The 9 Best PS4 Horror Games

Best Overall: The Last of Us: Remastered

With over 200 Game of The Year awards under its belt, The Last of Us: Remastered is, needless to say, a brilliant masterpiece in gaming and the best PlayStation 4 horror game on the list. The updated 2013 PS3 title comes with full 1080p high resolution, graphical upgrades and frame rates, all the DLC packs released over the years, as well as in-game cinematic commentary from both its cast and creative director.

The Last of Us: Remastered is a third-person, action-adventure, survival horror game that feels like a movie and is set in the post-apocalyptic United States where humans have been infected by a mutated fungus that turns them hostile. Players will jump into both intense gun and fist fights, taking cover behind objects while they travel across the U.S. The game superb audio effects, character dialogue, stunning visuals and immersive environments. Feeling like more than just a video game, The Last of Us: Remastered is a thrilling and emotional experience that will lure you in with its excellent writing and gameplay.

Best Multiplayer: Dead by Daylight

Dead by Daylight is the perfect multiplayer horror game for PS4 where four players team up as survivors against one player who’s a savage killer out to murder everyone. Survivors play in a third-person perspective (which gives them better situational awareness), while the killer plays in a more focused first-person mode.

In Dead by Daylight, survivor players will attempt to escape the killer’s clutches as they repair generators to open doors back to safety. Players are rewarded for rescuing their friends, successfully sneaking, and performing other brave tasks. Every character has unique skills, with a progression system that offers perks and items that tailor to their survival or murder strategy. A headset is recommended for both cooperation between other survivor players in order to succeed and, if you play as the killer, for scaring the daylights out of everyone else.

Best Sci-Fi: Prey

In Prey, you’ll be working in space as you orbit around the Earth and Moon and research a hostile alien species in a space station facility where everything goes wrong. Prey is a first-person shooter, sci-fi, survival horror game with roleplaying elements that change up how you play and complete it, with customized abilities in both alien and human powers.

Prey will make you think and be cautious as you roam through its open world setting where you’ll solve singular solution based puzzles, collect blueprints and gadgets, accomplish objectives and engage enemies in either cunning stealth maneuvers or through direct confrontation. The shadowy extraterrestrial beings will stomp around and challenge you as they disguise themselves within the game’s levels as coffee mugs, potted plants and everyday household items that’ll make you question everything and every room you enter. You’ll get around 15 hours of gameplay with Prey as you unravel its mysterious plot in a nice, sci-fi aesthetic setting with cool 80s synth music.

Best Choose-Your-Own Adventure: Until Dawn

When you first play Until Dawn, you’re reminded of the butterfly effect where a tiny butterfly flapping its wings today can lead to a devastating hurricane week from now. Intense? The best horror game for choosing your own adventure has you making your own choices that shape how the story of Until Dawn unfolds, and there are hundreds of possibilities, so choose your actions carefully.

Until Dawn is a horror adventure game where a group of eight teenagers go on a vacation in a nice cozy cabin in the snowy mountains and are then attacked by a mysterious madman. Gameplay is focused on quick-time events, exploration, finding clues and making hard, ethical decisions that sometimes incorporate flashback or flash-forward sequences. Sure, its nerve wrecking and tense, but Until Dawn is the ultimate delay in gratification that’ll make you feel rewarded and test your patience as you deal with and guide the fate of characters that’ll bring out the best and worst in you.

Best Third-Person Shooter: The Evil Within 2

Evil Within 2 is the best third-person survival horror video game for the PS4 and offers eye-catching visuals, atmospheres and gameplay that will spur your excitement as you fight against living horrors to rescue your long lost daughter.

If you’re a fan of Resident Evil 4, then you’re going to absolutely love this game. The Evil Within 2 uses an RPG-style leveling system where you can upgrade your health, running and other abilities that will give you an edge when battling against the game’s ghoulish (albeit, creatively designed) monstrosities by either gunning them down, stealthy ambushing them, brawling them or just running away. You’ll traverse through a beautiful (yet haunting) dreamworld, crafting materials and upgrading 14 different weapons (think revolvers and crossbows) with limited ammo. The Evil Within 2 is made by some of the greatest horror genre video game developers in history, namely Shinji Mikami (director of the original Resident Evil).

Best 2D Art-Style: Yomawari: Midnight Shadows

Yomawari: Midnight Shadow is a cutely animated, adventure-horror game and is gorgeously designed. The game has you exploring abandoned homes, junkyards, dark sewers, all for the sake of getting home safe and sound. Here's the backstory: It was the end of summer, and friends Haru and Yui decided to head to a mountaintop to watch fireworks only to see their hometown engulfed in darkness. They are then physically separated by a mysterious attacker.

The game has you play between two characters, collecting clues and searching through the night where you’ll hide in bushes to calm your throbbing heartbeat and avoid bizarre ghouls and oddities. You can tell when you first play Yomawari: Midnight Shadows that it was made with passion; you'll see and hear every little detail and nuance in the environments, including side-scrolling set pieces, chilling creature dialogue and the occasional beautiful freak of nature.

Best for Hiding: Outlast Trinity

In Outlast Trinity, you can’t fight back, all you can do is run, hide and feel hopeless as gruesome looking enemies come looking for your blood. Outlast Trinity is a collection of Outlast 1, Outlast Whistleblower and Outlast 2, all first-person, survival/psychological/horror games where players evade death by hiding in various spots like lockers, barrels, beds, cornfields and hoping for the best.

But first, a warning: The Outlast Trinity series features nerve-crushing gameplay with unsettling realism and rather disturbing imagery that you may want to look into before buying. Still reading? The horror series puts you in the position of characters who get their nose into places they don’t belong, stumbling upon psychopathic cults (Outlast 2) or in psychiatric hospitals overrun by homicidal patients (Outcast 1) in areas usually filled with cadavers. In all games, players are armed with nothing but a night vision camcorder with limited batteries and they must stay under the radar from the enemies. Good luck!

Best for VR: Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul

Made for the PlayStation VR, Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul is a virtual reality game that immerses you in a home in the middle of a woodsy neighborhood. But it’s haunted and your curiosity has you exploring it even if it means putting your life in danger and raising your blood pressure. Gamers will explore the huge, open world house wielding nothing but a light as they investigate pictures, notes and other clues littered in rooms that’ll fool the senses and have you turning corners as you tense up with fear in anticipation of the unknown.

Best for Collectors: Night Trap

Night Trap for the PlayStation 4 is a bizarre horror game that celebrates its 25th anniversary on the PS4 with only 5,000 limited copies available worldwide (and they are selling fast).

The most unexpected horror game on the list, Night Trap was originally released on the Sega CD in 1992 and was marketed as an interactive movie game that uses full-motion video to present both story and gameplay. Instructed by a police squad, players watch live surveillance footage in eight locations of a household and trigger traps to capture wobbling burglars as the prey upon a slumber party. Night Trap, along with Mortal Kombat, was brought up in a United States Senate committee in 1993 discussing video game violence (though the game is tame) resulting in the ESRB ratings (E for Everyone, M for Mature) we see on games today, making it a part of video game history forever. The PS4 edition comes with extras, including a full-color manual, fold-out poster and reversible cover art.