Best Horror Games of 2024: The Year's Standouts
2024 brought the SILENT HILL 2 remake, the short and much-praised Mouthwashing and a strong run of retro survival horror. These are the year's horror games that players and critics rated well, from big releases to free games you can finish tonight.
The games
14 of the 23 games in this guide are not on Switch and are left out. Show them all.
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SurvivalCrow CountryPS1-style survival horror in an abandoned theme park in 1990, with puzzles, monsters and an Exploration Mode for newcomers.
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Co-opContent WarningCo-op for four: film the monsters of an underground ruin on a handheld camera and upload them for views.
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Multiple endingsHomicipherA horror adventure about language: learn what monstrous men's strange words mean before you say the wrong thing.
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SurvivalSorry We're ClosedFixed-camera 90s-style survival horror with a neon look: a woman cursed by a lovesick archdemon, and a third eye.
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ShortHome Safety HotlineAnswer worried callers in 1996 and look up what is in their homes in a pest database that grows stranger.
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PsychologicalPlatform 8The Exit 8 maker's follow-up: trapped on a train that never stops, spotting what has changed.
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SurvivalFive Nights at Freddy's: Into the PitA 2D FNAF adventure: dive into a ball pit, wake in the past and hide from a yellow rabbit animatronic.
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SurvivalCONSCRIPTTop-down survival horror at Verdun in 1916, scavenging and fighting through trenches in the classic Resident Evil style.
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SurvivalThe Bridge Curse 2: The ExtricationTaiwanese survival horror in a haunted university building, hiding from ghosts as four characters.
2024 was the year a remake and a tiny indie game led horror. SILENT HILL 2, rebuilt from the ground up by Bloober Team, brought James Sunderland's search for his late wife through fog-bound Silent Hill to a new generation, with its monsters still mirroring his guilt. Mouthwashing, a short first-person story about the stranded crew of a space freighter running out of food and hope, drew Overwhelmingly Positive reviews from nearly 39,000 players on Steam.
Survival horror had a strong year. Crow Country rebuilt the PS1 style in an abandoned 1990 theme park and added an Exploration Mode for newcomers, Sorry We're Closed paired fixed camera angles with a neon look and an archdemon looking for love, and CONSCRIPT took the classic Resident Evil formula into the trenches of Verdun. Still Wakes the Deep, from The Chinese Room, put you on a 1975 oil rig breaking apart while its crew turned into something else, with no weapon at all.
Some of 2024's best ideas were small. Buckshot Roulette is Russian roulette with a shotgun against a grinning dealer, Homicipher asks you to learn a monster's language by its faces and gestures, Home Safety Hotline turns a 1996 pest helpline into analog horror, and Platform 8 carried The Exit 8's anomaly spotting onto a train that never stops. Shipwrecked 64 pretends to be a lost 1990s platformer that rots as you play. Psychopomp, Krypta FM and Indigo Park: Chapter 1 are all free and all worth an evening.
With friends, Content Warning had groups filming monsters for views, and The Outlast Trials, fully released in 2024, put up to four test subjects through a Cold War brainwashing program. Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit turned a FNAF story into a 2D adventure about a ball pit that leads into the past, and Until Dawn came back rebuilt for PC and PlayStation 5.
Start with SILENT HILL 2 or Crow Country for survival horror, Mouthwashing for a story you can finish in an evening, and Buckshot Roulette or Content Warning with friends. For this year's games, see the guides to the best horror games of 2025 and new horror games of 2026.
Questions
What was the best horror game of 2024?
The SILENT HILL 2 remake was the year's biggest horror release, and Mouthwashing, Crow Country and Buckshot Roulette were among the best-reviewed indie games.
Were there good free horror games in 2024?
Yes: Psychopomp, Krypta FM and Indigo Park: Chapter 1 are free on Steam and rated Overwhelmingly Positive by players.
Which 2024 horror games can I play with friends?
Content Warning for up to four players, The Outlast Trials for up to four, and Buckshot Roulette's online mode.
Which 2024 horror games are on Switch?
Crow Country, Sorry We're Closed, Home Safety Hotline, Platform 8, CONSCRIPT, Homicipher and Five Nights at Freddy's: Into the Pit are all on Nintendo Switch.
More horror games by kind
- Survival horror games
- Horror games with multiple endings
- Horror puzzle games
- 2D horror games
- PS1 horror games
- Short horror games
Other guides
- Backrooms Games: Lost in the Endless Yellow Rooms
- Best Horror Games of 2025: The Year's Standouts
- Old Flash Horror Games You Can Still Play
- Free Horror Games on PC: The Best Free Downloads on Steam
- Games Like Alien: Isolation: One Hunter You Cannot Kill
- Games Like Amnesia: Hide in the Dark, Don't Fight
- Games Like Dead by Daylight: Asymmetric Horror Games
- Games Like Dead Space: Sci-Fi Survival Horror
- Games Like Doki Doki Literature Club: Cute Games That Turn
- Games Like Fears to Fathom: Everyday Horror on a Night Shift
- Games Like Granny: Escape the House Before They Find You
- Games Like Ib: Pixel-Art Horror Adventures