For as shiny and oh so wonderfully damp as most modern horror games can be, there’s something about old school horror games that is often just so much more unnerving. Fuzzy, clunky, itchy, tasty — retro horror games have this feel to them that you can’t quite replicate today. Or can you? Today’s games are modern retro horror bangers that you should really sign up for.
Conscript
There’s bleak, and then there’s trench-warfare bleak. That’s just a rung above trying to order a new passport, in my opinion.
Conscript, from Australian solo developer Jordan Mochi, is a top-down survival horror set in the First World War. Traditionally seen as not a great time. The mud, blood, and mustard gas would already be horrific enough without the supernatural bits and bobs kicking off.
Conscript takes clear inspiration from the early Resident Evil games. You have limited saves, tight inventory management, and claustrophobic level design. Only instead of zombies in a mansion, you’re crawling through mazes of trenches, bunkers, and ruined villages.
The perspective is top-down and pixelated, but don’t let that fool you — it’s a punishing, methodical game. Ammunition is scarce, enemies can easily overwhelm, and even finding your way through the labyrinthine dugouts feels like a victory. There’s also a layer of historical detail running beneath the dread: real uniforms, authentic weaponry, and that crushing sense of soldiers being chewed up by a machine they can’t control. Fun!
A lot of horror fans praise it for doing something different with the genre, and though it is obviously inspired by the classics it is very much its own thing. Conscript demands patience and a bit of masochism. Personally, I did end up bouncing off it after a lot of backtracking, but if you’re curious about a survival horror game that weaponises the horror of history itself, this is one amazing looking game about something very ugly that you can check out on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox, and Switch.
Mundaun
You’ve never really video gamed until you’ve trudged through the Swiss Alps while being menaced by hay men and eldritch barnyard demons.
Mundaun, developed almost entirely by one bloke, is a first-person horror adventure that leans hard into folklore. Every texture in the game is pencilled by hand, which gives the whole thing the look of a cursed sketchbook come to life. And it also looks bloody lovely.
You play a man returning to his remote mountain village after his grandfather’s mysterious death. The plot boasts goats with too many eyes, ominous peaks, fire-scarred chapels, and that constant sense that the mountains themselves aren’t particularly thrilled with your presence. You’re mostly solving puzzles, sneaking past uncanny figures, and trying not to panic. Literally: the game has a fear system where your character shakes and stumbles if he’s overwhelmed. Which is kinda neat.
Over the past few years it’s built a quiet cult reputation, especially among players tired of factory-line horror that just borrows film jump scares. Mundaun feels like a tale you’d hear in a mountain tavern after too much Schnapps, or something A24 will be adapting any day now.
Mundaun is available on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox, and Switch. Should you check it out? Absolutely. Just use your eyes, man! Sorry about that.
Sorry We’re Closed
There aren’t many games where the apocalypse shows up looking like a Net Yaroze bootleg and asks if you fancy a Benson and Hedges. Sorry We’re Closed takes the survival horror framework of Resident Evil and dunks it in the unholy cocktail of PS1 grit, early-2000s goth kitsch, and the kind of apocalyptic weirdness you’d expect from a half-remembered anime DVD you took a chance on from Blockbuster.
You play Michelle, a misfit who’s only got a few days left before the end of the world. Instead of saving humanity, she spends her time scouring grimy backstreets, chatting with bizarre NPCs, and blasting away at monsters that look like they crawled out of a Nine Inch Nails video. Fixed camera angles, stiff combat, and awkward tank controls are all here, but so is first-person shooting and a commitment to being as squelchy as possible.
But people aren’t coming to Sorry We’re Closed for polished gunplay or slide cancelling or whatever. They’re here for the vibes, cursed arcades, and grotesque bosses, and you can find those vibes for yourself on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox, and Switch.
If you’ve ever wanted a survival horror that feels like the t-shirt section of a HMV exploded, then yes, absolutely, you should check this one out.
White Knuckle
I am all aboard the climbing as a main mechanic in a video game train. But this one definitely ain’t Jusant. I did quite like that game, though.
In White Knuckle, you’re clawing your way up a spooky science silo rendered in PS1-era wobble, where every ledge looks like it’s about to collapse and the only thing below you is an endless void. Or is it just a void?
The controls are awkward by design, and at first it feels like the game’s about as easy to grasp as, well, a wall in a weird silo. You’ll slip, you’ll fall, you’ll swear, and then you’ll do it all over again. It’s a lot to figure out at once, especially when it comes to using tools. But the thing with White Knuckle is that it’s actually about rhythm. Once you start to fall into the game’s pace, it really does pick up.
People who’ve stuck with it swear by that moment when it “clicks” and yeah it does feel a lot like this. The horror here is subtle but potent. There’s just a very oppressive atmosphere that makes you feel like you have to rush…and the rising “something” doesn’t help. Every missed grip could mean death, and that’s before you’ve even seen the things grabbing for you from below. Oh boy, are they some squelchy boys here.
Should you check it out? If you’ve got the patience to let a game bully you a bit before showing you its groove and don’t mind it being in Steam Early Access, then yeah — it’s worth the climb.
Labyrinth of the Demon King
The best compliment I can give this one is that it feels like a PS1 game that they were too afraid to release, but someone eventually found it under lock and key in an old, potentially haunted warehouse.
Labyrinth of the Demon King is a first-person dungeon crawler that traps you in the bowels of a ruined castle. Every wall looks damp, every corridor looks the same, and every corner feels like it’s hiding something that really shouldn’t be breathing. Remember: sometimes the best design calls science a liar.
Swords and spears feel heavy and enemies that lurch at you like your sleep paralysis demons got real busy. It’s not about slick action, it’s about surviving. There’s a proper survival horror loop here that sees you scrounging for keys, inching down hallways, praying you’ve got just enough stamina to get through the next fight. And when you do finally kill something, it doesn’t feel like a victory so much as buying yourself a few more anxious minutes.
Labyrinth of the Demon King hasn’t exploded into the mainstream, but it’s definitely earned attention from horror fans who like their scares lo-fi and the mood to feel very chunky indeed.
It’s available on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox, and Switch. Should you check it out? If you’ve ever wanted King’s Field to lean harder into dread and demon guts, then yes — just don’t expect it to be easy. You might even say it’s murder.
Murder House
If you’ve ever wanted to know what it feels like to be trapped in a grainy VHS tape, Murder House has you covered.
Puppet Combo’s slasher nightmare dumps you into an abandoned house with a serial killer in a bunny suit, and then twists the knife by making you play it with fixed camera angles, tank controls, and crunchy PS1 visuals. It’s survival horror stripped down to the bone. You’ve got low doors, stiff combat, and that awful creeping dread of maybe turning around a bit too slowly.
The setup is pure bargain-bin horror movie, and it’s a wonder we don’t see much more like it really. A news crew sneaks into the wrong house at the wrong time, and the Easter Ripper isn’t exactly in the mood for interviews. What follows is a tense game of hide-and-seek where the camera does as much to kill you as the killer. Puppet Combo leans into the awkwardness of old horror design, and instead of breaking immersion, it just makes the whole thing feel nastier.
Since release, Murder House has become hugely influential in the indie horror space. You can also even play this one in first-person now. Its mix of lo-fi PS1 aesthetics and unapologetically nasty slasher tropes has inspired a flood of throwback horror games on itch.io and Steam. And it’s also interesting how it plays around with its narrative in ways I won’t spoil here.
Worth playing this Halloween? Absolutely, if only to see the game that arguably kicked off the current PSX horror revival and proved you don’t need to see the blood glisten off of someone’s chin hair to be terrifying.
Alisa
Alisa feels like someone traced the edges of old Resident Evil and Silent Hill, but then painted it over with American McGee’s Alice. There’s not much out there like this.
You play as Elitе Royal Agent Alisa, chasing a fugitive criminal into a twisted Victorian mansion, only to find yourself stuck in a surreal “dollhouse” full of mechanized humanoid dolls, pre-rendered backgrounds, and tank controls.
Your pistol and melee options offer defense against the weird mechanical bastards dotted around the gaff, but ammo is limited, and hitting your shots with these super faithful controls isn’t a given. It’s super faithful to old survival horror, in fact, to the point where your very first encounter is basically a remake of that iconic first zombie in Resi.
It’s also a tough game. It really is like a PS1 horror game that someone forgot to press the “print” button on. I nearly bounced off it quite a lot when first I played it. But you can at least find and buy gear, weapons, outfits with “toothwheels” from a vendor who’s like mix of the vendor from Onimusha and the merchant from RE4.
Since its release, Alisa has built a nice, loyal following of sickos. Not everyone loves its clunky bits, but people who dig old-school survival horror + weird art design + atmospheric dread get into gear with it.
Check it out on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox, and Switch. There’s a demo for it available, and also Alisa: The Parting due sometime soon. Can you spot the next game coming up?
Fear the Spotlight
Fear the Spotlight asks a simple question: what if your high-school seance actually worked? What do you mean you never had a seance? Oh you just got drunk and put things on fire instead? Fair enough.
You play as Vivian, a teenager sneaking around a wrecked 1990s school with your friend Amy after things go very wrong during a candle-lit ritual. Instead of lockers and textbooks, you’re left with collapsed hallways, flickering lights, and a thing that really doesn’t want you poking around.
The game plays out in third person with deliberately PS1-style textures, hazy lighting, and that slightly off geometry. You’ll spend most of your time creeping through classrooms, solving small puzzles, and hiding when the monster draws too close. What keeps it from being just another lo-fi scare project is the heart underneath. Vivian and Amy’s friendship gives the story a personal edge that sticks with you once the credits roll.
Fear the Spotlight comes from Cozy Game Pals, a two-person studio, and ended up being one of Blumhouse Games’ first published titles. Despite no co-op as you might expect, if you’ve got a soft spot for Clock Tower, Rule of Rose, or the stranger corners of 90s survival horror, this is a short modern retro banger to put on your list on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox, and Switch.
No, I’m not a Human
No, I’m Not a Human is Papers, Please meets The Strangers meets Bird Box. It’s a survival horror/visual novel hybrid where you’re trapped in your house with a group of strangers when a worldwide cataclysmic event kicks off— and the twist is that some of them aren’t human. Your job is to sniff out who’s who before the wrong decision gets everyone killed. And sometimes you can correct your mistakes with a shotgun shell — or did you make a mistake? This is a game that constantly has you second guessing yourself.
Here you’ve got hunky low-poly models, jagged edges, and that unsettling lighting that makes it feel like Courage the Cowardly Dog gone very wrong. Conversations are framed with lo-fi character portraits that wouldn’t be out of place in a Salad Fingers episode, but with even more lashings of mounting dread. It’s less about fighting monsters in the dark and more about the fear of the person sitting next to you. People will come to your door every evening and you have to decide whether to let them in or turn them away. Where it gets messy is that sometimes those telltale signs of them being normal or not can be hard to spot.
The setup keeps the tension constant, and every encounter is another chance to second-guess yourself. If you liked The Thing but wish there were more creepy smiles and increasingly depressing fridges, this is the kind of game that will get under your skin just on PC right now.
Heartworm
Heartworm is a modern retro survival horror by Vincent Adinolfi, published by DreadXP. You play as Sam, a young woman grieving her grandfather, who follows a rumor about a house in the mountains that can connect the living with the dead. What she finds is a maze of uncanny rooms, warped geometry, and shadows that are more than slightly cheeky.
It’s built straight out of the late-90s playbook. You got fixed camera angles, tank controls, awkward combat, and even CG cutscenes that look like they were pressed onto a scratched PS1 disc. The real hook, though, is Sam’s camcorder. It’s not just for Tumblrcore aesthetic, you use it to uncover hidden details, solve puzzles, and even defend yourself against the things crawling in the dark. It ties neatly into the game’s theme of memory and grief, turning something nostalgic into a literal survival tool.
More than anything, Heartworm feels like a love letter to 90s horror. It’s moody, it’s clunky, and it’s unafraid to let atmosphere do most of the work, though it doesn’t seem to have hit a huge audience. If you’ve still got space in your heart for Silent Hill, Resident Evil, or Fatal Frame and want something that captures their spirit without just copying them, this one’s an easy recommendation if you have a PC.
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