Replay value is something virtually every gamer cares about. Being able to return to a favorite world, see beloved characters, and experience certain events again is one of the most satisfying things in gaming. Some games give players more reasons to come back than others.
With the horror genre, replay value can be tricky. Much of what makes horror games scary and therefore effective is the unknown. Jump scares and other classic tricks work their best with the element of surprise, and once that's gone, some games don't have much to offer. Other horror games stand the test of time, offering players something to look forward to every time they return. Here are the horror titles with the best replay value.
8 Silent Hill 3
There's so much to love about the Silent Hill franchise. Even the older games in the series have held up incredibly well over the years, continuing to offer players an almost unending stream of scares as a reward for setting foot in the titular town.
Silent Hill's storytelling is some of the best in the business. Diving deep into the pathos of its characters, the franchise has never been shy about exploring serious topics like deteriorating mental health before jump-scaring players with one of its iconic nurses. Silent Hill 3's grainy aesthetic has helped the game stand-up to the passage of time and in many ways only enhances the horror.
7 Fatal Frame
Ghost-hunting is a popular horror trope, to say the least, with possessions, hauntings, and all manner of other spooky occurrences dominating the sales charts for video games, movies, and books.
Fatal Frame is one of the best ghost-hunting games around for several reasons. Its evocative setting establishes and maintains an atmosphere of quiet dread that most players will find it hard to break out of, and its ghosts are actually interesting. Most importantly, the way the player interacts with these ghosts using a camera remains one of the best conceived and executed horror mechanics of all time. Himuro Mansion is full of terrifying specters, and seeing the Clock Boy or the Broken Neck Ghost is guaranteed to disturb no matter how many times the player has seen them.
6 Resident Evil 2 (2019)
What Fatal Frame does for ghosts, Resident Evil does for zombies. One can hardly take a step without tripping over a game about killing the undead, but most of them are pale imitations compared to the most iconic zombie franchise of them all.
The series has changed a great deal over the years, making the leap from the cumbersome mechanics and static camera of the original games to a dynamic action series with Resident Evil 4. Thankfully, series darling Resident Evil 2 got the remake it deserved, updating the game with essential quality-of-life features to complement the gorgeous new graphics. The original was already one of the scariest Resident Evil games, but the remake gives fans countless reasons to come back to Raccoon City.
5 Outlast
Outlast may have been copied a hundred times, but none of the games it inspired quite match the sinister vibes of the original. The game might not feature the degree of player choice that some other great horror games do, but this decision let the design team tailor the experience to be as consistently horrific as possible.
The game's creepy villains and even creepier setting are reason enough to play Outlast again, but players looking for another reason can always tackle the game on a higher difficulty, testing their skills against the worst that the game has to offer. It's a test of skill that might well end with someone dead, but that's all the more reason to try again.
4 Alien: Isolation
Villains typically cease to be scary when they become predictable. When the player knows exactly where they will appear, what attack they will use, and even what creepy sound the enemies will make, the predictability can even become funny.
Alien: Isolation does its best to make sure this never happens. The xenomorph has one of the best and scariest AI's in horror, and being hunted by the creature through a space station is an exercise in adrenaline-soaked terror. Alien: Isolation makes masterful use of sound and environmental design to ratchet up the intensity as the player plays a losing game of cat and mouse.
3 Bloodborne
The Soulslike genre isn't for every. Its brutal difficulty ensures that only players with patience, grit, and maybe a sprinkle of masochism will survive the brutal mobs and even more brutal bosses that these games through at them.
Bloodborne takes traditional Soulslike difficulty and reimagines it with a Lovecraftian setting. Between the disconcerting lore, stunning Victorian architecture, and merciless battles, Yharnam has plenty to keep players entertained. Nor is beating the game the end, because New Game+ offers Bloodborne veterans the chance to test their muscle memory against even more difficult foes. Throw in a heap of hidden collectibles to find, and players have more than enough cause to jump in for another run.
2 Dead Space
Horror pairs well with a variety of genres, from fantasy and mystery to action and western. One of the most enduring mashups is sci-fi horror, a classic that's been explored again and again in fiction and film but is seen less often in gaming. Survival is a frightening, high-stakes task in itself, and the infusion of horror elements only makes the process that much worse.
Dead Space capitalizes on that fact. Pitted against horrific Necromorphs, having a plasma cutter in hand isn't enough to feel safe. Dead Space balances its action, horror, and exploration exceptionally well, so even players who have spent countless hours patrolling the game's icy corridors may want to jump back in for another go.
1 Dead By Daylight
When Dead by Daylight offered fans the chance to play out a classic '80s slasher film, taking on the roles of either a powerful Killer or the crafty Survivors they hunted, many players dove in and haven't looked back twice. With an ever-expanding list of perks, maps, and playable characters, Dead by Daylight gives horror fans every possible reason to keep playing.
When players become experienced and the initial horror fades, the game offers an almost bottomless amount to learn and master, especially on the Killer side. If that weren't enough, franchise crossovers have added horror icons like Pinhead and Leatherface to its already massive roster.