Goriest Horror Games

Summary

• Horror games utilize gore to disgust and terrify players, incorporating body horror in sickening enemy designs.
• Some titles like Fear & Hunger embrace vile imagery, while others like The Evil Within offer gruesome, graphic scenes.
• Scorn stands out for its grotesque world building, appealing to players’ morbid curiosity.

Horror games are very diverse thanks to the wide range of fears and phobias that humans experience. Deep water, confined spaces, and dark expanses are all popular settings that are effective in scaring players. While some titles focus on atmosphere to really creep players out, others take a less subtle approach.

Gore is a mode of horror that appears in a multitude of subgenres, from slasher to splatter. Usually, though, at its core, gore is synonymous with body horror. Video games use gore to disgust the player, with visceral scenes that make them almost feel the pain themselves. These are some of the goriest horror games that will leave players cringing.

The titles on this list contain mature content that may not be suitable for all players.

1

Fear & Hunger

Delves Into All Things Unsavory

Fear & Hunger is a dungeon-crawler horror RPG, known for its heavy content and subject matter. The player must navigate an ancient fortress, surviving the abominations that reside there amidst a power struggle between gods.

Because of its 2D nature, Fear & Hunger does not have as realistic gore as other titles, but it doesn’t make the game any less vile. The world is morbid, and players will have to confront scenes of mutilation, violence (of all natures), and substance abuse. While not for the faint of heart, there are very few moments that feel distasteful, the gore fitting with the grim lore of the universe.

2

The Evil Within

A Detective Job Gone Violently Wrong

Imagine turning up to a crime scene of a mass murder and all of a sudden being thrown into an unknown realm that’s full of mutated humanoid creatures. The Evil Within brings this idea to life, following Detective Sebastian Castellanos as he attempts to get to the bottom of what exactly is going on.

Beyond the unsettling psychological horror elements, The Evil Within is a particularly gruesome title. Floors covered in pools of blood, flayed corpses, up-close encounters with surgical procedures, and blowing enemy brains out are all part and parcel of this survival horror mystery.

3

Stay Out Of The House

Escape A Savage Serial Killer Aptly Named “The Butcher”

• Platforms: Windows, macOS, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5
• Release Date: October 14, 2022
• Developer: Puppet Combo

It would be remiss to discuss gory horror games without any mention of Puppet Combo — a developer that has become an icon in the indie horror gaming community for his PS1 and 80s slasher-inspired titles. Four years after its early access reveal, Stay Out of the House was released in 2022.

The game follows Roxanne, who has fallen victim to The Butcher — a serial killer with a penchant for hacking up corpses. As players try to escape, while avoiding being slashed themselves, they will come across littered bodies (not always whole) and entirely blood-soaked rooms made all the more disturbing by the game’s signature aesthetic.

4

The Callisto Protocol

Disturbingly True To Life Depictions Of Death

The Callisto Protocol is a survival horror game set in space. After crash-landing on Callisto, the player, as freight captain Jacob, is imprisoned in the planet’s Black Iron Prison, where a disease has turned the inmates into “biophages.” The player must fend off the threats and learn the origins of the outbreak.

The team behind The Callisto Protocol looked to real-life examples of gore — the likes of war and car crashes — during development to nail the game’s realism. There are plenty of graphic scenes; strung up corpses, brutal death animations, and bloody combat. Players can even throw the mutated biophages into machinery, shredding them into chunks.

The Callisto Protocol is considered the spiritual successor to Dead Space, which is also incredibly gory.

5

Splatterhouse (2010)

The Evolution Of A Slasher Beat ‘Em Up Classic

• Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
• Release Date: November 23, 2010
• Developer: Bandai Namco

Splatterhouse was originally a beat-em-up arcade game, and it received a number of sequels in a similar style. In 2010, Bandai Namco published a reboot — a 3D re-imagining of the original that opened up new possibilities for the direction of the franchise.

Players control the superhuman, bloodthirsty Rick, who is on a mission to save his girlfriend from the sinister plans of Dr. West. In keeping with the arcade title, which was banned in the US for its graphic content, the 2010 Splatterhouse is just as gory, complete with hack-and-slash gameplay and brutal “Splatter Kills.”

Splatterhouse (2010) is no longer available to purchase outside of existing physical copies.

6

Evil Dead: The Game

Players Can Fight Back And Make Their Own Mess

When the original The Evil Dead film was released in 1981, few expected it to become the iconic franchise it is today. The gory practical effects and over-the-top scenarios became its trademark, something that many fans praise Evil Dead: The Game for paying homage to.

The title is an asymmetrical horror game, with players either taking the side of the iconic group of heroes or the formidable supernatural army of Kandarian demons. With plenty of gunplay and hack-and-slash action, there is no shortage of bloody combat or flying limbs.

7

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

A Nauseating Depiction Of The Deep South

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard marked the franchise’s shift from the combat-focus of the previous games back into a more survival horror-based experience with a first-person perspective and a new story arc. Players follow new protagonist Ethan Winters as he ventures to Louisiana in search of his wife, Mia.

Unfortunately, this leads him to the home of a mold-infected cannibal family whose favorite sport is dispatching ungrateful dinner guests. Not only is the residence full of gross rotting guts, but players are also repeatedly put into situations that make them feel helpless, experiencing Ethan getting stabbed, battered, and dismembered on the regular.

8

The Outlast Trials

Forces Players To Do Awful Things To Survive

The Outlast franchise is notorious for having some of the most disturbing content in the survival horror genre, both in plot and environment. The prequel, The Outlast Trials, is no exception, putting players through “therapy” that will make them prime candidates for serving Murkoff as sleeper agents.

Unfortunately, this therapy involves completing twisted objectives, which not only include avoiding violent enemies with brutal modi operandi, but, unlike the other two games, inflicting various methods of nauseating torture on other characters. If they can find anyone willing to endure the trauma, players can go co-op for a better chance of making it out alive.

9

Agony

Takes Religious Descriptions Of Hell To The Extreme

In scripture, Hell is portrayed as a fiery realm of eternal punishment and suffering. While many games set in Hell feature demons and barren, lava-filled landscapes, Agony takes a more explicit approach. Players are presented with horrific scenes at every turn, from architecture made of body parts to graphic images of torture.

Agony was originally rated “Adult Only” but was later toned down to an M rating. While this meant censoring alot of the overt content, the uncensored Unrated version of the game is still available. What the game lacks in polish and gameplay, the beautifully awful gore largely makes up for.

10

Scorn

Gross From Start To Finish

Scorn is perhaps one of the most visually striking survival horror games. Very little is given away about the plot, and the game barely holds players’ hands at all, but the visceral and grotesque world building is enough for many to overlook the lack of context and long sections of exploration.

The land that the protagonist must traverse seems anchored in pain and suffering, with mangled abominations — some hostile and some pitiful — crawling their way around. Even the world itself is organic, the architecture and mechanisms seemingly made of flesh, bone, and sinew. Scorn is an all-around skin-crawling experience that appeals to players’ morbid curiosity.