There are countless ways to terrify people through creative media. The easiest and most convenient route is to simply present something grossly violent or repulsive. While some consider this cheap, it is still effective. The other, more creative method of eliciting fear from audiences is making them feel uncomfortable or confusing them.

RELATED: Best Survival Horror Games Of All Time, Ranked

The ten games featured below are so weird, they terrify gamers as they question reality and wonder what in the game is real or not. Sometimes this is done through gameplay mechanics, and other times it is purely through the story. The best of the best, however, accomplish this sensation through a combination of the two.

Updated December 30, 2021 by Jason Wojnar: Part of what makes certain games so scary is the unexpected and the unknown. This often dives into the weird, as several of the currently existing entries already show.

Because horror never goes out of style, this list has been updated with more entries, a couple of which have come out recently. Not everything weird is scary, but the games below all throw things at players that make them both scared and weirded out.

14 Doki Doki Literature Club

A cutscene with Monika in Doki Doki Literature Club

Do not be fooled by this game's cutesy facade. The visual novel starts off just like any other before going into some extremely creepy and unsettling directions. It uses the genre and the gaming medium to tell a unique story diving into some heavy, adult, and disturbing themes.

The game at least warns players that the game becomes darker than its intro implies. This entry won't spoil anything, but players should know it gets creepy and sad.

13 D

D vampire game

This oddly named game is more of an interactive movie than a traditional game. It is extremely short and follows a woman as she discovers her family lineage has a dark, vampiric secret. Other than its story and gameplay, the weirdest thing about D is the time limit imposed on players.

RELATED: PS1 Games That Deserve A Sequel

One has to beat the game within two hours before being forced to restart. Once finding out what to do, it is a breeze to complete, but the structure will intrigue just as many players as it frustrates.

12 Five Nights At Freddy's

Five Nights at Freddy's

There is not a lot that needs to be said about this extremely popular franchise. Five Nights at Freddy's isn't really weird, but the story behind its creation is. Creator Scott Cawthon made another game beforehand that was heavily criticized for having unintentionally scary animations.

Instead of giving up, Scott took this criticism and turned it into the foundation for Five Nights at Freddy's. Why not make the unintentional horror intentional and fully indulge in it? Thus the gaming phenomenon was born.

11 Murder House

Murder House PlayStation One Games

Murder House is just one in a long line of video games from Puppet Combo. The developer specializes in PS1-styled horror games. Like in film, the archaic aesthetic and shoestring budget only lends to the terror.

The first Evil Dead is scary because of its low budget, and Murder House is more terrifying than if it was made with cutting edge graphics. The game follows a news crew as they are in a haunted house as someone in an Easter Bunny costume hunts them one by one. Even just reading that description will make it hard for some to sleep at night.

10 Silent Hill 2

silent hill 2 mary and james

While it plays like a traditional survival horror game, James Sunderland's journey through the titular town is anything but traditional. The game starts with him entering the town looking for his deceased wife, Mary, who recently sent a letter to him from beyond the grave. Once he starts exploring, he meets several other characters and the mystery around his relationship with Mary starts to unravel.

For 2001, such a narrative was simply unheard of. The creature designs are amazing, and Pyramid Head still gives fans nightmares, but the true terror comes from the unsettling environment and mysterious guilt haunting the characters.

9 Alone In The Dark

alone in the dark gameplay

This one gets weirder and weirder as time goes on, although the 3D character models against two-dimensional backdrops were a format many other horror games would follow. Despite the archaic graphics, the 1991 title still manages to scare the pants off anyone who plays it and thanks to gog.com, the classic horror game now runs on most modern computers.

The story is heavily inspired by writers like Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, with many of the creatures also taking cues from their writing. The series has since fallen from grace, but no one can eliminate the first game's influence.

8 Harvester

harvester video game FMV

This point-and-click adventure title is meant to explore the nature between violence and various forms of media. The game features numerous brutal acts, some of which are perpetrated by the player as they discover the mystery behind the mysterious town they are in.

RELATED: Worst Choices You Can Make In Any Horror Game

The acting and full-motion video quality are about what one would expect from 1996, but that just adds to the plot's inanity. The ending won't be spoiled here, but it really drives its thematic point home about fictional violence's relation to real-world violence.

7 Catherine

Atlus's puzzle-game Catherine deals with relationships and infidelity, splitting the gameplay between social simulation and puzzle-solving mechanics taking place in the main character's dreams.

It deals with the guilt and intensity that comes from cheating and leading a double life. On the surface, it looks like a creepy game about male fantasies, but its plot is far more profound once one actually plays it.

6 Eternal Darkness

Silicon Knights' cult classic GameCube title takes full advantage of the medium to strike unease into the hearts of anyone who plays it. Players have a sanity meter that affects the world depending on how full it is.

RELATED: GameCube Hidden Gems Everyone Missed

The effects of one's deteriorating sanity start out subtle like statues' eyes looking at the player, but increase to such drastic moments like the player's head popping off, or presenting a false, yet convincing, disc read error message. Knowing about them diminishes the terror somewhat, but people experiencing it for the first time in 2002 were in for the shock of their gaming lives.

5 Fatal Frame

Zombies and other monsters are killed with traditional weaponry but how does one harm a force of energy with no physical energy like a ghost?

In the Fatal Frame series, players defend themselves through the use of the Camera Obscura, a device that damages these beings by capturing them on film. The more in-focus the ghosts are, the more damage the photo does. The first game came out on the PS2 in 2001, at a time when most games were still focused on combat, making the premier title an especially unique project.

4 Zero Escape

A character in a torture device

This adventure game series follows strangers locked in a facility, forced to endure sadistic games for their survival. The art style doesn't indicate such a dark story, but playing the game leaves no illusion of how oppressive the narrative becomes.

The trilogy tells a complete story from start to finish, with the final entry wrapping up the mystery behind the sick games these protagonists are forced to play. One would never expect a puzzle game to be so terrifying, but the Zero Escape series shows us how it is done.

3 Parasite Eve

This science-fiction horror game is a turn-based RPG set in modern-day New York City. This alone gets it on the list, and it helps when the gameplay and story are top-notch as well.

RELATED: Unique PlayStation Video Games No One Has Copied Yet (But Should)

Based on a novel and film, the main character must fight off a mysterious organism taking over the city. In addition to its combat, the exploration takes many cues from Resident Evil, with the player scrounging through every inch of the environment for clues and resources.

2 Corpse Party

corpse-party-2

Originating on RPG Maker in the mid-'90s, each entry in the Corpse Party series sees a group of students escaping haunted school grounds. The adventure game incorporates RPG elements as well.

The cutesy art style is certainly misleading because exploring the environment sends chills down one spine. While jump scares are about, the real horror comes from the atmosphere, tension, and brutal ways some of the poor students can bite it.

1 PT

People remember PT, the surprise teaser for the ultimately doomed Silent Hills, more fondly than most full releases. The actual experience is a haunting journey through a few rooms constantly repeated with several minute details changed each time.

People still aren't quite sure how the final puzzle is solved, which reveals the Silent Hills announcement. Adding to the legacy, the game has been delisted and is unavailable to download even by those who have the game in their library. Only those who still have it in on their hard drive can play it. As sad as the final game's cancelation was, at least fans got Death Stranding out of the ordeal.

MORE: Best Horror Games Of 2021