Editorials
6 Indie Horror Games You Need To Play!
Indie horror. It’s a thing. For every excessively big budgeted AAA horror title, there’s a dozen indie games that manage to be many times scarier. Think about it. What are some of the scariest games you’ve ever played? If you were to ask me what games scared me the most, I’d be able to list off a slew of titles that forced me to keep the lights on, and few would be from big developers. Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Slender: The Eight Pages, Paranormal, Kraven Manor (more on those last two in a bit), they’re scarier because they don’t need to check every box on a list of features that are required for a game to sell well, likely provided by their marketing department.
That’s why I’m such a fan of indie games, because the developers are free to be creative, to think outside the box. They’re making games they would want to play, rather than what some bigwig exec thinks we want from a horror game.
After the break I’ve compiled six incredible indie horror games I’ve played that I think are more than worth your time. If there’s a particularly enjoyable game you think I missed, feel free to set me straight in the comments!
I’ve been playing a lot of indie horror games on our Youtube channel, but one of my favorites so far has definitely been Demon Wagon Studios’ incredibly creepy Kraven Manor. It’s a brilliant concoction of white-knuckled tension, puzzles and exploration, all wrapped up in a visually stunning package that would’ve been an impressive feat for a larger, more experienced studio.
Get it here. (free)
Homesick is the work of a single person and yet it still manages to be one of the scariest games I’ve played. It’s also super short, making it the perfect horror game for people with short attention spans — like me — because it provides a terrifying experience that’s also mercifully brief. It lingers long enough for your adrenaline to kick in and your palms to sweat, than it’s gone, ready to be played again.
Get it here. (free)
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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