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With the Halloween season nearly here, it’s time to revisit your favorite horror titles, such as the Resident Evil or Silent Hill franchises. However, there’s always room for something new. The Silent Hill series of games inspired a lot of other horror video game greats, and I wanted to touch on five of the most terrifying games below.
Deadly Premonition (2010)
Deadly Premonition follows Francis York Morgan as he investigates the murder of a girl whose profile matches other murders around the country. The gameplay revolves around commuting through the fictional town of Greenville, Washington, and engaging in combat with supernatural enemies that he encounters. Despite not necessarily being a top favorite among horror game enthusiasts, there’s no mistaking the clear Silent Hill influences.
Similar to the latter, Deadly Premonition introduces the Other World, which is a realm inhabited by monsters. Although the Other World is activated in gameplay and not throughout the whole game, it bears a massive resemblance to the world of Silent Hill. The game also slightly mimics the occasional humor with mini-games and collectibles. It’s also worth noting that in 2011, developer Access Games submitted Deadly Premonition to the Guinness Book of Records for a 68% review swing between its highest and lowest review scores across the game’s original 33 reviews, making it the Most Polarising Game of All Time!
Layers of Fear (2016)
There are two Layers of Fear out there now, but the one I’m talking about is the first one that was released in 2016. Since then, it’s received a sequel and then a remake that’s also classified as the third game in the series. Interestingly, it was developed by Bloober Team and focuses on an artist who returns to his studio to attempt to create his life’s greatest work.
The release of Layers of Fear was heavily inspired by P.T., a demo for an unreleased horror game titled Silent Hills, which was to be developed by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro. One of the major ways that Silent Hill inspires this game is its superb mix of storytelling and atmosphere, which creates an experience that actually scares players on a psychological level rather than just with jump scares.
The Evil Within (2014)
The Evil Within follows Sebastian Castellanos, a detective trying to understand and escape the horrifically twisted world of his own psyche. The game was directed by Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, who does an incredible job at prioritizing its atmosphere. In fact, some fans would agree that The Evil Within is what Silent Hill 2 would be if created by a Resident Evil-focused team.
While typical Resident Evil games focus more on the combat aspect of horror, The Evil Within combines aspects of the protagonist that the audience doesn’t know about and his surroundings to tell a terrifying story. I’d also argue that Sebastian is a rather plain and boring protagonist, similar to James Sunderland, which helps bring an even more pronounced sense of eeriness throughout the game.
Alan Wake (2010)
Alan Wake is another terrifying game that takes aspects of the protagonist’s psyche and has them battle against them, similar to the Silent Hill series. The franchise follows the eponymous protagonist, who suffers from writer’s block and visits Bright Falls to resolve it. He is then faced with a darkness that reveals pages of a novel Alan doesn’t remember writing, unveiling secrets about himself and the world around him.
Like the Silent Hill games, Alan Wake is a survival horror/psychological thriller that focuses more on a very normal protagonist suffering from a basic emotion. For example, Alan is suffering from writer’s block, as mentioned above, while James suffers from the guilt of his actions concerning his ex-wife. It’s also not lost on me that the two games take place in small towns enveloped in a strange fog that’s home to various monsters.
Visage (2020)
Visage is another terrifying horror game focusing on atmosphere and storytelling to invoke fear and uneasiness. Similar to Layers of Fear, Visage was created in response to Konami’s demo for Silent Hills. Because of that, Visage has a setting and gameplay similar to the latter. Players take on the role of an entity trapped in a house tormented by other entities.
Like many of the games on this list, Visage was so well-received as a Silent Hill-inspired game because of its incredible attention to atmosphere. It focuses on the uncanny to create an air of eeriness that makes it a psychological horror game. Personally, the fact that the house looks like somewhere I’ve actually been in my life has made it far too terrifying for me.
