Summer Games Fest Horror Games Splurge (Part 1)

 The week of the Summer Games Fest 2026 is upon us, and seeing as there are literally hundreds of games getting announced, I thought I would do my own little showcase of some of the spookier games coming out on my two blogs!  These posts will be appearing on both at the same time, so don't worry on missing out if you're only following one...I just thought this would be good practice in getting back into the swing of things before Halloween! 

Here then is the first in a few posts filled with potential future horror hits! 

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Un:Me  (PC, SHUEISHA Games) : 

UN:Me is an adventure game where you guide a girl harboring multiple souls within her body through an unsettling mental labyrinth, engaging in dialogue with each soul while making the harrowing choice of which to keep and which to erase in your escape attempt.

A girl awakens in a mysterious labyrinth.

Four voices echo within her mind.

They are human "souls" drifting through this maze.

Each of the four souls seeks to fulfill their own desires, attempting to seize control of the girl's body and act on their own will.

What are these four souls, truly?

Who created this enigmatic labyrinth—and why?

Who is this girl?

Through dialogue with each soul and by overcoming their individual traumas, you'll navigate deeper into the labyrinth.

The answers await those who persist...

You can wishlist it here.....

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Tenebris Somnia (PC, Saibot Studios / New Blood Interactive) : 

Tenebris Somnia is a survival horror adventure game in the same vein as classics like Silent Hill or Resident Evil - but adapted to a retro 2D aesthetic from the 8 or 16-bit era.

You will struggle to survive while solving puzzles and fighting horrible creatures.

Yet the secrets of the game lie within its cinematics...

When you reach certain key points you will see sequences from a completely different point of view, made in live action with real actors and practical effects - created by a professional and award winning film crew from Argentina.

The story follows Julia, a woman surrounded by evil nightmares. One day she visits her ex-boyfriend, but never finds him, and enters a parallel universe where she is pursued by monsters...

You can wishlist it here....

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Echograph (PC, Pappy's Pipe Dream) :

In Echograph, you play as Layla, the sole survivor of a night that claimed her entire family. Years later, she returns to her decaying family manor to uncover what really happened - and why she was the only one who lived.

Capture vengeful ghosts on film, solve environmental puzzles, and survive with limited resources in an isometric game inspired by the golden age of survival horror.

Can Layla escape the fate that claimed the rest of her bloodline?

This one is looking very Fatal Frame / Project Zero, but that is no bad thing!!!

You can wishlist this one here...

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Gretel & Hansel (PC, Spider House) :

Gretel & Hansel is a delightfully twisted exploration-adventure crafted entirely by hand in watercolor. Abandoned in a cursed forest, you play as Gretel, guiding her brother home while outwitting deadly traps, unraveling sinister puzzles, and escaping the clutches of a ravenous witch.

Abandoned deep in the forest, Gretel & Hansel must use every trick they know to survive the journey home. Along the way, they’ll face devious puzzles, sinister creatures, and an all-seeing, ever-hungry witch.

Gretel & Hansel “treats” players to 50+ uniquely animated deaths—some absurd, others chilling. Dying isn’t failure here—it’s part of the fun. In fact, death may reveal secrets, unlock treasures, or open new paths.

Armed with Gretel’s trusty slingshot, pointing and clicking becomes pointing and shooting.

Break windows.

Discover items.

Pester squirrels.

Annoy your brother.

Wake up something you really shouldn’t have...

This highly interactive world rewards curiosity, mischief, and thinking outside the cauldron.

Initially released in 2009 and 2010, Gretel & Hansel: Part 1 and Gretel & Hansel: Part 2 were played over 4.7 million times and ranked #1 on Newgrounds upon release. Now, 15 years later, the twisted fairytale returns—completely reimagined, fully hand-painted, and joined by the long-awaited Part 3. Get ready for the highly anticipated return of this fan favorite!

50+ Animated Deaths – Terrifying, hilarious, or both.

50+ Costumes – Some grant special powers.

20+ Slingshots – Fire, ice, fireworks, and more.

100+ Fairy Tokens – Unlock new secrets and extras.

Pet a robot doggy!

Poke a bear!

Face your evil twin.

Cuddle a bunny!

Crash a birthday party.

Have a dance off!

You can wishlist this game, and download a demo, here....

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Silver Pines (PC / Xbox Series / PS5 / Switch2,Wych Elm/Team17) :

Silver Pines is a survival horror metroidvania set in small town America. Fight nightmarish terrors and solve puzzles, while carefully managing your scarce resources as you uncover the mysteries that could hold the key to redemption.

Private investigator Red Walker finds himself in Silver Pines, a place half-abandoned, half-forgotten, in the middle of nowhere on a job to track down Eddie Velvet. A musician who has vanished. As the case begins to reveal a dark past, Walker soon slips into a strange and nightmarish descent beyond his control.

Embark on a journey filled with dread and atmosphere. Haunted by shadows of the past, Silver Pines is waiting to reveal its dark secrets.

You can wishlist this one and download a demo here.......

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So that's five games for starters! I'll be back tomorrow with another five or so recommendations...

See you then, Stuffers!!

*~*

Lucius (PC)

Lucius (PC) : 

As you can probably guess from the images of the game and artwork of Lucius dotted around this post, the game is basically an unofficial "The Omen" game....which naturally got me very interested in it! Buying it several years ago in a sale, it has sat in my Steam library until I had a computer capable of running even a game this old. And last year, that became the case!

As Lucius, we are the son of Lucifer, born into an unsuspecting wealthy family with various servants and visitors who start to annoy poor Lucius.  One year, our real father visits us on our birthday and suggests we start following a dark path, giving us a few birthday gifts to get things started and some tips on how to get things done....

One accidental death in a walk in freezer later, and an ever-increasingly-suspicious detective shows up for the first of what is likely to be many unfortunate incidents. Can we keep up the facade of being a "good little boy" and tidying our room, doing our chores, etc, whilst also getting rid of annoying people and avoiding the bumbling detective??

When it first appeared, this game had very mixed reviews, mainly due to some shoddy mechanics and laughable dialogue.  But as you probably know, I love a bit of bad dialogue and slightly iffy mechanics, so long as the rest of the game is fun and entertaining enough to keep me busy for a while.

And Lucius does a fair job! Wandering around trying to not be too obvious when setting traps, and using some new found powers like telekinesis and mind control to help us in our quest can be quite funny, as can the over-the-top death scenes...

I'm only a little bit into the game so far though, to be fair...so I'm not sure how long it will continue to be interesting. Just be aware of that when I recommend it, and also be aware that it does come with some janky controls or mechanics in some sections, and very often little idea of what you're supposed to be doing. But somehow, I still just really like it, so....

 

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The Cabin Factory (Various)

 

The Cabin Factory (PC, Switch, Xbox One & Series, Playstation 4 & 5) :

This is a game I only found out existed today while watching Mr. SteJ's morning stream, but after watching him play, I headed straight over to Steam to pay the very reasonable price of £1.86 to enjoy it's random spookyness for myself!

You take on the role of a Cabin Inspector at a factory that designs horror cabins for the movie and theme park industries, and it's your job to find out if each cabin is currently haunted or clear of spooks! Sounds simple enough, right!?

Well lets just say it becomes apparent very quickly, that there's a little more to this story, but because of the nature of the game and it's short length, it's probably best to say very little about what takes place once you get into the cabins themselves....

Once you exit the cabin, it's a simple push of a button to say whether or not it was filled with spooks, and then the next cabin will be brought along on a conveyor belt for you to check.

Taking it's cues from the many, many horror-themed walking sims that have come before it, The Cabin Factory still manages to put enough cool scares into the game, and surround it with a suitably spooky story that makes it worth way more than the asking price!  

If this still doesn't convince you that it's worth your time and money, well maybe this clip from Mr. SteJ's stream this morning will convince you instead...

(** LOUDNESS WARNING!!!**)

Once you finish a day of work, you'll get to go and test more cabins to see all the 'anomalies' (scares) and try and collect all the achievements, which helps give the game a bit more longevity and replayability....and also gives more clues as to the deeper story behind it all...

Go pick it up! It's super cheap, and perfect for Halloween!

*~*

Weird Dreams (Atari ST, Amiga, C64, PC)

 Weird Dreams (Amiga, Atari ST, C64, PC) :

Properly freaky stuff! This game came with a rather large back story told in a 64 page novella which came with it ...to cut it short, you fancy this girl who turns out to be possessed by a demon who is a bit fed up and trapped in her body, only you don't know that and the aforementioned demonic chappy decides to faff about with your mind for some giggles. You start having crazy dreams after it gives you some pills to help "cure" you , and eventually end up in hospital where you start having another, and possibly your last, weird dream!

You have to try to work through various puzzles and defeat the various nasties which are living in your head thanks to that old demonic numpty inhabiting you lady friend...but this is a very tricky game, or at least I found it to be...

It is filled with freaky graphics and bizarre gameplay, and definitely deserves a go or two, but I just kept getting killed and watched a video of someone else playing it on Youtube instead...so here's the video, which obviously contains spoilers, so if you do fancy giving the game a bash without knowing anything, don't watch it!

Another way in which you might have come across this game back in the day,  was if you ever watched British Saturday Morning TV,  as a modified version of the game was used on ITV's MotorMouth program as part of their quiz game for kids...as can be seen in the video below!

But yeah, the final verdict is that it's just too damn tricky with not a lot to see, and you're better off watching someone else play it instead!

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Avenging Spirit - (Arcade, Gameboy, Modern Consoles and PC)

 

Avenging Spirit - (Arcade, Gameboy, Modern Consoles and PC) :

Today we have a cutel little possess-em-up-platformer from Jaleco!

So the premise behind this game is that while out walking with your girlfriend one night, you are both attacked. Whilst your girlfriend is kidnapped by these odd gangster types, a far worse fate has befallen you, and you have kicked the bucket completely.  

 As luck would have it though, your belle's dad is a scientist who has been dabbling with the paranormal and summoning your spirit into a jar, he informs you that he thinks he knows where your girlfriend might be being held and teaches you how to possess enemies so you can use their own powers against them as you go on a hunt-and-rescue mission to save your lady!

It isn't going to be as easy as you would first think though, due to the fact that you require spirit energy to maintain these possessions, and any hits that you take from projectiles or any bashes you receive  from enemies, will decrease your energy until your spirit pops back out of whatever body you are currently possessing and you'll have to find another body before your 'un-life' force runs dry!

Taking control of the different enemy types is what really makes this game stand out from the platforming crowd, as each new baddie comes with it's own unique set of skills, and playing around with them until you find what suits can be great fun, as you traverse some tricky platforms and the usual jumping sections you find in such stuff.

I'm most familiar with the arcade version of the game, but it did also come out on Gameboy, and playing both again for this article, I have to say that the Gameboy version was a lot more speedy.  I was emulating both games though, and the arcade version seemed to be a bit slower and clunkier than I remember, so it might be an emulation issue, but nevertheless, both versions are worth a look as they each have their plus points!  And I think the game was ported to all the modern consoles a year or two ago as well, so it should be really easy to find somewhere to play it. It's definitely a cute little curio to play for the spooky season!

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2Dark (Xbox One, PS4, PC)

 

2Dark - (Xbox One, PS4, PC) : 

Starting up 2Dark is an unsettling experience.  As a top down, almost SNES like, retro-looking styled game you wouldn't expect the very first thing to see to be the brutal murder of your wife and kidnapping of your children.  But as the protagonist and his family experience a camping trip gone wrong, this is exactly what unfolds in front of you.  

And no, it doesn't mean that you immediately go on a mission to rescue your kids, as the next scene sets things up seven years later, where our hero has become a jaded, recovering alcoholic of a PI, who has also become somewhat of a vigilante....tracking cases where children go missing in the hope of finding a clue to the wherabouts of his long lost kids.  

In doing so, he has discovered a child trafficking ring, and so heads to various locations to track down these sick child-traffickers, rescue the kids and shut the whole thing down, one way or another.

So yes, it's all rather grim....even more so than is usual in horror games, and the fact that the game's style is sort-of nineties in design makes it seem all the more wrong and gloomy.  And everything is dark...really dark! Including the levels!

Each level works as a themed haunted house type thing, with, for example, the first being a closed down circus/theme park, and our hero, Mr. Smith, enters these buildings armed with a torch, a gun and some candy to lure kids to safety with and/or to fling at switches from a distance.  

Of course the torch requires batteries, and the gun requires bullets, so you'll need to pick extra packs of these up along the way.  But even armed with a torch, the overly dark levels can be a very dangerous place.

The floors are always filled with massive holes, that aren't easy to see, and more often than not you'll instantly die when you come across them for the first time.  Hopefully Mr. Smith will have smoked a cigarette not long before you encounter the holes, as this is how you save your progress.  Too many smokes though, and you'll have a coughing fit, which will alert the baddies! 

Ah yes...the enemies! The game would like you to pass by most of these guys stealthily, but the mechanics of 2Dark make that very difficult, so usually you'll just try to lure them to a good area where you can blast their brains out, and get them out of the way.  

As mentioned, any sound will have them hunting you down, and when you eventually find some kids, they can of course be very noisy, which makes it even harder to sneak past.  Thankfully the bad guys can also fall foul of the many traps and animals that also fill the levels, which can make things a little easier.

When you do find the kids, you'll have to lead them to safety, keeping them quiet or in one place until you clear a path.  Any enemy encounters will result in their deaths more often than not, and as mentioned, although the game wants you to be stealthy for the best scores, you'll get a lot further if you just clear out all the bad guys first.  There are bosses to fight too of course, and these can be even more tricky to dispatch...

Overall though, the game relies heavily on trial and error. It took a few goes for me to get properly involved in it, and also to make any sort of progress.  It did start to grow on me after a while, but with the very grim subject matter and the difficulty, this game won't be for everyone.  

It was created by the guy who created Alone in the Dark and Little Big Adventure, Frédérick Raynal, and I can see what he was trying to do, but by capturing the old school feel, he's also captured the old school difficulty and I fear that will put many people off.  But it does have a certain gloomy, depressing charm, if that makes sense.  I guess it's worth checking out, so long as you know what to expect going in to it....

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Alone in the Dark (PC)

 

Alone In The Dark (PC)

As you've probably noticed, I tend to steer clear of a lot of the more well-known horror games when doing the Gruesome Games lists, preferring to draw people's attention to the more obscure hidden gems or under-appreciated titles. Having said that, I had always planned to cover everything eventually...so it's probably about time we got to one of the most influential horror games ever!!

If for some reason you've never heard of Alone In The Dark, it's perhaps more famous these days as being the original 3D 'Survival Horror' game, and heavily influencing Capcom's Resident Evil series. Originally it was intended to use real photographs of an old 1920's mansion for the backgrounds of the game, but this proved tricky for the tech available at the time, so they used hand-drawn bitmaps in their place. This 'pre-rendered backgrounds with 3D polygons on top' setup was what Shinji Mikami would discover whilst developing the first Resident Evil, changing his mind from making that game a first person adventure, and thus we have Edward Carnby and pals to thank for the tank-controlled craziness and weird-angled-camera jump scares in Capcom's classic!

Ah yes...Edward Carnby! Not your typical game hero, with his auburn hair and middle aged moustache! Picking from either him or the owner of the mansion's niece, Emily Hartwood, you set off for the mansion on the hunt for an old piano....P.I. Edward hunting it for an antiques dealer, and Emily looking for a letter hidden within it that she suspects will shed light on her uncle's sudden suicide!

After making your way to the attic and finding this piano, the doors of the mansion slam shut, locking you inside...and all manner of strange, Lovecraftian horrors start emerging from behind doors and smashing through windows to try and capture you so that some ancient evil can possess your body and wreak havoc upon the world!

To stop them, you'll need to push things around to block openings, hunt for clues, solve puzzles and use weapons you find to keep them at bay until you can find an escape from the haunted halls and creepy caves you'll find yourself running through.

Playing the game these days, it can feel a bit clunky. With its tank controls and faffy menu-driven inventory systems, you'd best be prepared for some fiddling around to get things to work...but it's still a fun adventure once you get used to its mechanics! 

If you've played later survival horror games it won't take you long to get into the swing of things, but like I say, just be prepared for a slightly slower pace than you might be used to! Edward and Emily arent the fastest of movers, although there is a run function included. But that will most likely have you stumbling around missing turns and things when you really need to be moving accurately. And be sure to search everywhere for clues and things, which you sometimes might forget to do while wrestling with the menus! Take your time, and you'll be fine though...

I picked up a copy of this from GOG which is probably your best bet for a working version that'll run well on modern PCs...and it's well worth picking up, whether its just to see where it all started for 3D survival horror, or you really want another Lovecraft inspired horror nugget to wrap your tentacles around!

There are of course many sequels to Alone in the Dark, but we'll save those for another day!

Blair Witch (Xbox One / PC)

 

Blair Witch (Xbox One / PC) :

Blair Witch is another one of those games that I really don't want to talk about too much...I just want to recommend it to you so you go and experience it for yourself! I feel the less you know about it going in, the better the experience will be...

I can tell you the basic details though. Two years after the events of the original film, a young boy has gone missing in Black Hills Forest. Ellis Lynch, the character you play, is an ex policman and military veteran who decides to put his training to good use and go help the local police force to track down the kid. With him he takes his faithful dog, Bullet, and can use his canine chum to access areas that would otherwise be inacessible. Bullet also becomes really handy when things get a bit darker or foggier at night, finding paths and ways through the forest....so you'll be wanting to keep him on your good side by occasionally playing with him or giving him treats when he does well.

As you search through the creepy forest environment you'll discover various clues and items, the most notable of which is a camera. I mean, of course....you cant have a Blair Witch game without a camera right? Needless to say this also becomes a very handy thing to have around...

Like previous Bloober Team games, this first person horror will have you jumping in fright on more than a few occasions, and it does a great job of capturing the feeling of being lost in a forest at night, before it ramps things up into the suitably weird experiences of being around the Blair Witch. But maybe I'm saying too much...

It's not a flawless game, but it's certainly suitably scary and worth a playthrough, especially at this time of year! Just be prepared to have your mind warped as you try to wander the woods.....

Monster Madness - Battle For Suburbia (Xbox 360 / PC)

 

Monster Madness - Battle For Suburbia (Xbox 360 / PC) :

I stumbled upon this game in a charity shop a while back, and was amazed I'd never heard of it before. I thought I knew about most of the 360's horror-themed titles, but this one had totally escaped my attention, maybe because it was quite an early release on the system....

I'm certainly glad I picked it up though, as what I found was another hidden gem of a game, that almost feels like a 3D version of my old favourite, Zombies Ate My Neighbors! Almost.....

You play as one of four teenage characters, who are having to deal with a zombie outbreak that seems to have happened at the worst possible time for one in particular. Zack, the nerd, was about to tell Carrie, the goth, exactly how he felt about her just as his skater friend Andy turned up, swiftly followed by Jennifer the cheerleader and the zombie horde!

Starting in Zack's house, you'll need to scour the environment for weapons and pickups to use against these icky ex-humans, and you'll also other pieces of metal and materials that can be used to later to construct more powerful weapons to keep them at bay. A boss zombie appears, and once you defeat him you can escape the house to the city and a whole host of other environments as you try to stop these undead fiends from ruining your night!

It soon becomes apparent however, that its not just zombies! There are all sorts of messed up monsters to battle....Bigfoot, Zombie Dogs, Werewolves...even Evil Clowns! Each new monster is introduced by a short cut-scene, which is a nice touch, and from what I've played so far new enemies pop up very frequently which keeps things interesting!

There's a fair dose of humour involved in the game too...it doesn't take itself too seriously at all, and this is what gives it that B-movie mocking, light hearted feeling thats similar to Zombies Ate My Neighbors. The weapons also harken back to that classic, with you using all sorts of weird implements to bash in the baddies heads! It does add a few tricks of its own too though, with a selection of vehicles to control such as a boat to battle zombie pirates, or a hot-rod style buggy thing to traverse the roads...

Sadly though, the game has a few issues, chief of which is the camera. It quite often picks a weird angle to show you, and although it can be swapped between a close up view, or one that gives a slightly more top-down look to the game, it would be better if it gave you full control over it instead of it being semi-fixed. The controls can sometimes feel a bit janky too, and sometimes the gameplay does some weird things, and jumping around the levels can be frustrating.

So a gem, but a flawed one then! Interestingly, there's apparently an updated version for PS3 that fixes some of these issues called Monster Madness - Grave Danger, so I'll need to see if I can find that one! I can still recommend this one though...despite it's flaws it is the closest thing to a ZAMN sequel that I've seen, and was a very pleasant surprise! Pick it up if you can!

The Evil Within (Xbox 360)

The Evil Within (Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3. PS4. PC) :-

It would be safe to say that Detective Sebastian Castellanos is having 'one of those days'....thinking his work was done and looking forward to relaxing with a nice cup of cocoa and a read of his favourite self-help book "How To Sound Like A Gritty Video-Game Character", he and his colleagues, Detective Joseph Oda and Junior Detective Juli Kidman, are diverted from their journey home to go and investigate a multiple murder at a nearby asylum...

A grisly scene of mutilated bodies and blood-splattered benches awaited at Beacon Mental Hospital, and after witnessing some very odd happenings via the hospital security cameras, he now finds himself hanging upside down from a hook, surrounded by similarly hanging corpses, whilst a large, disfigured-brute-of-a-chap with a cleaver starts hacking away at one of the aforementioned deceased....

Luckily, he remembers reading another self-help book, "How To Escape Cleaver Wielding Disfigured-Brute-Of-A-Chaps", and makes his escape! Unfortunately, he cancelled his subscription to these self-help books and missed out on the one he really needed to read....."How To Escape From Weird Disorienting Hospitals With Rooms That Seem To Lead Outside Or Through Time Or To The Insides Of People's Heads And Are Populated By Even Weirder Zombies, Monsters And Traps That Were Deemed Too Gruesome To Appear In The Saw Movies"...

And so it is that you'll have to take control of Sebastian through the magic of your game controller, and work out what the hell is actually going on and how to put an end to it all...navigating him through all these nasty traps and mind-bending portals to other places, and using the small amounts of ammo you find to try and defeat the swarms of mutilated monstrosities that are determined to see you fail!

Every now and again you'll hear Claude Debussy's Clair De Lune playing, and if you follow the music you'll find yourself at blood-spattered doors that open to rooms containing a cracked mirror. Examining these mirrors will transport you to another section of the asylum, watched over by the mysterious nurse Tatiana Gutierrez. She helps you out by letting you save your game, and by introducing you to the Upgrade Chair that lets you improve your abilities by injecting Green Goo into your brain!

This green gloop can be found lying around the environments in jars, or left behind after defeating enemies, and can also be used to upgrade weapons and give them more firepower, accuracy or ammo capacity. Another thing you can access in the safe haven of Tatiana's rooms are a set of lockers that hold various treats to help you on your journey. Keys for these lockers can be found hidden in Statues littered throughout the main game in obscure nooks and crannies...

Shinji Mikami, creator of Resident Evil, directed this game and you can really sense him trying to recapture the feel of those early survival horror games...Limited ammo, claustrophobic spaces, camera angles that don't quite show you everything you want to see..and for the most part this works wonderfully at creating feelings of panic and dread.

Occasionally though, you'll get frustrated at the camera or controls, especially when you come to the boss fights or brutally hard sections of the game. And there are plenty of those! I played through on the easiest setting, but I still found myself running out of ammo and having lots of near-controller-throwing moments when I kept running into the same traps over and over again.

Persevere though, and it shouldn't take you too long to get past these obstacles and get back to enjoying the twisted, topsy-turvey environments that may or may not be real, and get on with the quest to find out who the mysterious Ruvik is, what he has to do with all this and what part the other patient Leslie has to play in uncovering the truth...

The Evil Within is a proper survival horror game and was described by some as 'what Resident Evil 5 should have been'. If you've been missing the old feel of the Resident Evil games, this should be more your cup of tea, and you should enjoy working out how to solve the puzzles and squirreling enough ammo away to take out the giant, jaw-dropping boss creatures! 

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and having finally finished last Halloween, I'm lamenting the fact I've yet to purchase an Xbox One so I can enjoy the sequel.... Never mind, maybe I'll get to play it next year....but all of you with newer machines can revel in the fact that Sebastian also missed out on another self-help book, "How Not To End Up In The Entirely Same F**ked Up Situation You Found Yourself In Three Years Ago"......