Horror Games That Use Your Mic: Monsters That Hear You

In most horror games you can scream as much as you like. In these, the game is listening. Some use your microphone so that the monster hears what you say or the noise in your room; some use voice recognition so you can talk to a ghost; others carry your voice into the level through proximity chat, where whatever hunts you can hear it.

Phasmophobia made the idea famous. You and up to three friends investigate a haunting, ask the ghost questions out loud, and know that it hears what you say and reacts to it. Ghost Exile and Demonologist follow the same pattern, with an entity or a demon that answers your voice.

If you play alone, The Backrooms 1998 is the most direct: something hunts by sound through the yellow rooms, and through your microphone it hears your breathing and your screams. The Classrooms does the same in an endless, changing school, and A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead offers it as an option, so a cough in your own room can give you away. Lurking, free, is the purest form: in total darkness you see only by making sound, and your real noises become pulses the enemies follow. Two Fears to Fathom episodes, the free Home Alone and Carson House, list player voice activity among their features too.

With friends, Panicore's monster hears every word you say into the microphone, In Silence's Rake hears voices over long distances, and Damned 2 and Inside the Backrooms carry proximity chat to the things that hunt you. MIMESIS turns it around: the monsters copy your friends' voices, so you can no longer trust who is calling for help.

Start with Phasmophobia with friends, or The Backrooms 1998 alone with headphones on. Check each game's settings for its microphone options before you start.

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