2024 horror games we're hoping will keep us up at night

Last year spoiled us with spectacular spooks, but if our list of 2024 horror games below is anything to go by, the next 12 months won’t go any easier on our already overloaded underwear wash cycles. Yes, 2024’s release calendar is crammed full of creepy experiences looking to grip the dials of our hearts in their boney hands and ratchet up the tempo.

So if you, like us, are a twisted mind who enjoys lighting a candle, immersing yourself with a high-quality headset, and gaming into the dark hours of the night with ghouls and ghosts, then join us. Welcome. It’s time to look ahead with dreadful glee at the upcoming horror games of 2024.

The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered

Release date: January 19

Naughty Dog’s spectacular (and spectacularly lengthy) tale of grief, revenge, and the fungal apocalypse gets a re-release this month for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. It features updated visuals and a new roguelike mode called No Return in which you can unlock various characters from the main story. If you’ve yet to try it, prepare for some proper scares courtesy of the harrowing Rat King boss fight.

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

Release date: February 13

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is technically an action-RPG rather than a horror game, but given the number of ghosts gamboling about in it, we’re willing to give it a pass here. Two lovers, one living and one spirit, must work together to hunt and banish unpleasant undead in the 1695 settlement of New Eden. 

Developed by Life is Strange studio Don’t Nod, Banishers promises plenty of challenging decisions as you tangle with the lost and damned. The fate of New Eden’s residents is at stake, but will it clash with the desires of these leading lovers, separated as they are by death?

Pacific Drive

Release date: February 22

A supernatural anomaly has left a chunk of northwest America uninhabitable. Known as the Olympic Exclusion Zone, it’s a dangerous, storm-racked place. Oh, and you’re stuck within it. Your car, an ‘80s station wagon, is your only companion. Keeping it running is priority number one. 

Scavenge the resources needed to sustain and even upgrade your vehicle as you delve deeper into the Zone and encounter reality-twisting events and environments. And at all costs, don’t get caught in a Zone Storm. Or your vehicle – and you – will likely end up in pieces.

Alone in the Dark

Release date: March 20

The classic ‘90s survival horror game is getting a full recreation this year, starring some big-budget names in Jodie Comer (Killing Eve) and David Harbour (Stranger Things). Set in the 1920s, the story follows a women searching for her missing uncle in the mysterious Derceto Manor. You’ll be able to play as either Emily Hartwood or Edward Carnby, the private investigator she’s hired to assist in the hunt. Expect haunting hallways, puzzles aplenty, and a plethora of dark secrets to uncover.

Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl

Release date: Q1 2024

We’re not convinced that Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl will actually hit its Q1 2024 window, but we’d certainly love to be proven wrong. The long-awaited FPS sends us back into the Zone to face monstrous mutants, deadly anomalies, and, often most dangerous of all, other Stalkers.

The Zone itself promises to feel like a living entity, with day-night cycles, dynamic weather, and advanced AI for the creatures roaming within. If you’re brave enough to delve into lairs, you may recover valuable artifacts. Or you'll encounter packs of mutants eager to tear you limb from limb. Good hunting, Stalker.

Bye Sweet Carole

Release date: 2024

With art inspired by classic Disney animations, Bye Sweet Carole may be the most distinctive upcoming horror game of 2024. Hand-dawn, this 2D narrative horror tale is set in the 1990s and follows a young woman investigating the disappearance of her friend Carole. At the orphanage of Bunny Hall she discovers a connection to the kingdom of Corolla, an infested land filled with tar bunnies that's lorded over by the villainous Mr. Kyn.

Crow Country

Release date: 2024

The idea of mixing PS1 Final Fantasy 7 visuals with classic Resident Evil-style survival horror mechanics is one that, we’ll admit, had never really sprung to mind as a recipe for success. And yet, the pairing works to an unsettling degree in upcoming indie horror game Crow Country. More fool us, it seems! 

Developed by the sibling team of SFB Games, Crow Country sees a young woman exploring a shuttered theme park in rural Georgia. It promises to feature unsettling environments, plenty of puzzles, and a story which deals with “reckless human greed and the idea of an unforgivable sin.” Offer us old-school tank controls too and we’ll be battering at the ticket booth for entry.

Dark Fracture

Release date: 2024

Welcome to the body farm, a research facility for decomposition. Unfortunately, working here seems more likely to decompose your mind than anything else. Dark Fracture is a psychological horror game which follows a lonely worker on the midnight shift in this isolated facility. As the world begins to unravel around them and a parallel dimension blends with their own, they begin to question the stability of both reality and their own mind. Dark Matter teases a procedural element to its paranormal events, so it should keep even seasoned horror lovers on edge as they play. 

Hollowbody

Release date: 2024

If the Silent Hill 2 remake – more on that shortly – fails to deliver, fans may well want to turn their attention to Hollowbody instead. Taking clear inspiration from Konami’s classic horror series, it’s a sci-fi tech-noir horror story which follows a black market smuggler who finds herself unexpected stuck in a ruined exclusion zone. Solve puzzles and attempt to find a way out as you face the inhuman creatures which haunt the decrepit cityscape.

Little Nightmares III

Release date: 2024

The grotesque world of puzzle-platformer series Little Nightmares grows a little larger in the series’ third entry, this time produced by The Dark Pictures Anthology developer Supermassive Games. The story follows two new children, Low and Alone, who must work together to find a way out from the Nowhere. This time, though, you’ll be able to do it with a friend. Little Nightmares III will have full co-op support as you face childhood terrors and attempt to navigate a confusing landscape called the Spiral.

Silent Hill 2

Release date: 2024

Layers of Fear developer Bloober Team has been granted the reins to recreate one of the most iconic horror games of all time. Whether the studio will pull off the feat or indeed manage it in 2024 remains to be seen. But the prospect has us giddy with anticipation.

Bloober Team has said that the remake will “stick close to the original” survival horror game, but that certain aspect will be updated to suit a modern gaming audience. Expect changes like an over-the-shoulder camera and modern movement controls but the same core plot beats. For better or worse, we’re ready to face Pyramid Head once more in that accursed, fog-smothered town. 

Dead Letter Dept.

Release date: Unknown

Sometimes lost letters are best left unread. But in Dead Letter Dept., your job as a data conversion operator is to type up images of old texts and letters onto a computer, so you’ve little choice but to pry. It sounds like a mundane task, but when the text in the images begins talking to you, and perhaps even influencing your surroundings, things get uncomfortably surreal. Dead Letter Dept. is a fascinating concept for a short horror experience, even for those of us who spend all day putting letters into their place.

Reveil

Release date: Unknown

Narrative psychological horror with a funfair setting. What could be worse? Last year’s Steam Next Fest demo for Reveil left us intrigued as we explored the Nelson Bros Circus following the voice of a daughter always just out of reach. Small puzzles break up the slow exploration as environments blend and blur into one another. This being a psychological thriller, we of course have a troubled protagonist with a dark past he appears to have largely repressed that begins to blur into the world. If Reveil arrives in 2024, we’re eager to see how it’ll use its funfair setting to best effect.

Routine

Release date: Unknown

Routine is another game we don’t yet have a firm release date for. But when it does arrive, we’re hopeful it’ll deliver sci-fi scares in spades. It's  set in abandoned lunar base and it gives off Alien: Isolation vibes thanks to the creepy robot stalking you through the station and the retro-inspired vision of futuristic tech.

Slitterhead

Release date: Unknown

Led by Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, development on Slitterhead has been fairly quiet following its CGI reveal trailer. It looks to be some form of action hack-and-slash game with a grotesque horror aesthetic. If it arrives in 2024, it’ll bring a whole lot of body horror as parasites contort and corrupt the human body into monstrous forms. 

Still Wakes The Deep

Release date: Unknown

Something has gone very wrong on this North Sea oil rig. Isolated on the crumbling platform amid raging seas, your only goal is to survive. Still Wakes The Deep is a new first-person narrative horror game from The Chinese Room, developer of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. 

When an otherworldly entity latches on to the rig, you must attempt to save your crew from disaster using only your wits, the limited supplies at your disposal, and a hunger for survival. Move carefully, and steel yourself to face the horrors seeping through the cracks.

The Casting of Frank Stone

Release date: Unknown

The Dark Pictures Anthology developers Supermassive Games have somehow gotten their hands on the Dead By Daylight universe too, and the results look to be as frightening as you might expect. In this upcoming cinematic horror game, a group of friends head into the Oregon Steel Mill and find that the infamous serial killer of the town’s past might not be quite so dead as thought. If they don't move carefully, it could be them heading for the grave instead. Here’s hoping we don’t spend 80% of the game fixing generators.

Tormented Souls 2

Release date: Unknown

If you missed the original Tormented Souls releasing back in 2021, you’re far from alone! But others certainly gave the mansion-bound love letter to classic survival horror a shot, with enough interest generated to warrant a sequel. This time, protagonist Caroline Walker is headed to looming monasteries in a reclusive south american town in search of her cursed sister. To fend off the murderous creatures that lie within these harrowing rather than hallowed halls, she’ll need to cobble together makeshift weapons and manage resources carefully.

What are you most-anticipated horror games of 2024? If you’re preparing for another year of screams, then check out our breakdown of the right gear you need for horror games to ramp up that fear factor.

Henry Stenhouse

Associate Editor

Henry Stenhouse serves an eternal punishment as the Associate Editor of AllGamers. He spent his younger life studying the laws of physics, even going so far as to complete a PhD in the subject before video games stole his soul. Confess your love of Super Smash Bros. via email at henry@moonrock.biz, or catch him on Twitter.