The most terrifying 90s horror video games that will leave you shaken-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

Resident Evil – the original survival horror, kind of (Capcom)

Survival horror has been going on for much longer than you might realise, so if you want to experience some retro scares here’s the best the 90s has to offer.

The term survival horror might not have been coined until the release of Resident Evil in 1996, but horror-based video games go back far further than that – to the early 80s with games like Haunted House on the Atari VCS. But it was the 90s and early 2000s which were the golden era for the genre, when making players too scared to continue suddenly came into vogue and game publishers realised there was a whole new genre to exploit.

That led to a lot of poor quality Resident Evil knock-offs but since the whole idea of games coming on a disc (which could store a lot more data) rather than a cartridge (which could not) was also new, there were a lot of FMV horror games with live action footage featuring terrible actors working against a tiny green screen.

None of those games make our list below (well, okay, one of them is a bit like that), which we deem to be the best and most influential horror games of the 1990s. Most of the franchises are still going strong today and many have had new sequels or remakes only very recently. Except, tragically, Dino Crisis, which we’ve ended up ignoring just like Capcom. Just pretend it’s at number 11.

10. Dark Seed (1992)

Survivor horror mania was very much led by consoles and Japanese developers, but its roots are on the PC, especially with a title we’ll get to shortly. Dark Seed is a point ‘n’ click adventure and the only video game to be authorised by Alien designer H. R. Giger. Although he only agreed to do so if the game ran at the unusually high resolution, for the time, of 640 x 350 (i.e. 350p). Despite all that, the visuals look amusingly outdated nowadays, with digitised live action actors awkwardly interacting with the virtual world.

Its story was surprisingly good though, with a Lovecraftian tale of extradimensional aliens that creates a genuinely creepy atmosphere. It’s not a terribly good graphic adventure though, as not only is the logic very strained with many of the puzzles but a lot of them have to be completed within a certain time limit in the three day cycle – requiring a lot of trial and error and replays. Sadly, the game isn’t available legally anywhere at the moment, not even on GOG.

9. Clock Tower (1995)

Despite never having been released in the West until the recent remaster, this late era SNES game was hugely influential in Japan and has a cult following elsewhere. It’s also essentially a point ‘n’ click adventure, where you control an orphaned girl trying to escape the self-explanatory (assuming you were expecting a schoolboy with a giant pair of scissors) Scissorman.

Like Resident Evil 2 and 3, Scissorman can follow you around the whole of the mansion you’re exploring and your only option is to run and hide, since there’s no direct combat of any kind. These elements became a feature of many subsequent survival horrors and it’s a testament to Clock Tower that, despite its age and clunky controls, it’s still scary today.

8. Parasite Eve (1998)

The answer to the question of what a cross between Resident Evil and Final Fantasy 7 would look like, Parasite Eve was Square Enix’s big attempt to join the survival horror party. Technically a sequel to a Japanese novel of the same name, the game features lots of Resident Evil style scares and creepy locations but when it comes to combat everything revolves around an ATB turn-based system very similar to Final Fantasy games of the time.

It’s a sometimes awkward mix (the sequel ditched the concept entirely and became a much more direct Resident Evil clone, although still retaining some role-playing elements – nobody talks about the awful 3rd Birthday on the PS Vita) but the game can be very creepy, with some nasty The Thing-style monsters that were shocking at a time when complex CGI cut scenes were still a novelty. Sadly, it’s only ever been available on the original PlayStation has never been re-released or remastered.

7. I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream (1995)

Another game based on an existing story, in this case Harlan Ellison’s deeply disturbing short story about survivors of a nuclear apocalypse being psychologically tortured by a SkyNet style supercomputer called AM (there’s no way supernerd James Cameron hadn’t read the story before making The Terminator).

Developer Cyberdreams, who were also responsible for Dark Seed, worked with Ellison himself to expand the story, as AM tortures each of the five survivors individually, with their own nightmare scenarios. Heavily censored in many countries, it featured a wide range of unusually adult themes for games of the era, including the Holocaust, rape, and mental illness. Unlike Dark Seed, there’s a remaster by Nightdive Studios available on Steam, that also happens to be incredibly cheap.

6. Aliens Versus Predator (1999)

There’s been so many Alien vs. Predator games over the years it’s very difficult to know which one you’re talking about without extensive explanation. As glorious as Capcom’s scrolling beat ’em-up from 1994 is, this is by far the best use of the licence and a quasi-remake of the famous Atari Jaguar game, also from 1994.

Both first person shooters are by Sniper Elite developer Rebellion and have the same basic premise, where you take control of an alien, predator, or Colonial Marine. Each has completely different abilities and weapons but the reason the game is on this list is because it’s absolutely terrifying.

With the exception of Alien Isolation, it’s the game that most effectively makes the alien scary, especially the facehuggers, which are horrendously creepy in this. Thankfully, it’s also available on Steam for an outrageously low price (it’s listed as 2000 because that’s when the Gold Edition came out).

5. Alone In The Dark (1992)

Resident Evil may have coined the term, and was itself influenced by 1989 Capcom game Sweet Home, but the real progenitor of the modern concept of survival horror is French game Alone In the Dark. The subject of a disappointing remake in 2024, the original version is also practically being given away on Steam at the moment.

The 3D graphics (which were state-of-the-art at the time) are so ancient that their sheer weirdness helps to keep the game surprisingly creepy even now, with another Lovecraftian tale of high strangeness.

Playing it today, what is startlingly obvious is how much Resident Evil ripped off everything about its basic premise, including the pre-rendered backdrops, fixed camera angles, and tank controls for the 3D characters. The tone is very different in Alone In The Dark though, and it’s less immediately fun, but it’s still one of the most important horror games ever made.

4. Silent Hill (1999)

The recently remade Silent Hill 2 wasn’t released until 2001, nearer the end of survival horror’s golden era, but the original game is very similar in terms of gameplay and presentation. You play as a different character, roaming the fog-laden streets of the titular town, with a story that’s more overtly fantastical and is less concerned with the backstory and psychology of the protagonist.

It’s still far more thoughtful and serious than Resident Evil and its ilk and, importantly, it’s incredibly scary. It’s maybe difficult to tell, given how the graphics have aged (they were low tech even at the time), but this was often considered scarier than its sequel, with a very disquieting sense of wrongness and decay that set the series on its path to greatness.

3. Resident Evil (1996)

Not only a pivotal moment in the history of horror (in video games and beyond) but it’s often forgotten how key Resident Evil was to establishing the original PlayStation as something very different from all the other consoles that had come before it. From the ultra cheesy live action intro to what passed at the time for photorealistic graphics, Resident Evil was a milestone in console gaming – not only on a technical level but because of its gore and violence.

Of course, nowadays it seems like pure shlock, with hilariously bad dialogue and clunky controls, but few games have had as much influence on the genre, while still going strong nearly 30 years later. The original version is available on GOG but the GameCube remake has been remastered multiple times by now and is easily available on every format. Which makes you wonder when Capcom will get round to a second remake…

2. System Shock 2 (1999)

The 90s were not only a golden age for survival horror but also for PC gaming. Playing games on your laptop or desktop is more popular now than ever but back in the day there were legions of titles, from major publishers, that were only released on PC – such as System Shock and its sequel.

Despite its high ranking on this list many people don’t even consider System Shock 2 to be a survival horror, but that’s silly because it totally is. The game is also an early example of what nowadays is called an immersive sim (although not by us, we hate the nonsensical term), so essentially an action role-player where you have a high degree of freedom to customise your character and use all manner of different techniques to defeat enemies.

The villain is another evil AI, who thinks nothing of torturing and perverting humans to use as tools, making for a deeply disturbing atmosphere as you explore a derelict spaceship. Like most of the other PC titles in this list it’s available for dirt cheap on Steam and we highly recommend giving it a try.

1. Resident Evil 2 (1998)

It’d be churlish to put anything other than a Resident Evil game at the top of the list, so the only question becomes which one. We still have a soft spot for the original but for most Resi fans it’s the first sequel which is the best of the original trilogy and its spin-offs.

The exploration of a zombie-infested Racoon City is one of the most iconic sequences of the original PlayStation era and, again, a sign that video games were capable of so much more, compared to previous console generations. The sequel then settles down to a more straightforward expansion of the styles of location and gameplay from the first game, but it’s an absolute thrill ride from beginning to end.

You could argue it becomes less scary in the final third of the game but being chased by Mr X never gets old and neither does the wonderfully terrible dialogue. Although you can’t go wrong with the 2019 remake either, which retains just enough of the original’s tone to make it one of the best remakes of all time.

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