to the video game medium.
Runner-up: Crow Country
Much of the horror genre’s recent success can be attributed to developers looking back to earlier generations and finding ways to recreate those original scares. That’s exactly what’s going on in Crow Country, an indie spookfest that pays homage to 1990s PlayStation classics Resident Evil and Silent Hill. The low-polygon visuals, limited inventory space, overhead camera, and foot-anchored shooting all capture the timeless essence of early survival horror.
But it’s the new ideas injected by developer SFB Games that enhance Crow Country above and beyond a simple exercise in nostalgia. Being able to rotate the camera a full 360 degrees brings modern edge to a traditionally fixed-view formula, and the ability to freely aim weapons similarly uplifts the otherwise old-school shooting system. These in turn allow Crow Country’s puzzles and battles to feel freshly invigorated, be that through spinning the camera to find new clues and items, or lining up a headshot to quickly neutralise an approaching monster.
While it does channel some of the unsettling atmosphere of its retro inspirations, Crow County isn’t afraid to have more than a little fun. Set in an abandoned theme park, there’s a level of whimsy that penetrates the darkness, while protagonist Mara always has a comedic line up her sleeve to bring a bit of levity. The result isn’t exactly cosy, but there is a certain comfort to be found in Crow Country – a sort of gross nostalgic hug.
Runner-up: Mouthwashing
Mouthwashing is the word-of-mouth horror hit of 2024. It’s one of those games that comes coupled with “read nothing, just play” advice, so if a twisted narrative adventure that exposes the depravity of human nature is the kind of thing you go for, then you’ll want to stop reading, open Steam in a new tab, and hit the buy button right now.
But we have to provide details to justify Mouthwashing’s position as the IGN team’s second-favourite horror game of the year, so here we go. On the surface, developer Wrong Organ has made a simple walking simulator in which you jog to-and-fro between the different rooms of a crashed space ship completing basic errands. There’s little in the form of classic horror game mechanics – you won’t find any zombies to shoot, enemies to hide from, or resource management here. But as the story pushes forward, you find yourself falling down an increasingly distressing rabbit hole. What happens when a stranded freighter crew faces little hope of survival? Sanity becomes a precious, dwindling resource.
A narrative triumph, Mouthwashing drops horrifying new reveals at just the right moments of its ever-building tension curve. And as the layers are peeled back, you begin to look at not just your crew mates in a very different light, but also your own protagonist. This is a horror story where force-feeding painkillers to your mutilated captain is just the appetiser to the grotesque late-game main course. It’s as disturbingly delicious as it sounds.
Winner: Silent Hill 2
It’s safe to say that there were no guarantees for Bloober Team’s remake of Silent Hill 2. Team Silent’s timeless survival horror classic was, to some, considered impossible to remake. Others were wary of Bloober’s capabilities after The Medium (itself an underwhelming homage to Silent Hill) and a very up-and-down back catalogue. But when we finally had Silent Hill 2 installed on our consoles – a game that’s simultaneously glossy and rusty – it was instantaneously clear: Bloober didn’t just get Silent Hill 2, it spoke it fluently.
Silent Hill 2 follows in the footsteps of last year’s Dead Space in being a remake that stays almost completely faithful to the original game while adding modern enhancements in a tasteful manner. It features all the dread-inducing, tense exploration of the original – this is a game largely about exploring horrible buildings room-by-room and digesting the terrible secrets within – just this time around you can do all this with a 3D camera and modern over-the-shoulder combat. The result is an experience that feels like a throwback to the peak of survival horror in its design, but is thoroughly modern in its execution. For many people, including much of the IGN team, this is the exact sweet spot a remake should aim for.
Bloober sticking so close to the original formula means Silent Hill 2 isn’t quite as transformative a work as, for example, Capcom’s Resident Evil 2, which re-thought the entire game from the ground-up. As such, we know this could be considered something of a controversial choice. Should a faithful remake be considered for an end-of-year award when so much of the creative work was done by different people in a different decade? While that’s a worthy question, it’s undeniable that Bloober’s efforts on this project is a valuable addition to the horror canon, making a true titan of the genre accessible to modern audiences. Its heavy, bleak story remains as timeless today as it did back in 2001, and that fear-inducing exploration loop is a reminder of the eternal qualities of good game design. As such, Silent Hill 2 was the best horror game we played in 2024, and this modern vehicle for such triumphs deserves to be recognised regardless of its roots.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s Senior Features Editor.
