Video games are able to engage audiences in many different ways, and even though they can provide a great sense of escapism or adventure, some people turn to video games because they want to get the life scared out of them. The horror genre is incredibly popular in film, but horror video games become intimidating in an entirely new way due to how they deeply immerse the player into the fear.

Five Nights at Freddy’s has become a successful horror franchise that exploits the scares from a creepy amusement park. It knows how to get under its audience’s skin, but there are plenty of other titles that create a comparable level of fear and channel similar energy.

Updated November 2, 2023, by Alexandra O'Leary: Along with the exponential growth of Five Nights At Freddy's as a franchise, including a movie featuring big celebrity names, the horror genre has had some brilliant new video game additions. Although the mechanics and atmosphere for Five Nights At Freddy's are distinct in their own right, there's a huge range of games will give players a similar experience. Whether its familiarity in gameplay, themes, or if players just want another lore-heavy world, there's a whole roster of brilliant games out there for FNAF fans.

18 Slender: The Eight Pages

Another Iconic Lets-Play Horror

Like Five Night's At Freddy's, 2012's Slender: The Eight Pages can attribute much of its success to streamers and influencers. In fact, Slender: The Eight Pages was among the first crop of games that YouTube "Let's Players" swarmed to, making it a notable title in modern gaming entertainment history.

The game's premise is simple. Players need to collect eight pages scattered around a forest. This isn't the sort of happy, friendly orienteering that people are used to, however, as the nightmarish Slender Man is constantly lurking among the trees.

17 Alien: Isolation

Alone Against a Frightening Enemy

Alien: Isolation is a psychological horror game based on the Alien film franchise. The game is set in the year 2137, 15 years after the first film, and puts players in control of Amanda Ripley, who is searching for her mother, Ellen Ripley, the first film's protagonist.

The game does feature some FPS combat against human enemies, though ammunition is limited, making the game's stealth mechanics core to the gameplay. This is particularly the case for The Alien (also known as the Xenomorph), which is constantly in pursuit of the player and cannot be killed. Consequently, the player's only option is to sneak past or outsmart the creature, and it is in these tense moments where the game really shines.

16 Phasmophobia

A Streamer/YouTuber Fright Fest

Like Slender: The Eight Pages, Phasmophobia can credit much of its success to streamers and influencers, as many notable names streamed the game on Twitch. The game was, at one point, Twitch's sixth most popular game, which undoubtedly contributed to the game topping Steam's sales charts in late 2020.

Phasmophobia is a single and multiplayer investigative game that tasks players with ascertaining what type of ghost is haunting the map. There are twenty different types of ghosts, including Demon, Wraith, and Phantom.

15 Emily Wants To Play

Surviving The Night Hour By Hour

Emily Wants to Play is a 2015 survival horror game that was developed by Shawn Hitchcock, who went on to develop 2019's Pacify. The game puts players in the shoes of a pizza delivery person, who find themselves trapped in a house by a young girl named Emily.

Whereas the levels in Five Night's at Freddy's are separated by progressing nights, Emily Wants To Play's levels are differentiated by progressing hours of the same night. In hopes of surviving, players need to figure out how to interact with and behave around Emily and her various dolls. Like FNAF, this game requires gamers to adapt to their environment and become familiar with their enemy's tactics in order to live.

14 Subnautica

Subconscious Fears and Well-Placed Jumpscares

When comparing Subnautica to Five Night's At Freddy's on face value, Unknown Worlds' game may seem like an odd choice, as it's an open-world, underwater survival game. However, Subnautica qualifies as, simply put, many people who play it say that it's one of, if not the most terrifying game they've ever played.

Like FNAF, this is largely because it taps into subconscious fears that many people share - in this case, the fear of being stranded in an ocean with no idea what lurks beneath. The infamous Reaper Leviathans provide the game's biggest scares, predominantly because of their horrifying grab attack that provides some very FNAF-like jumpscares.

13 The Park

Missing Children and a Freaky Location

The Park centers around a mother's pursuit for her missing son who's lost somewhere within an amusement park. As the mother searches through the park she processes memories of her child and the contemplative title definitely owes a lot to the Silent Hill series in this respect.

Some may easily reduce The Park to a fancy version of a "walking simulator," but its story and creepy setting are incredibly effective. It's a draining experience and one that reiterates the importance of humanity in a horror game.

12 Alice: Madness Returns

A Dark Take on a Childhood World

Alice: Madness Returns is another good horror choice. Like FNAF, it's a creative take on a childhood classic. In this iteration, Wonderland is deeply disturbing and full of frightening monsters. It also looks at the mental repercussions of Alice's experiences and has a lot of lore.

The gameplay isn't too similar to Five Nights At Freddy's since there are weapons and a lot of combat. It's more akin to FNAF: Security Breach with its vast world and perspective. It also features a lot of symbolism and exploration of children who've been exposed to dark and difficult things, like Five Nights At Freddy's lore.

11 Boogeyman

A Terrifying Take on Childhood Fears

The advent of VR gaming hasn’t caught on with everyone, but there’s been exceptional use of it with horror video games. Boogeyman is a VR horror title that’s simple in nature, but it lands the concept so well thanks to its immersive nature.

The player is a young boy who’s afraid of the Boogeyman coming into his room at night. Their only line of defense is their flashlight, which has a limited battery. Players must listen for noises and figure out when they’re under attack, but every attempt of the Boogeyman to attack is a nightmare. Just like Five Nights At Freddy's, players must use their senses and limited mechanics to survive.

10 Among The Sleep

Helpless Against The Monsters

Among The Sleep is a brilliant choice for Five Night's At Freddy's lovers thanks to its mechanics. Not only is it set in a childhood home, but players assume the role of a child, giving childhood fears a whole new experience.

Additionally, the main character cannot fight back against monsters. Like in FNAF, players have a limited light source (though at least this one recharges) and can only flee or hide from enemies. Gamers will have to be sensible with their moves and light to survive the terrifying night.

9 In Silence

Limited Vision and Clever Perspective

In Silence is a creative take on a multiplayer horror game. Most of the players control normal humans who want to survive, whereas one person plays as a vicious monster known as a Rake. The Rake is blind, but has hypersensitive hearing.

The game illustrates this by the Rake's vision being almost completely black, but more of the picture fills in depending on how much sound the other characters make. This limited tunnel vision perspective brings Five Nights at Freddy's to mind. It also allows for some scary multiplayer fun to be enjoyed at the same time.

8 CarnEvil

Horrifying Clowns and Creepy Carnivals

There are many different ways to experience the terrors of a murderous amusement park and Midway’s arcade classic CarnEvil decides to take the approach of a lightgun rail shooter. CarnEvil is exceptionally violent and bombards the player with grotesque visuals and a morbid sense of humor that brings Five Nights at Freddy’s to mind.

The rail shooter approach is so effective in CarnEvil because it creates a real sense of anxiety and creates a feeling that’s comparable to trying to escape from an amusement park. CarnEvil is a standout horror title from the ‘90s, but it deserves a modern comeback.

7 Outlast

First-Person Scares and Hiding Mechanics

Outlast is another brilliant horror game from the modern era that is reminiscent of FNAF when it comes to gameplay and presentation, but it’s completely different when it comes to its story and horror inspirations. Outlast focuses on an investigative journalist whose most recent work takes him to an abandoned psychiatric hospital.

Outlast is experienced in first-person, but it creates even grander scares with how most of the game is cast in darkness. The player must rely on the night vision of their camcorder, which naturally creates tension in the gamer.

6 Illbleed

A Childhood Location Overcome with Horror

The Dreamcast’s lifespan was sadly far too short, but in this brief time the Sega console was the home for many top tier games, some of which have never been released anywhere else. Illbleed is an obscure gem that takes the slasher genre structure and applies it to a bunch of teenagers who visit a suspicious amusement park.

Each of Illbleed’s levels represents a different brand of horror. It’s also very ahead of its time with how characters can die and its “fear meter” concept, which monitors various health factors of the character as they experience scares.

5 Daylight

Making The Most of Mechanics

Daylight is an interesting horror game for Windows and the PlayStation 4 from Zombie Studios and the publisher Atlus. Daylight is set within and around a scary hospital as the player tries to piece together the institution's dark past.

Daylight embraces the first-person perspective angle to its horror. It strips the player of any weapons and instead gives them means of light to ward off the game's shadow people enemies. Daylight isn't perfect, but it has a lot of good and frightening ideas as well as environment layouts that are randomly generated, which keeps gameplay fresh.

4 Until Dawn: Rush Of Blood

A Rollercoaster of Fright

Until Dawn, from Supermassive Games, is one of the most satisfying horror titles of the last decade. It beautifully embraces the atmosphere and esthetics of '80s horror cinema. Until Dawn: Rush of Blood is a VR spin-off of the series that shifts the setting from an eerie mountain retreat to a deadly carnival.

Much of Rush of Blood's hinges on a disturbing roller coaster and the change of pace is so effective it's just a shame that Rush of Blood isn't the official sequel to the title. Like Five Nights At Freddy's it's set in an abandoned location that should, in theory, be a fun place, but has been overtaken with terror.

3 Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Running For Your Life

The Amnesia series has become one of the most consistent and terrifying modern horror series. Each title in the franchise features genuinely frightening scares and monsters that will make the player want to rush to turn off the console.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent features an environment that’s quite different from Five Nights at Freddy’s, but the game offers the same first-person immersion and sense of danger as the player explores a mysterious location where it feels like danger can be around any corner. It’s very easy to play FNAF and then shift over to Amnesia.

2 Silent Hill 3

A Twisted Take on a Happy Place

There’s still lots of debate on whether Silent Hill 2 or 3 is the superior entry in the series, but Silent Hill 3 has the advantage when it comes to the setting. Set within the Lakeside Amusement Park, Heather Mason’s desire to find her father and escape from these disturbing monsters makes exceptional use of an abandoned amusement park.

Silent Hill 3 takes many amusement park staples, like roller coasters, cuddly mascots, and even an innocent carousel and warps them into nightmare fuel that would even give the FNAF characters pause. It does a great job of taking something that should be joyful and making it dark and twisted.

1 Poppy Playtime

Surviving Killer Toys

Poppy Playtime is the perfect choice for Five Nights at Freddy's fans for a host of reasons. It's similar in theme and style, taking a seemingly innocent and child-like thing such as puppets/cuddly toys and warping them into something horrifying and creepy. It's also set in an abandoned factory, which has the same feeling as many of the run-down Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria locations.

Additionally, the gameplay is relatively similar. Although there is some offensive play, Poppy Playtime generally relies on running and hiding mechanics, as well as opening and closing doors, hitting buttons, and so on. In terms of games that have been released since Five Nights At Freddy's came on the scene, almost nothing else comes as close as Poppy Playtime.