Editorials
Best PS4 Horror Games -The Finest Horror on Sony’s Juggernaut Console
What do we think the best PS4 horror games are? Bloody Disgusting lists the best horror on Sony’s juggernaut console.
The PS4 turned 5 at the end of last year. In that time it’s gone on to become the king of the consoles for this generation and Sony has produced a procession of critically-acclaimed exclusives that helped cement its place at the head of the table.
It’s also racked up an impressive roster of horror games, and in honor of this fifth anniversary, we’ve selected eleven of the best PS4 horror games from the last five or so years.
The Evil Within 2 (2017)
The original The Evil Within left survival horror fans with lofty expectations. After all, it was Shinji Mikami, the mastermind behind Resident Evil’s greatest entries, back in the genre with a brand new game. It frustrated in places, but there was no denying the deft touch of Mikami was present.
The Evil Within 2 dialed up the crazy and produced a far more inventive take on survival horror. Set inside a corrupted simulation of a small town, you face vicious monsters and an everchanging environment as you aim to cleanse the corruption and find the soldiers who were sent in before you.
The only real downside of The Evil Within 2 is its first-person sections, which take the tension of the stealth in the rest of the game and replaces it with wonky frustration. Thankfully, it’s a rarity.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (2017)
Not only is Hellblade a truly effective horror game, it’s also a mature and well-intentioned look at the effects of mental illness. The latter is what makes the former true, as the titular Senua sees and hears her personal demons everywhere, with the Dualshock controller’s speaker even emitting the whispers of multiple voices in her head (some are helpful, some malicious).
Senua’s trip to Helheim (the Norse realm of Hell) is fraught with physical dangers too, and her already fragile psyche is in peril every time she has to confront and attack the denizens of the underworld.
Yes, Hellblade is full of monsters and you literally go to Hell, but the true horror is in that mental health representation and how effectively it conveys the terror many go through on a daily basis.
Prey (2017)
Arkane has proved itself to be adept at building self-contained worlds filled with detail and depth with its Dishonored series. Prey certainly continues that with an intricate space station filled with inky alien beasts out to murder you. Oh, and some of them can mimic inanimate objects so you can’t look at a Coffee mug again without the temptation to lug a wrench at it.
The star of the show is Talos-I, the space station itself. A sprawling maze of corridors and departments filled with a variety of horrifying threats. In the tradition of System Shock and Bioshock, the environment does a great job of telling the story, allowing you to get on with making a stairway out of futuristic glue blobs to escape a monster that was a stapler five seconds ago.
Resident Evil 2 (2019)
Capcom followed on from the success of Resident Evil 7 with a sublime reimagining of its 1998 classic, Resident Evil 2.
The game manages to be both a warmly nostalgic trip back to the height of survival horror greatness and a very good modernization of it. The switch to a behind the shoulder camera could have taken the tension and uncertainty created by the original’s fixed camera angles, but there’s an impressive mixture of sound and shadow that replicates the terror and panic anew.
Not only is Resident Evil 2 among the best PS4 horror games, but it’s also a top contender for best Resident Evil game.
Death Road to Canada (2018)
A hybrid of old-school text adventure and a top-down survival game, Death Road to Canada is a celebration of the zombie apocalypse that’s not afraid to take the piss out of it at every turn.
The meat of the game is looting locations whilst keeping the growing zombie horde at bay, but in between, you’re on that ‘Death Road to Canada’ and having random situations flung at you.
You might chance upon a crazed bear, or enlist the help of a lethal dog as a companion. Death Road to Canada is deliciously silly and yet still manages to recreate the panicked gorefest of post-apocalyptic survival. It may take you through a lot of survivors to get to Canada, but the journey is always entertaining.
Layers of Fear (2016)
First-person horror games where you’re relatively defenseless has been a winning trend in recent years, so to stand out from a growing crowd you have to do something pretty different.
Bloober Team’s Layers of Fear did just that with its consistently trippy, creepy horror set in a dilapidated mansion of a mentally-tortured painter. Every time you turn your virtual head, something has changed in the environment. Sometime’s it small, other times it’s big and bonkers.
There was no reliance on cheap scares or bloodletting, just a steady stream of unease. It stands out for doing something a bit classical in the realm of these best PS4 horror games.
Dying Light (2015)
Techland was all hype and shoddy trousers with previous open-world zombie co-op game Dead Island but in 2015 it released Dying Light and righted a lot of wrongs.
Dying Light refined its formula, threw in an attractive day/night system, and laid on a thick layer of parkour for good measure. The day brought swarms of sluggish undead to jump over and hack to pieces as you searched for supplies in the slums of a virus-ridden city. When night fell, a far nastier form of infected came out to play, and you’re the toy.
The adrenaline rush of escaping that first nighttime encounter by the skin of your teeth is among the purest horror moments in gaming this decade. It’s a more intimidating experience alone but played in co-op, Dying Light becomes a goofy, gory hoot. Throw in the vehicular madness of its expansion The Following and you’ve got the best pure zombie game around, and of course, one of the best PS4 horror games too.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017)
By the end of the previous console generation, Resident Evil was more successful than ever, but steering further and further away from what made it a survival horror force. The series needed a fresh start and in 2017, we got just that with Resident Evil 7.
Resident Evil 7 returns to a puzzle-filled homestead, a shift to first-person, and some of the most memorable villains Resident Evil has seen for some time. It’s clearly inspired by the likes of Texas Chainsaw in its grimy, Southern hostility, especially in its twisted Baker family.
Then there’s the series using virtual reality for the first time with Sony’s PSVR. The already intense opening hours take on a whole new level of terror when you actually feel like you’re in that crumbling backwoods home.
The Last of Us Remastered (2014)
Naughty Dog capped off the PS3’s lifecycle with perhaps the system’s best game. It was no surprise it found its way to Sony’s console successor soon after to be an easy pick for the best PS4 horror games.
Initially telling the story of Joel, a broken man surviving in the post-apocalyptic world where a fungus has mutated much of the population into vile monsters, The Last of Us then brings in Ellie, a teen girl who may hold the key to finding a cure. Joel reluctantly takes Ellie across America in search of the group who can test for the cure, but the pair bond via their shared traumas and the many close encounters with the infected and the less pleasant human survivors around.
Detention (2017)
This side-scrolling horror from Red Candle Games takes inspiration from real-life political issues in 1960’s Taiwan where martial law ruled all, and also takes on religious elements with Taiwanese culture and mythology. By blending these into one game, Detention is perhaps the closest a game has got to the Guillermo Del Toro school of horror storytelling.
The game focuses on the two remaining students trapped in a school due to an incoming typhoon. Things begin to get very strange and ultimately horrifying for the duo.
There’s nothing else on this list quite like Detention. It has a stumble towards the end, but for most of the time, it’s a slow-building cycle of dread and terror with a bit of a worthwhile history lesson thrown into the mix.
Until Dawn (2015)
Stuck in development hell for a long time, Until Dawn arrived to little fanfare, but before long, it gained a following and is repeatedly brought up when discussions concerning modern horror games arise, and for good reason. It’s clearly among the best PS4 horror games.
Until Dawn is a choose your own adventure meets teen slasher movie and in the spirit of the latter half, having an audience really ramps up the enjoyment factor. The cast of young things (including Hayden Panettiere and Rami Malek) can all fall to the cruel hand of fate at multiple points in the story, giving the player the job of role-playing as director. If you wish to go traditional Final Girl route, that’s totally an option, but you can just as easily have a bleak no survivors playthrough or a relatively happy finale with the majority of the cast still breathing (but where’s the fun in that?).
The game takes an interesting turn or two with its plot and characters, and in doing so, it goes beyond simply being a homage to slashers and becomes a fantastic hybrid that remains one of the PS4’s best surprises.
Alien Isolation (2014)
Not only is Alien Isolation the best Alien anything in the last couple of decades, but it’s also the purest form of what made the xenomorph a terrifying entity since the original film.
Alien Isolation takes the gorgeous aesthetic of Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic as its inspiration too. Every clunky monitor and beige padded wall panel is represented when Ellen Ripley’s daughter, Amanda boards the Sevastopol space station and discovers things are going south rapidly thanks to a rogue Xeno deciding to call the place home.
After an extended introduction to the space station, you finally meet the beast, and so begins hours of being hounded, watching every vent, dreading every ping of your motion tracker, and hiding under desks in a futile hope the slathering insectile bastard will leave you alone.
As if dealing with the xenomorph wasn’t bad enough, the remaining crew isn’t exactly friendly either, and the local android population has gone a tad haywire. You can shoot them of course, but that brings the unpleasant risk of the alien showing up.
The final hours take a slightly unpleasant turn, but it is at least in line with the balance of power found in the rest of it. The important thing to remember here is that Alien Isolation is still an utterly fantastic Alien experience in spite of any issues, and worthy of being called one of the best PS4 horror games.
Doom (2016)
Few games revel in their ultraviolence quite as much as Id’s 2016 reboot of Doom. This is a game that rewards the act of ‘Rip and Tear’, after all. As one angry soldier obliterates the minions of Hell whilst on Mars (naturally).
The fast-paced action sees Doom Guy display his full range of gory executions to each and every one of disgusting residents of the underworld for no other reason than he feels like it. What a guy.
Aside from being one of the best PS4 horror games around, it’s quite possibly the most metal video game in history, with a soundtrack that drives that point home like a fist down a demon’s throat. 25 years on from the original Doom, the series is still as relevant and exciting as it ever was, and 2016’s Doom is a big reason for that.
What do you consider the best PS4 horror games to be? Anything you’d add to this list? We’ll be expanding it in future so let us know!
After fifty years of continuous writing, Stephen King has become a genre unto himself.
The unrivaled Master of Horror made a splash in 1974 with his debut novel Carrie and has been terrifying readers ever since. Two years later, Brian De Palma brought this shocking story to the screen with an equally electrifying horror film that remains a genre classic and a prototypical example of “Good For Her” horror. This dual debut seemed to open the floodgates, unleashing endless waves of Stephen King films.
From the highs of Misery, Cujo, and The Shawshank Redemption to the schlocky fun of Cat’s Eye, Creepshow, and Children of the Corn, the last five decades have seen just about every notable horror creator take a stab at the author’s massive collection.
In recent years, this singular subgenre has begun to burst at the seams, expanding to include Stephen King-esque fare. In 2016, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer debuted Stranger Things, a sci-fi series heavily inspired by two of King’s most famous books. The Netflix series remixes Firestarter and It by following a little girl with psychic powers and an intrepid group of kids on bikes who must battle an otherworldly foe and a sinister government agency. With its clever blend of modern effects and comforting nostalgia, this gateway horror series paved the way for Andy Muschietti’s It adaptation which remains the highest grossing horror film of all time.
Four years later, Mike Flanagan would create Midnight Mass, a spiritual adaptation of King’s second novel Salem’s Lot. Published in 1975, the book sees a tiny New England town torn apart by a centuries-old vampire. Though Flanagan’s story is perhaps more tender, both iterations of the classic horror tale follow close-knit communities shaken to their core by the presence of an ancient evil.
In addition to these recent hits, 2025 was a banner year for the Master of Horror. Audiences delighted in six mainstream adaptations, including the massively popular It: Welcome to Derry which chronicles earlier cycles of the titular clown’s reign. With this boost to King’s cultural cache, it’s no surprise that we’ve begun to see more unofficial adaptations of the author’s work and horror creators who build their own unique castles in King’s creative sandbox.
So what defines a Stephen King-esque story?
For the past fifty years, the prolific author has dipped his toes in nearly every subgenre from supernatural stories and grisly gore to western fantasy and science fiction. Including his vast catalogue of short fiction, King has tackled ghosts, demons, werewolves, zombies, aliens, mutants, and self-driving cars, not to mention bizarre monsters of his own creation. But what truly unites this vast array of horror is King’s focus on relatable characters. In his 2000 memoir/instructional text On Writing, the prolific author describes the amusement he finds in writing disparate characters, placing them in horrific scenarios, then exploring the ways they try to survive.
An unofficial Stephen King adaptation may take place in the author’s native New England — bonus points if it’s set in Maine — and reference his well-known heroes and villains. But what makes the King connection unbreakable is a character-driven story about average people who band together in the face of abject terror.
Weapons Captures Small Town Stephen King
Following his 2022 shocker Barbarian, Zach Cregger returned with Weapons, a sprawling story that begins in a doomed elementary school. On an otherwise ordinary day, Justine (Julia Garner) arrives at her desk to find that all but one of her students have disappeared. As the mystery grows increasingly violent, Justine and Archer (Josh Brolin), the father of a missing boy, find their way to the home of Alex (Cary Christopher), the class’ only surviving student. In some ways reminiscent of Salem’s Lot, Weapons swings wildly through the unfortunate town, introducing us to its flawed inhabitants as we watch their lives fall apart.
Cregger’s setup nods to a pair of King short stories. Both “Suffer the Little Children” and “Here There Be Tygers” tackle monstrous presences in elementary schools, but as Weapons reaches its final act, Constant Readers may remember another Stephen King tale. Featured in his 1985 collection Skeleton Crew, “Gramma” introduces us to George, a little boy tormented by an aging witch. On an afternoon alone with his sickly grandmother, the frightened child gradually realizes that the imposing old woman has been waiting for an opportunity to cast a spell that will extend her own life by possessing his body.
Alex finds himself similarly tortured by his aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan), a garish witch who orchestrates a desperate plot to sustain her own strength. Transforming humans into mindless weapons, Gladys has taken over Alex’s family home and lured his classmates to the basement. Holding them in a comatose state, she syphons off their energy to extend her own supernatural life.
Vastly different in many ways, both “Gramma” and Weapons hinge on a sinister witch who uses horrific magical spells to sacrifice the bodies of her vulnerable prey.
Hokum Echoes The Shining and 1408
It’s nearly impossible to watch a film about a haunted hotel without thinking of King’s third novel, The Shining. This icy story follows Jack Torrance, an angry writer struggling with his sobriety and a shameful incident haunting his past. Accompanied by his wife and young son, Jack has taken a job as the winter caretaker for the Overlook, a haunted hotel situated high in the Rocky Mountains. Snowed in, Jack finds himself tormented by dangerous ghosts who amplify his greatest fears.
Damian McCarthy’s Hokum follows a similarly troubled figure. Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) is a surly writer who travels to the Bilberry Woods Hotel in rural Ireland to spread his parents’ ashes. Haunted by his own tragic past, Ohm finds himself trapped in the honeymoon suite, a decaying room that’s been permanently closed to protect visitors from a dangerous witch trapped within its walls. Visual nods to King’s text abound with woodcut figurines and an animated clock, mirroring ominous descriptions found in King’s text.
Another terrifying sequence sees Ohm staring with horror at a closed door, the only thing separating him from the approaching witch. As the door knob slowly turns, Constant Readers remember Jack’s narrow escape from the ghostly woman in room 217. And Ohm’s popular Conquistador books directly reference King’s long-running fantasy series The Dark Tower which follows a gunslinger named Roland Deschain tasked with protecting the nexus of the universe.
In addition to these thematic comparisons, Hokum bears striking resemblance to King’s terrifying short story “1408.” Collected in 2002’s Everything’s Eventual, the terrifying story follows Mike Enslin, a dejected writer who’s risen to fame penning essays about his adventures in haunted locations. Mike arrives at the Hotel Dolphin and bullies his way into the titular room, despite the manager’s dire warnings. McCarthy nods to this story with an ominously misplaced hotel room door, reminiscent of King’s entry to 1408, an unsuspecting portal that appears to move each time Mike looks away.
However, McCarthy’s most direct reference lies in a minicorder Ohm uses to capture notes. Trapped inside the dreaded honeymoon suite, this device offers well-timed messages while sitting next to a decomposing corpse. Mike records his time in 1408 with his own trusty minicorder. Described for the reader, his tape has captured the man’s slow descent into madness as the room prepares to swallow him whole. With conclusions that differ wildly in tone, both Ohm and Mike find their lives irrevocably changed by encounters with the supernatural realm.
Widow’s Bay Builds Its Own Version of Castle Rock
Katie Dippold’s Widow’s Bay has taken the idea of an unofficial King adaptation and turned it into an art form. The Apple TV series sees the residents of the titular island plagued by a curse that dates back centuries. Not only does the picturesque hamlet not accommodate wifi connections, those born on the island face certain death should they ever try to leave. Desperate to modernize the tiny town, Mayor Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) draws in waves of tourists just as a new cycle of terror begins.
Blending horror with deft comedy, Dippold makes cheeky references to King’s body of work. Tom warns that, “there’s something in the fog,” reminding readers of King’s 1980 novella The Mist. And Loftis’ own stay in the town’s haunted hotel sees him tormented by the ghost of a murderous clown. We even spy a vintage King hardback peeking out of a local book trade box.
In many ways Widow’s Bay feels like a new iteration of the author’s Little Tall Island, a tiny village off the coast of Maine. In addition to the 1992 novel Dolores Claiborne and a handful of harrowing short stories, this quaint fishing village is also the setting for King’s 1999 teleplay Storm of the Century. Premiering on ABC primetime, this tragic tale follows a terrified group of islanders who batten down the hatches for a dangerous Nor’easter only to find a more sinister threat lurking within.
Constant Readers may also be reminded of Castle Rock, the author’s favorite fictional town.
First introduced in the 1981 novel Cujo, the charming village becomes the star of Needful Things, King’s satire about consumerism. After several Castle Rock stories, we’re reintroduced to its residents as they gossip about the arrival of Leland Gaunt and the grand opening of his curio shop. Anything their hearts desire can be found in his varied inventory, so long as they’re willing to pay the price. Pitting cantankerous neighbors against each other, Gaunt ignites a wave of grisly violence by exploiting long-held resentments and feuds.
The town’s only defense against this supernatural threat is beleaguered sheriff Alan Pangborn. Still grieving the deaths of his wife and younger son, Alan struggles to connect with his older child and pick up the pieces of his shattered life. Also a widower, Loftis struggles to raise his own restless son and explain the strange details of his wife’s tragic death. Attempting to unravel the island’s dark secrets, Tom is aided by quirky residents including a surly fisherman named Wyck (Stephen Root) and Patricia (Kate O’Flynn), an earnest Town Hall employee. King’s own novels feature many of these proactive alliances with disparate characters combining their strengths to overcome insurmountable odds.
With Widow’s Bay renewed for a second season and Mike Flanagan’s Carrie series on the horizon, the future seems bright for new King adaptations, both spiritual and directly pulled from his catalogue. The prolific author also shows no signs of slowing down with two publications nearing release. His upcoming novel, Other Worlds Than These, is the long-awaited third Talisman book which teases direct ties to his Dark Tower world. Holly Forever will be a new installment of his crime series, offering a different kind of genre fare.
This embarrassment of riches spawning multiple worlds seems ripe for spiritual adaptation and will likely inspire horror creators for decades to come.
Kate O’Flynn, Stephen Root and Matthew Rhys in “Widow’s Bay,” now streaming on Apple TV.
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