The 5 Most Scary VR Games That Will Frighten You
Want some fear? Some danger? Want to know the best scary VR games out there? Well you’ve come to the right place. There’s nothing like Virtual Reality for scary games, because the immersion of Virtual reality makes scary VR games make you extremely afraid when you are playing them. Scary VR games are so much more panic inducing because you can see the thing you’re afraid of right there in front of you instead of on a screen far away from your face. So if you want a great fright in the most immersive way possible read on. Here are the 5 Most Scary VR Games.
Oh, and this list won’t include mods for scary flatscreen games that are ported to VR. Here we’re talking about scary VR games that were always made with Virtual Reality in mind, or have a specific VR version made for it.
Scary VR Games - Phasmophobia
The Phasmophobia Logo
Want a very scary VR game to play with your friends? Well then Phasmophobia is the game for you! It is the only multiplayer VR horror game on this list, which is because experiencing a scary VR game with friends generally makes that game less frightening. Still, Phasmophobia has a lot of great frights in it, and more so than most of the other games on this list its multiplayer nature makes it possible to repeat it over and over so that once you’ve played it once you’ll still have the opportunity to be frightened again and again.
In Phasmophobia you and your teammates are ghost hunters who work together to detect and investigate a haunted house. You have a lot of modern ghost hunting tools to do this with, and more classic methods like saying the name of the ghost over and over until it appears. Though these ghosts aren’t content to be disturbed. This scary VR game is so scary because the ghost you’re hunting will appear and hunt you and your team right back.
Phasmophobia takes all of the best moments from ghost hunter TV shows and movies and puts them right into a great VR multiplayer experience. You can play levels over and over again, and each time the details of the haunting will be different, and you’ll experience new scares and new panic every time you play this scary VR game.
Phasmophobia is available on PCVR via Steam.
Scary VR Games - Into The Radius
The Into The Radius Logo
Into The Radius is a less traditional scary VR game. You might consider it more of a VR shooting game with its wide variety of weapons to use and enemies to encounter. Though what makes Into The Radius a scary VR game is its oppressive and lonely atmosphere. Here you’ll find fewer jump scares than in other scary VR games, and more of a constant feeling of dread. You have effective weapons, but the hazards you face are so otherworldly and numerous that many feel Into The Radius is a VR horror game.
Getting charged by one of the creepy enemies in Into The Radius
In Into The Radius you are an explorer of the Pechorsk Zone. This zone, the titular radius, is a strange and anomalous area where the laws of physics and reality are warped. The strange and terrifying dark entities that roam it aren’t the only dangers either. If you’re not careful you might wander into one of the many types of anomalies that dot the zone, either by chance or to try and unearth the artifacts that can be found inside of them.
A large anomaly in Into The Radius
Enemies can sometimes attack from seemingly nowhere, and once you go out into the zone it can be hard to feel truly safe. Even once you’ve cleared an area of threats there are always anomalies to scare you, and once the tide comes in all of those enemies will come back. You’ll have to scavenge what you can to survive, and sell to buy what you cannot find. Into The Radius isn’t only a great VR shooting game, but it will also scare even the most veteran of explorers.
Into The Radius is available on the Quest as a standalone game or via Oculus or Steam PCVR.
Scary VR Games - Face Your Fears 2
The Face Your Fears 2 Logo
There are a lot of more linear horror games that not only give you a story, but also give you a lot of things to be afraid of that you’ll be mostly defenseless against. While a lot of scary VR games fit into this category most of them aren’t as scary or fun to play as Face Your Fears 2.
In this VR horror game you are trying to find your sister in a remote area. The last thing you heard she was hanging out at an old house and called your mother sounding terrified. Unfortunately on the way up there you hit someone with your car and crashed… but when you look close it’s not actually a person, but a doll of some kind.
Whatever you hit with your car in Face Your Fears 2
So you leave the road to find help, and things only get scarier from there. Every place you go as you search for your sister is weirder than the last, and even the objects and notes you find along the way point to a dark history surrounding the area. Even the animals seem evil and dangerous.
In Face Your Fears 2 you truly will have to face your fears, and it won’t only be ghosts chasing you this time. Even rats and snakes come after you. This scary VR game keeps you guessing as to what exactly will be coming after you next, and changes up the locations and scares often to stay interesting and more importantly frightening all of the way through.
Face Your Fears 2 is available on the Quest standalone.
Scary VR Games - Five Nights At Freddy’s: Help Wanted
The Five Nights At Freddy’s: Help Wanted Logo
If you’ve ever played or heard of the Five Nights At Freddy’s series of games (there are a lot of them now) then you know that these games became very popular for doing one thing better than any other horror game out there. That thing is Jump Scares.
An approaching animatronic nightmare in Five Nights At Freddy’s: Help Wanted
The VR entry into this series called Five Nights At Freddy’s: Help Wanted is no different. This game takes the classic Five Nights At Freddy’s formula and transports it to VR. Not only are the jump scares so much more up close and personal in Virtual Reality, but you also have to interact with all of the buttons and tools in your security room with your actual hands. One of the things that makes scary VR games so much scarier is that when you’re scared it can be really easy to panic and miss a button, and that’s what makes Five Nights At Freddy’s VR a great way to play the game.
As in all the other Five Nights At Freddy’s games, you are a new employee at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza working the night shift. Your goal is to survive to 6 AM for a few days in a row. This isn’t as easy as it might sound, because the animatronic animals aren’t animatronic, they’re alive, and they’re coming to get you. You have to use whatever tools are at your disposal, security doors, flashlights, whatever will keep the deadly machines at bay, to survive. It’s a tense experience made all the more tense in Virtual Reality.
Oh, and this isn’t just one scary VR game, Five Nights At Freddy’s: Help Wanted combines many of the classic Five Nights At Freddy’s experiences into a single package. That’s a lot of scares for your dollar, especially if you’re a fan of the series and want a new way to replay the games.
Five Nights At Freddy’s: Help Wanted is available for Quest standalone and PCVR, and on Steam for PCVR.
Scary VR Games - Cosmodread
The Cosmodread Logo
As the name implies, Cosmodread is a scary VR game set in space. Not just any space, deep space. Deep space where there are terrors unlike any on earth.
A space horror in Cosmodread
Cosmodread is also the only roguelike VR horror game on this list, and while you might think a game that is designed around you dying constantly would drain some of the fear out of it or be too short, well fortunately you would be wrong. The fact that dying means you have to start all the way from the beginning makes this game somehow even tenser, and just playing it is plenty scary.
You are a lone survivor aboard an experimental starship in deep space. This ship came across a terrifying and large organic creature that can somehow live in vacuum, and that creature isn’t content to just look at humans, it wants to eat them. Oh, and the ship’s security system has also gone crazy, so there’s robots to worry about too.
The space beast in Cosmodread
The sights and sounds of Cosmodread are truly terrifying, and make for quite a VR horror game. Even when no enemies are around the groans and creaks of the decaying ship you’re scuttling through remind you constantly that you need to leave, and when you’re close to enemies their screams, fleshy noises, and groans make them even more horrifying to hear than just to look at.
The horrors of deep space can even appear in areas you’ve already cleared, and more than anything else you have to worry about not having the ammunition or supplies to make it all the way through them to repair the ship and get back to earth. Cosmodread is a fun roguelike that is hard to complete, and a very scary VR game. Whenever you think you’re on top of this game and are about to win, it throws something new at you to terrifying and hurt you.
Cosmodread is available for standalone on the Quest and Oculus PCVR and on Steam for PCVR.
Scary VR Games - BONUS - Lies Beneath
The Lies Beneath Logo
You might have expected only 5 games in this list, but it wouldn’t feel truly complete without at least mentioning Lies Beneath. This game might not be as outright scary as the rest of the VR horror games on this list, but the enemies sure do look creepy.
A creepy enemy in Lies Beneath
In Lies Beneath you are a student back from college looking for her lost father in your hometown. Something isn’t right though. It’s like the whole area is decaying and becoming evil, and before you know it strange creatures are attacking you. Uncovering what exactly Lies Beneath and why everything is so strange and hostile is genuinely mysterious, and there are a lot of great moments and combat encounters along the way.
The reason why this game isn’t more prominent on this list of the most scary VR games, is that while there are a few frightening moments in Lies Beneath, and the monster designs are truly monstrous, it’s more of a shooter than a horror game. The linear nature of it, combined with your ever increasing competence and power, make it a more action focused experience than other games on this list, even more so than Into The Radius.
Still, Lies Beneath is genuinely terrifying at times, and is overall a very underrated VR shooter with some scary horror elements thrown in. So if you want a more action packed scary VR game, give Lies Beneath a look.
Lies Beneath is available for standalone play on the Quest.
Well that’s all for this list of the most scary VR games. If you’ve got another game in mind that you think should have been on this list because of how scary you found it, then feel free to leave a comment.
