Summary

Horroris a genre never known for pulling its punches, splashing the screen with gratuitous gore, drenching every environment in a smothering atmosphere, jumping out at players with terrifying monsters, and even killing off characters in gruesome fashion. This is howhorrorexcels, going beyond expectations and shocking their players with unexpected twists.

Even the stories in horror games can go above and beyond, which some may consider over the top. Whether it is cheesy big bad villains, nonsensical plots, or leaning way too hard into a certain theme…these horror games stories dial everything up to 11, guaranteeing an unforgettable experience.

Doki Doki Literature Clubbecame a worldwide phenomenon following its release. It was passed around with the ominous warning not to look anything up before playing the game, though the content warning at the beginning may have raised players' alarm bells.

From first glances, players are an ordinary high school boy who has joined a literature club, rejoicing he has found a club with no other members than four cute girls. It’s tooth-achingly cute and overbearingly anime to start with, like any other anime-style visual novel. They spend time with the girls, write and share poetry…everything seems fine. Too fine, too normal. But then the game nosedives into surreal horror, presenting the player with time loops, glitchy visuals, and a terrifyingfourth-wall break.

The third game in the first season of theDark Pictures Anthologymight just be the most unique entry in the series. For starters, there was actually combat, which involved a lot more QTEs than players might expect from Supermassive Games. The game takes place in a desert in Iraq, where a military squad has arrived to raid a village that might be the location of a chemical weapons cache. That is, until everyone plunges down into hidden underground caverns below, the location where the game began thousands of years ago.

In typicalDark Picturesfashion, unnerving threats begin to challenge the players at every turn, and more information is revealed as the game progresses. It goes from action horror into full-blown sci-fi when it is revealed the vampiric creatures are actually aliens, resulting in a very drastic change of tone. It’s a twist that, while largely overdone, results in tipping the plot just a little too much, especially when the game turns into Salim just laying a beatdown on the creatures.

Resident Evil 4brought a harmonious marriage between horror and action, becoming one of the most adored entries in the franchise. It managed to balance the two rather well, and it was a combination that was perfected in the 2023 remake.Resident Evil 5was a follow-up to the original, bringing Chris Redfield back into the fold to face down against his old boss alongsideone-time companionSheva.

In this installment, action was prioritized over horror, bringing in tough waves of enemies, each chapter capped by a monstrous boss. The villain of all villains in this game was Albert Wesker, who was cheesy beyond belief. He back-flipped and Matrix dodged around bullets while taunting Chris and voicing his desire to take over the world. It was truly an over-the-top Saturday morning cartoon villain plot, but it definitely is one of the game’s highlights.

Promised to be anhomage to the classic horror gameClock Tower,Remothered: Tormented Fathershad a lot riding on its shoulders. In this game, Rosemary Reed arrives at the Felton mansion to look into the disappearance of their daughter Celeste. She is promptly escorted off the premises when the reason for her visit comes to light, but that isn’t about to stop Rosemary, who sneaks her way back inside to investigate the manner in secrecy.

This is where the horror begins, as evading the various villains can be a tense matter. The more the player explores, the more the story unfolds, revealing the importance of Celeste, but things quickly become confusing, and what should have been a simple story becomes a plot that seems like it was trying to throw every sort of trope into the mix, which can result in a confusing over the top storyline, and something that is not completely in the games favor, especially with its rather insensitive handling of gender identity.

A long-forgotten horror game from the PS1 era,Parasite Eveis one hell of an experience, right from its surprising opening to its cinematic and rather dark conclusion. It opens with Aya trying to enjoy a date night at the opera, only for everyone other than her, her date, and the on-stage actress to suddenly explode, which is one exciting horrifying way to open a game. Melissa clearly knows what is happening, but before Aya can apprehend her, she mutates into a horrifying monster and escapes.

As if all of this isn’t enough to result in one exaggerated story, people continue to explode throughout the game, and there is a lot of talk about the mitochondria, and Melissa, now Eve, wanting to birth the Ultimate Being. It’s an absolutely bonkers ride that definitely dials everything up to 11, butParasite Eveis an all-around excellent experience every classic horror fan shouldplay through at least once, especially since clearing the game grants access to the true boss.

A series of murders terrorize the United States, ritualistic in nature with red seeds found at every crime scene. FBI agent Francis York Morgan travels to a rural town by the name of Greenvale, following the most recent murder that follows the patterns of the rest tounmask the perpetratorbefore another body turns up. So far, the story sounds simple enough to follow, without anything too crazy.

But the rest of the game results inDeadly Premonitionbecoming an over-the-top, eccentric experience that makesTwin Peakslook pedestrian in comparison. York finds himself in a supernatural dimension throughout the game, the White Room and the Red Room to meet with the Forest or the Red Tree, which represents good and evil. There is also Zach, the unseen companion of York which leads to his sanity being questioned by the NPCs and maybe even the player. A fourth wall break, or is York just an unreliable narrator?

Splatstick is a genre defined by movies, games, or other media that verge on the ridiculous side of things with the gore on display, andLollipop Chainsawdefinitely fits the bill. On her way to meet her boyfriend Nick, Juliet finds herself in the middle of a zombie outbreak. Her boyfriend is bitten by a zombie when he rushes to protect her, so Juliet decapitates him to prevent his transformation and arms herself to fight against the hordes of the undead.

As if a boyfriend’s animated severed head and a chainsaw-wielding zombie weren’t enough, demons are thrown into the mix, which comes from the Rotten World, who also want a piece of Juliet. While definitely over the top,this hilarious plotdefinitely serves to makeLollipop Chainsawa fantastic comedy horror game that is fun and wonderfully bizarre to play at the same time.

Fake Dinosaurs in Space

Dino Crisis 3

More than 500 years in the future on a spaceship named Ozymandias, You and your partners are on a Search-and-Rescue Mission: Piece together the spacecraft’s mysterious reappearance after a 300-year absence. Armed with hyper-speed booster units and an arsenal of futuristic weaponry, you’ll confront ferocious space mutations and evolved forms of dinosaur creations in your quest to solve the mystery. It’s out of this world gameplay!WITNESS THE RE-EVOLUTIONBASED ON THE POPULAR DINO CRISIS FRANCHISE  EXPLORE A DYNAMICALLY CHANGING 3D GALACTIC SHIPEXPERIENCE FAST ACTION AND REFLEX INTENSE BATTLESCHANGE SPACESHIP LAYOUT TO ACHIEVE OBJECTIVES.

While not the most popularDino Crisisgame, it definitely has an unforgettable plot for those who braved thispolarizing third entryinto the much-loved franchise. When telling a story of people with guns taking on dinosaurs, one would think it’s about as over the top as it can get. But then the setting is completely overhauled, placing both antagonists and protagonists in space.

Prehistoric creatures and space aren’t two things that go very well together, but the solution was very easy: make these creatures human-dinosaur hybrids, as ifDino Crisis 3wasn’t as campy as it could get. This did result in allowing designers to have a lot more creative freedom when designing enemies, but it also meant the plot was a lot more extravagant than previous entries, and maybe not all for the better. But for those who like dinosaurs and space, they have hit the jackpot withDC3.