What are some obscure horror games?

[Grimwulf]

Horror - as in jumpscare galore, or smth more refined? The last horror-ish games I played and enjoyed was Sunless Sea. It's more about the atmosphere and general mood of the game, won't see any jumpscares. You'll get tons of text instead. Lovecraftian style.



Sometimes it makes you laugh, other times it makes you feel uneasy. Good stuff.

 

[SpaceDriftingGrimoire]

Side Scrolling Psychological Horror with inspiration from the Silent Hill Series and Amnesia: The Dark Descent



Third-Person Action Horror Game inspired by the works of HP Lovecraft



Side Scrolling Adventure Horror Game (also inspired by Lovecraft)

 

[MasPingon]

You want obscure horror game, play Harvester. I was playing it while I was in High School and still can't forget some of the images and fucked up tone this game had. It's like a hybrid of exploitation bad movies / bad sci-fi fan fiction / C class torture porn horror with awkward and tasteless comedy flick. Playing it is like watching Srpski film, you won't be proud of it.

 

[Some-Mist]

I know you mentioned PS2, but ikenie no yoru (night of the sacrifice) on the Wii.
there's some really sketchy jump scares, and from what I could understand it had a somewhat interesting plot? but japanese only.

 

[SpaceDriftingGrimoire]

In terms of PS2 Obscure Horror gaming...

Very rare Psychological story driven Survival Horror game similar to Silent Hill 2, inspired by children's fairy tales and childhood psychology. Has thematic elements to it that are reminiscent (but apparently not inspired by) to Lord of the Flies.

 

[DeusX1]

Nocturne
Nightmare Creatures

 

[SpaceDriftingGrimoire]

You want obscure horror game, play Harvester. I was playing it while I was in High School and still can't forget some of the images and fucked up tone this game had. It's like a hybrid of exploitation bad movies / bad sci-fi fan fiction / C class torture porn horror with awkward and tasteless comedy flick. Playing it is like watching Srpski film, you won't be proud of it.

Retsupurae's Let's play of this was the first time I was made aware of this bizarre little gem of unique suburban horror. Since then it kept gaining more traction before eventually being covered by LGR and subsequently released onto Good Old Games.

 

[Zenith]

Thread's going downhill fast, and in a distinct codexian style too.

Note how we're already scraping the bottom with pixel sidescrollers, but nobody dares mention Penumbra or Alien:Isolation (prob. not to associate with Amnesia/Outlast/whatever other yt-bait). How we're down to recommending Bloodlines (on codex!) without the obligatory Thief Cathedral/Cradle mentions. And if your definition of a horror game is broad enough to include Blood/Deadly Premonition/Pathologic/Sunless Sea, maybe it'd be a shorter thread if we listed games that aren't horror instead.
Not all vaguely horror-themed games are horror games. McGee's Alice ain't horror. X-Com TFTD ain't horror. Painkiller and Necrovision aren't horror. Left 4 Dead and Killing Floor aren't either. And neither are half of recommendations ITT.

 

[SpaceDriftingGrimoire]

Thread's going downhill fast, and in a distinct codexian style too.

Note how we're already scraping the bottom with pixel sidescrollers, but nobody dares mention Penumbra or Alien:Isolation (prob. not to associate with Amnesia/Outlast/whatever other yt-bait). How we're down to recommending Bloodlines (on codex!) without the obligatory Thief Cathedral/Cradle mentions. And if your definition of a horror game is broad enough to include Blood/Deadly Premonition/Pathologic/Sunless Sea, maybe it'd be a shorter thread if we listed games that aren't horror instead.
Not all vaguely horror-themed games are horror games. McGee's Alice ain't horror. X-Com TFTD ain't horror. Painkiller and Necrovision aren't horror. Left 4 Dead and Killing Floor aren't either. And neither are half of recommendations ITT.

In regards to my recommendations of 2 pixel indie sidescrollers I must confess that those choices were only out of an effort to find relatively obscure recommendations that were not already mentioned in previous posts. Otherwise I've found it increasingly difficult in the continuing internet age to find truly obscure (especially PS2) horror games that have not already been rediscovered or gained an even larger cult following in the age of near endless information access thanks to the internet.

In regards to Penumbra I agree on the grounds that it is at least more obscure than Frictional Games successors. As for Alien: Isolation I would not personally call that obscure in the slightest, considering the large media presence it gained alongside modest sales success (if I remember correctly sold somewhere between 2-4 Million Copies).

Some of the most iconic missions in Thief definitely fit into horror, though only for said missions since the entire game (while for me personally terrifying) is not necessarily a horror game.

Definitely agree, despite having a horror ambiance, on excluding some games from inclusion that feature too much action such as your previously mentioned Left 4 Dead and Killing Floor.

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

I suppose The Park would count as an obscure horror game. It's a real piece of shit, absolutely terrible game, but it's kind of an obscure walking sim.



edit

Oops, I guess I skimmed over the part where the OP asked us to name good games, lol.

 

[Lurker47]

The game was rushed by Bethesda and in its original state it's very bugged

Never heard that one before.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

The game was rushed by Bethesda and in its original state it's very bugged

Never heard that one before.

Stumbled upon this post a long time ago. I used to talk a couple of people from the dev team back in 2008-2010 and some of the stuff they said to me is identical to what you'll find here.

 

[Ash]

Guy sounds like a cuck. He's raging about Co-op not making it in? Good thing it didn't, that's antithetical to horror game design and the whole premise of the game. The health system? Why does it suck ass, because it takes long to heal? That was the point. Why does the shooting suck? No xhair? Hipfiring is difficult? Again, was the point. It's not even FPS gameplay-heavy anyways. The game was often hardcore, obscure, vague? Once more, seems like the point to me. It was clearly a calculated and complete game, and I'm very happy with the result.
Furthermore the bugginess of the game is overplayed. In its original (xboxtard) state it was not buggy by any means. I've played the game three or so times and don't recall any issues save maybe a crash or two...so basically it was industry standard. It was the port to PC later (allegedly) attempted by one guy after everyone else on the dev team had given up that suffered. Not that it's that significant as the unofficial patch exists and the game wouldn't have sold well regardless, not without Bethesda refusing to give it adequate marketing.

Even the wikipedia page is claiming the game is inherently bugged:

Release[edit]
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth was released on October 24, 2005 for the Xbox,[21] and on March 27, 2006 for the PC.[22] The game contains a number of software bugs, which have never been officially patched; these bugs are generally intermittent, and restoring from an earlier saved game can be enough to get past them. There is also an unofficial patch available that fixes some glitches and lowers the game's overall difficulty level.[23][24] The Xbox version is officially compatible with the Xbox 360 in certain regions.[25]

Not in its original, very first initial release state it's not. If for some reason you own an xbox or xbox360, like say you got one before realising they were decline incarnate, then you can play this great game without issue. Perhaps emulating the console version will also work out better than attempting the PC release. Personally I consider it one of the best horror games ever made.

 

[Jazz_]

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Guy sounds like a cuck. He's raging about Co-op not making it in? Good thing it didn't, that's antithetical to horror game design. The health system? Why does it suck ass, because it takes long to heal? That was the point. Why does the shooting suck? No xhair? Hipfiring is difficult? Again, was the point. It's not even FPS gameplay-heavy anyways. The game was often hardcore, obscure, vague? Once more, seems like the point to me. It was clearly a calculated and complete game, and I'm very happy with the result.
Furthermore the bugginess of the game is overplayed. In its original (xboxtard) state it was not buggy by any means. I've played the game three or so times and don't recall any issues save maybe a crash or two...so basically it was industry standard. It was the port to PC later attempted by one guy after everyone else on the dev team had given up that suffered. Not that it's that significant as the unofficial patch exists and the game wouldn't have sold well regardless, not without Bethesda refusing to give it adequate marketing.

Even the wikipedia page is claiming the game is inherently bugged:

Release[edit]
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth was released on October 24, 2005 for the Xbox,[21] and on March 27, 2006 for the PC.[22] The game contains a number of software bugs, which have never been officially patched; these bugs are generally intermittent, and restoring from an earlier saved game can be enough to get past them. There is also an unofficial patch available that fixes some glitches and lowers the game's overall difficulty level.[23][24] The Xbox version is officially compatible with the Xbox 360 in certain regions.[25]

Not in its original, very first initial release state it's not. If for some reason you own an xbox or xbox360, like say you got one before realising they were decline incarnate, then you can play this great game without issue. Perhaps emulating the console version will also work out better than attempting the PC release. Personally I consider it one of the best horror games ever made.

Agree about it being one of the best horror games ever made. Hell, this was one of a few games that got me back into playing games in the first place.

 

[Sjukob]

Cry of fear .
You should see that shit for yourself , although I imagine that for people who played silent hill it might look pretty similar.

 

[Great Deceiver]

 

[Lurker47]

First post that mentioned something I haven't already heard of before tbh.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

One of the better H.P.Lovecraft inspired game, that is easy to miss.

 

[Ash]

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth now on GoG in its (alleged) full glory: https://af.gog.com/game/call_of_cthulhu_dark_corners_of_the_earth?as=1649904300

It's cheap too. Though I doubt any money whatsoever goes to Headfirst, but rather all to Bethesda and GoG.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Taken from a horror game I LOVE recommending to people:

(I'll leave it up to you to figure out the game.)

 

[Lurker47]

(I'll leave it up to you to figure out the game.)

But why.

 

[Lurker47]

(I'll leave it up to you to figure out the game.)

But why.

And it's Eversion.

 

[bussinrounds]

I have 3 different Penumbra games on steam here....Overture, Black Plague and Requiem. Are all of these worth playing ?

 

[SCO]

Are you up for some crappish MS-Paint tier photo photshop graphics, unsexy nudity, a 'blink and you miss it' lesbian goth vampire 'romance' and a lame 'plot twist' on a adventure game? The game play is sort of fine for a adventure, except a single 'musical puzzle' and the story is okish, minus the plot twist.

Then i got a free game for you.
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1523/

The good part of this is actually the atmosphere believe it or not. Very dreary eastern europe. Also the dev put in a easter egg for Planescape Torment (a poster).