What’s summer without a trip to camp where you can create unforgettable memories together with friends and a masked menace who creepily watches from afar? Or how can one forget to tell scary stories by the campfire under the stars with distant screams of murder filling the night?
With memories of the 80s era of horrifying movie flicks, slashers are all in good fun with moments of action, jumpscares, and hopeless circumstances. These following video games prove that the slasher horror genre can in fact be seamlessly translated to video games, with that perfect balance of cheesy and scary we all love. So, continue reading and get ready for a couple of good scares to keep you on your toes in these slasher horror games.
Until Dawn
Who could say no to a break away from reality with friends to a cabin in the woods? Little did this group of friends know, their nightmares would come to reality.
Supermassive’s big hit from 2015, Until Dawn, takes you to Blackwood Mountain surrounded by endless tall trees and wintry weather. This slasher game took the genre to a whole other level with a captivating storyline and impressive graphics still to this day. While it keeps that stereotypical, cliche group of young friends who make dumb decisions, you never can trust anyones true intentions.
After two of their friends disappear, no one realizes what lied ahead; soon leaving you with one task: keep everyone alive until dawn. Not only that, but in this game, your future is determined on your choices including quick time events causing a butterfly effect. You never know if opening one door could shut another resulting in a gruesome death of one of your friends. Thankfully, you can play this game multiple times to get different endings to either save everyone or watch everyone meet their end.
Ps - If you don’t know what dangers you’re up against in this game, KEEP IT A SURPRISE.
Friday the 13th: The Game
It’s impossible to go without this classic. Friday the 13th: The Game replicates the movies surprisingly well from the camp buildings, various maps, rock music, and of course the babes. This multiplayer video game allows you to choose your fate as either a camp counselor or the everlasting legacy of the masked legend, Jason Vorhees.
As Jason, your job is to foil anyone’s plan of escaping or taking you down. And when you get your hands on a camp counselor, the death scenes you get to choose from range from downright brutal to oddly funny. For the path of a camp counselor, you could somehow wait it out til police arrive to the rescue, or you and your friends work together to find and install all parts to get one of the cars working again and drive yourself the heck outta there, OR (believe it or not), you can even take down Jason with some willpower - and weapons. It’s all a race against the clock, so act as though your own life depends on it.
There’s also a single player story mode where you can complete challenging missions as either Jason or a camp counselor that can be pretty interesting. My friends and I always have an amazing time playing this game, especially when we connect to voice chat and hear people screaming while they run away from Jason LOL.
Dead By Daylight
Similar to Friday the 13th: The Game, Dead by Daylight is a multiplayer game that requires sheath, team cooperation, and strategic use of all resources you find to survive a terrifying killer. In fact, there are a wide variety of recognizable killers you’ll run into including Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Leatherface, Pyramid Head, and even Ghostface. You can even choose to play a match in Haddonfield, the setting of the Halloween movies!
You and your group of survivors must complete objectives such as repairing five generators throughout the map, and open exit points to escape all while being hunted down. Death lingers around almost every corner, so will you cower in fear or find a way to escape this nightmare? Whatever you do, you don’t want to be the unlucky one. For the slasher, this game takes a much more interesting approach to kill off players. They must capture their victims and drag them to a meat hook to hang them there. Then, a supernatural force known as “The Entity” claws them to death.
This action survival horror game has two very different styles of play that make it all the more compelling. Watching and feeling the thrill of the chase just feels like a mini horror movie in itself.
The Quarry
Take a drive through the deep forests of upstate New York to camp that actually ends up leaving you stranded on the last day (oops). As night falls, there are countless questionable events that unfold. From creatures, apparitions, hunters painted in blood, to characters with a double side, you’ll find yourself becoming suspicious of everything.
But, this is another video game with choice-based gameplay. Take too long to make a decision and it might be the end for a character. Everyone’s experience will be different, and there are 186 different endings you could get. The Quarry is highly story-driven and makes your choices in dialogue matter more as there are not many quick time events or actions to do. There’s even a couch co-op mode to play with your friends if you want to see how your friends will help finish the story!
From the weirdness of “peanut butter butterpops” to how boring things got, my friends and I honestly couldn’t get through this game without laughing at a lot of the poor dialogue and funny animations. Supermassive’s Until Dawn is undoubtedly a stronger choice imo. And trust me, this game won’t let you forget the phrase “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.
Evil Dead: The Game
The Evil Dead franchise is still going strong to this day. In this asymmetrical horror of survivors versus demons, Evil Dead: The Game captures the spirit of the movies while offering a fun multiplayer experience.
Playing as a survivor feels like a familiar squad-based third-person shooter that borrows a lot from the battle royals style in which you’re running around as a team, looking for loot, and killing enemies as you steadily power up. Your only goal isn’t survival, however. You’ll also be completing objectives such as collecting map pieces and defending areas to claim relics needed in the purification trial. Each survivor has a unique ability and class to test out. For example, hunters excel at using ranged weapons, while another character can exorcize the demon from bodies they’ve possessed.
On the other hand, playing as the menacing demon, you must be the villainous mastermind to wreak havoc and kill the survivors. This can include using an army of undead soldiers and a bag of tricks which is so satisfying when players succumb to your power. One thing’s for sure, you don’t want to be an easy target.
Next time you’re in the mood for a slasher horror, immerse yourself in one of these video games to get a true, memorable experience. Each one is bound to give you a good scare when you need it.
What do you think of the video games on this slasher horror list? I’m definitely hoping to see many more strengthen the slasher horror genre on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S as new games release!
Comments
Great read! I’m not one for story based games but you got some multiplayer ones in the mix here! I’ve put 500+ hours into DBD so its a personal fav! Also didnt know the Quarry was based on Upstate NY… Now I GOTTA PLAY! Looking forward to the next one!