Consoles with the best horror game libraries

In modern times, horror games are well regarded as some of the best video games in the entire medium. However, not long ago, horror video games were a sideshow and it can be difficult to know where to start if you’re just starting out.

Fortunately, many horror games can be grouped within their console generations, each of which has its own particular styles, intensities, and legacies. While it’s difficult to objectively rank them, some consoles have become synonymous with the horror genre due to their extensive and iconic libraries, and those are the best places to look for beginners and veterans alike.

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Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)

8-bit horrors that set the tone for generations

• Some of the biggest horror games on the NES include the beginnings of the castlevania franchise, Sweet home, manic mansion, door of shadowsand Uninvited.

• This is the first console generation to arguably have a distinct and solid corpus of horror games that laid the foundation for what was to come.

While its games may not be the prettiest or scariest, the NES is the first console generation that can reasonably be epitomized as having a compelling impact on horror gaming, as it features some cruelly forgotten and lost horror games in the time. Despite the pixel graphics, these games have mountains of charm and charisma that far outweigh their inevitably dated design.

Whether it’s RPG dungeon crawler sweet home, animated monsters Uninvited80’s style parody manic mansionor the legendary horror action of several castlevania games, the NES has a fearsome library tailor-made for horror enthusiasts, or those looking for scares that are a little softer.

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PlayStation 3

HD horrors emerge to offer immersive terrors

• Some of the biggest games on the PS3 include Dead Space, Dead Rising, The Evil Within, The Last of Us and Alan Wake.

• With the HD era, horror games diversified, some becoming more realistic, some more experimental, and some much sillier, along with the rise of indies.

In the PlayStation 3 era, many games had cross-platform capabilities, so it’s difficult to choose one console over another in this generation. However, due to the PS3’s inherent preference towards Japanese horror games, which have proven to be a major bastion of the genre, along with the genre’s unique definition of the last of usThe PS3 outperforms its competition on the horror front.

Gamers entering the new HD generation had a wide variety of tones in their horror games. dead space and dead space 2 delivered sci-fi action and John Carpenter-style thrills. Dead on the rise It leaned heavily towards horror comedy and absurd murders. Alan Wake cemented Remedy as a studio to watch with its metafictional horror narrative, and the legendary Shinji Mikami returned to the genre that made him famous with the divisive but naturally charming The evil within. Meanwhile, independent games took off that would radically change the horror genre forever.

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Playstation 1

The new Japanese giant

• Some of the biggest PS1 horror games include D, Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, Clock Tower, Silent Hill, and resident Evil.

• The PS1 was the first console generation in which horror games began to look a lot like what they are today based on several key franchises.

The late ’90s and early ’00s saw a massive influx of Japanese horror films made on the cheap, often with digital cameras, scaring Japanese and international audiences alike. This fascination with horror media extended directly to the world of video games, and the original PlayStation received its fair share of horror-infused games that remain influential to this day, even if some were too short.

It would be impossible to talk about the PS1 without the inaugural entries of the silent hill and resident Evil franchises, which are still going strong to this day. Other notable offerings include the enigmatic dthe something infamous clock tower, and the problematic but classic favorite of Alone in the dark: the new nightmare.

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Playstation 4

Next-generation nightmares usher in the modern era of horror

• The best games of this generation include PT, Resident Evil 7 and 2 Remake, Until Dawn, The Evil Within 2, and The Last Of Us Part 2.

• Older Japanese franchises were revived, while Western developers released increasingly powerful entries.

In retrospect, the PS4 console generation was a bigger step forward than many expected and is home to an incredible list of games that are still played regularly to this day. This applies doubly to this generation’s horror output. While the Xbox One and Switch had some solid horror catalogues, the PS4 remained unmatched for sheer quantity, with some of the most notable games appearing on Sony’s console as graphical styles became increasingly experimental.

Perhaps the most important horror game released for PlayStation 4 is the P.T. demo, Hideo Kojima’s unfortunate project to reboot the silent hill franchise. PT, Despite not being a complete game, it is regularly cited as one of the scariest games ever made and its graphical fidelity is still astonishing more than ten years later. Not to be left behind, this generation also saw the resurgence of resident Evil franchise with Resident Evil 7 and resident Evil 2, the new version of the original, becoming all-time greats in the genre.

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Playstation 2

Early 2000s Horror Fans Are Treated Like Royalty

• Some of the biggest horror games on PS2 include Resident Evil 4, Silent Hill, Manhunt, Kuon, and fatal frameamong many more.

• As a competitor to the more family-friendly Gamecube and the burgeoning Xbox, PS2 became the home of Western horror and adult-themed games.

While the PS1 laid the foundation for the J-horror revolution, the PS2 set it in stone. One of the most popular consoles ever made was firmly supported by its Japanese founders as a piece of solid counterprogramming to the more kid-friendly Gamecube and the still-burgeoning Xbox. That means the PS2, among other things, became known as the home of truly adult games in the console space, so horror understandably thrived to such an extent that it’s hard to include them all in one list.

While their litany of horror games is too long to list, special attention should be paid to silent hill 2and Resident Evil 4two entries to legendary franchises that regularly top best-of lists to this day. Both are immaculate games that master psychological horror and action horror respectively, with a rabid fanbase well into the 2020s. Then, new and increasingly popular studios like Rockstar released games like Hunt to increasingly serve the adult public. There’s no doubt that the PS2 is the best home for horror games that consoles have ever had.