Highlights

• Horror games often incorporate player choice as a core gameplay element, allowing for meaningful changes and multiple endings.
• Games like Until Dawn and The Dark Pictures Anthology series let players make choices that determine the fate of characters and shape the narrative.
• Other horror games, such as Dead Rising and Telltale's The Walking Dead, present players with tough decisions that have consequences for both gameplay and storytelling.

Horror games, more than almost any other genre, are known for their tense gameplay loops and branching narratives, relying on players to make the right choice in key moments or else face the consequences. Sometimes, this boils down to pure item management, like Resident Evil's ammo conservation and limited inventory. Other times, it's the life or death of a friend or party member.

Whether fighting off undead hordes or battling with a deity, players will regularly be faced with choices. Often, even decisions that seem insignificant at the time can hold consequences that ring throughout the rest of the game and deeper into the player's psyche.

Updated February 7, 2024, by Gregory Louis Gomez: While many horror games present themselves as entirely linear experiences where the player's choices don't meaningfully impact the story, many games in the genre have chosen to incorporate choice as a core gameplay element. These games feature experiences that can change in meaningful ways based on the player's actions, even resulting in multiple endings. Long-running series such as Resident Evil are especially known for this, although even newer games have attempted to embrace this idea. There is a plethora of horror games out there in which the player's choice matters, but some take the feature much further than others.

16 Until Dawn

The Fate of Each Character is in The Player's Hands

What happens when you have a "cabin in the woods" type scenario in which the cast of characters is controlled entirely by the player? A very good game, that's what. Until Dawn pays tribute to the classic of cinematic horror and offers something new by virtue of it being a video game.

In a typical movie, each character's fate is predetermined by the filmmakers. Until Dawn gives that control directly to the player. The choices that the player makes not only affect how each character interacts with another, but they also determine what happens to them at major narrative moments in the story.

15 The Dark Pictures Anthology

Where Quick Reaction Times and Keen Eyes Matter

The Dark Pictures Anthology is an ongoing series from Supermassive Games, the developer responsible for 2015's hugely popular interactive drama horror game Until Dawn. At the time of writing, the British studio has released four of the eight planned games, with the fourth, The Devil in Me, dropping in 2022.

For the most part, the games all follow the same formula, with players following a group of people as they venture through some kind of spooky setting. As they explore, they'll be faced with a series of difficult decisions and quick time events that will invariably determine which members of the in-game group survive until the end of the story. When played consecutively, the games' formula can start to feel a little stale, but with a full year typically separating releases, this shouldn't be an issue for most.

14 Clock Tower

A Classic Point and Click Horror

Unlike its contemporaries, Silent Hill and Resident Evil, Clock Tower is a '90s survival horror classic that went without its fair share of attention from studios and audiences alike. Aside from an attempted reboot a few years ago in the form of NightCry, the franchise mainly lives on in the fond memories of retro fanatics.

The main difference with Clock Tower is its point-and-click gameplay, setting it aside from the 3D games that found an easier ride onto next-gen consoles. The series doesn't lack tension, however, and has several outcomes based on player reactions in its scenarios, which are split up between two characters, which is a lot like classic Resident Evil games.

13 Dead Rising

Players Won't Always Be Able to Save Everyone

For as goofy as Dead Rising can be in places, the first game's survival horror aspects are fantastic. This is because the player must make tough decisions regarding not only their resource management but also their fellow survivors. While balancing various tasks around the Willamette Parkview Mall, the player will often come across survivors trying to secure their positions in various shops and locales.

The player is encouraged to rescue these people and bring them back to the safe house where they can await their eventual rescue. However, this can be a hard task to complete when the player is overrun on all sides and lost in the labyrinthian layouts of the mall. More often than not, players will find themselves unable to save everyone, as the zombie hordes overpower NPCs before they can even be met.

12 Telltale's The Walking Dead

A Breakthrough in Branching Storytelling

Another classic zombie survive-em-up, Telltale's The Walking Dead series is a wonderful look at inevitability, as the player will often be given options that seem impossible to choose from and will likely end up irrelevant in the end due to a slip-up down the line. The difference in TWD's decisions is that they're often built up to devastating ends, with the ever-looming Telltale line "this action will have consequences" further reminding gamers.

While Telltale's development cycle may have been troubled, gamers were at least given a resolution on the part of Clementine and Lee. The Walking Dead quickly became a fan-favorite narrative in the gaming world, on par with the greatest cinematic experiences of the generation.

11 Call Of Cthulhu

Experience the Madness of Cthulhu or Don't

Call of Cthulhu is an interesting look at the world of adaptations. It seems as though, in the many years since his passing, Lovecraft himself has cursed every adaptation of his work to either fail miserably or else go under the radar. Between last gen's Call of Cthulhu and The Sinking City, the cycle remains uninterrupted, as most audiences found themselves disappointed in these titles.

While they didn't get their deserved reviews on release due to a myriad of bugs and jank, Cyanide's horror adventure became a bit of an overlooked gem. It presents the player with seemingly impossible odds that change and waver with the slightest decisions throughout the campaign.

10 Fear & Hunger

When Every Little Choice Matters

Fear & Hunger and its sequel, Termina, are deeply unsettling games created using RPG Maker, and they have gradually gained notoriety over the last few years. Tackling dark and mature themes, these projects are only for adults, and they will test the patience of most players. To be clear, both of these titles are great additions to the indie horror scene; they are just the definition of "niche."

Every choice a player makes matters in Fear & Hunger, and this starts right from the class selection and the subsequent backstory. While playing, players can go down plenty of routes, and a wrong decision could result in the loss of a limb and a quick game over. Simply picking which fights to engage with can be playthrough-defining.

9 Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries Of New York

A Stylish Ode to Tabletop RPG Storytelling

Unlike its predecessors, Coteries of New York takes a more traditional narrative approach to the Vampire: The Masquerade universe. It places the player in a vampire's shoes in the midst of a power struggle between two of the biggest vampiric factions in New York.

The special part of this visual novel is that it's not only immersive but feels almost like a tabletop narrative unwinding at the player's fingertips. The decisions are important in their own right, but they also change the attitude of the character, making them more likely to react to situations depending on the player's previous input. It's a lot more like a DM deciding how situations will play out for players based on their alignments and personalities, and it's a perfect adaptation for the TTRPG.

8 The Shrouded Isle

There is No Good or Evil Choice

The Shrouded Isle is a lot like its sister game, Cultist Simulator, in that it brings players into a morally gray area in which they must manage their respective cultish organizations. In turn, this ends up managing the return of the Great Ones and their subsequent response to the way the cult is being handled.

Every season, players must pick sacrifices for their higher beings, meaning that cult resources can be endangered if the wrong choices are made. Stemming from this, there's also an action/reaction system put into place by the player, as their cult leader must punish or reward cultists' behaviors and make decisions based on their productivity and personalities.

7 Silent Hill

Multiple Endings That Are Hard to Unlock

Silent Hill is very much like the old Resident Evil games in that exploration is a major factor in changing the outcome of the story. More than this, however, the player is often presented with narrative choices throughout the series that go beyond finding certain objects or solving specific puzzles that can have major ramifications.

Choosing who to kill and who to spare and how the player decides to solve situations all factor into which ending they achieve. There are also a few joke endings, which are a ton of fun.

6 Resident Evil

Puzzles, Item Management, and Exploration That Matters

Not only is this classic horror game remake known for its tense resource management, but Resident Evil is also praised for the consequences that come from brash gameplay. Like a grand puzzle, every item and consumable has its place, and the misuse of a single bullet can make a world of difference when staving off the undead monstrosities stalking the Spencer Mansion.

The real treat of the HD remake is that it adds quite a few more twists to the survival horror classic, including Crimson Heads that, if not dispatched properly, can be a real nuisance later in the game. These creatures and the terrifying boss fights that punctuate some of the game's key moments consume precious health and ammo at twice the speed of their counterparts.

5 Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma

A Visual Novel With Multiple Options

Much like its peer, Danganronpa, the Zero Escape series places players in a dangerous game with deadly reactions and devastating twists. Alongside Phoenix Wright, Zero Escape is considered one of the greatest visual novel narrative games out there.

Where this differs from other titles, however, is in its much stronger narrative devices and more abstract storytelling relative to Danganronpa's limited breadth of narrative impact. The characters all get their moments to shine, and players find themselves invested in their stories equally by the game's end. While the Zero Escape titles have been overshadowed by the more popular modern visual novels, they're all worth a look, and fans of the genre won't be disappointed with what they find here.

4 World Of Horror

Indie Horror at its Best

World of Horror is an instant classic. Taking inspiration from old PC RPGs and combining the low-bit aesthetic with modern addictive roguelike gameplay and convoluted cosmic horror, World of Horror is a gem for fans of the genre.

There are several mysteries in World of Horror that all have different endings based on how the player approaches gameplay decisions throughout the storyline. Every playthrough brings players a fresh delivery, regardless of how many times a campaign has been experienced.

3 Pathologic 2

Merging Horror, Roleplaying, and History

In a lot of ways, Pathologic 2 is a modern Majora's Mask, where every choice matters in the short span of time before inevitable doom. Returning to their hometown in the midst of a terrible plague, the player must make their own choices as to how they'll handle the sickness, either saving their friends and family or taking survival into their own hands with organ harvesting and antidotal studies.

Players should be warned that this game is for a niche audience, and it likely won't be appreciated to its full extent if players go in looking for a big bold triple-A experience. Pathologic 2 is all doom and gloom, and it expects players to quit playing the game midway out of frustration. The game takes pleasure in its required calculations and subsequent hopelessness upon realizing that making an impact on the events of the game is unlikely at best.

2 The Forest

Can You Save Your Kidnapped Son?

The fun thing about The Forest is that, while it gives the player so many options when it comes to survival strategies and exploration, it also has the good sense to also give gamers an influence on the ending. Though the player's main goal is to save their son, it is possible to complete the game and fail this task depending on the choices they make at a crucial moment.

This obviously results in wildly different endings, though one of them can't possibly be canon anymore due to the existence of Sons of the Forest. This sequel also has different endings for the player to earn based on their choices.

1 The Quarry

Expanding on the Promise of Until Dawn

Much like Until Dawn and Supermassive Games' Dark Pictures Anthology series, The Quarry is a horror game in which just about every decision counts. What a player does or doesn't do can have huge repercussions in-game, with death and despair lurking around just about every corner. This can lead to an awful lot of tension during a playthrough while also providing plenty of reasons to replay the game to check out some of the other possible endings.

So numerous are the branching pathways in The Quarry that it's highly unlikely that anyone will ever see all 186 different endings. To be fair, many of them feature only minor differences, but the sheer number available should at least give players some indication as to how much of a bearing their choices can have on the game's narrative. Supermassive Games are masters when it comes to this style of immersive storytelling, and The Quarry is perhaps the best example of this to date.