10 Perfect Horror Games You Can Play Completely Free This Halloween

Published Oct 10, 2026, 8:47 AM EDT

Ewan is Deputy Editor for ScreenRant's gaming section. He still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase, and knows more about The Legend of Zelda and Doctor Who than is probably healthy.

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This might be considered a hot take, but there's no bad time to play a horror game. A blazing hot summer's day? Stick on Resident Evil Requiem. Toddler's Birthday party? Play some Dead Space to liven things up. Just woken up from a nightmare? A bit of Silent Hill 2 will sort you out.

While horror games are perfect all year round, of course, they become all the sweeter as we approach Halloween. As the nights draw in and temperatures drop, it's the best time for a few well-placed frights. As ScreenRant celebrates 31 days of horror this October, I thought it'd be a good time to round up ten great horror games you can play right now. And the best part? Each one of these horror games is completely free.

10 Cry Of Fear (25 April 2013)

If Cry of Fear looks in any way familiar to you, that's because it started out as a mod for the original Half-Life. However, it quickly evolved into its own award-winning project inspired by classic survival horror.

This is a psychological horror game that you can play alone or with friends, and it takes place in a deserted town filled with horrific creatures and nightmarish delusions. There's a touch of Silent Hill as you take control of a young man searching for answers in a cold and lonely city, slowly succumbing to paranoia and madness. The game has super positive reviews on Steam, so it's definitely worth checking out if you're feeling brave.

9 SCP: Containment Breach (15 April 2012)

This one is fascinating. A procedurally-generated first-person horror in which your job is to escape from a secret facility without being ripped apart by the escaped monsters who have breached containment. While your first job is getting the heck out, you can also look around for documents and clues that give you more details about the world.

You'll want to be quick though. Of all the horrors in the facility, the worst is basically a Weeping Angel from Doctor Who: a concrete statue that will snap your neck the moment you aren't looking at it.

8 SCP: Secret Laboratory (29 December 2017)

"Deep within a secure underground facility, a sudden containment breach allows many of the secured anomalies to escape from their chambers. Assist the Foundation in re-securing the facility, help the Insurgency in their goal to capture it, or wreak havoc as an SCP in a frantic bid to escape."

Yep, this is another SCP game, but this one offers multiplayer action in which you can either take control of a monster or help fight against the entities.

7 Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion (28 July 2015)

This one looks cute on the surface, and is definitely tamer than the other games mentioned on this list so far. However, as the name suggests, it also has more than its share of jump scares. In other words, don't look at this one and assume it must be fine for any younger gamers out there.

As the official synopsis asks: "Will you break once the cuteness starts to fade off and you're running for your life from the unspeakable hideous beings that shake and writhe in bowels of this house? They wait for you, they wait and hunger for meeting you. They long to finally meet you and show you how flexible your skin can be after it has soaked in blood. Will you brave this journey, will you set to beat the impossible, the insane, and the incorporeal?"

6 Doki Doki Literature Club! (22 September 2017)

Probably the best reviewed game on this list, Doki Doki Literature Club looks like a sweet anime visual novel/dating sim, but is absolutely not that. In fact, I'd warn you now that this is probably the most disturbing of all the games here, due to the incredibly heavy themes it deals with. This game will climb into your head and mess with it in a big way. To say much more would be to ruin the experience, but if you're prepared for a difficult (emotionally speaking) game, then this is for you.

5 No More Room in Hell (31 October 2011)

Sometimes all you want to do after a stressful day is pick up a makeshift weapon and batter as many zombies as you can get your hands on. No More Room In Hell does a great job of giving players a way to live out that fantasy. But make no mistake: while this multiplayer survival horror is more action-oriented than something like Resident Evil 2, it's still pants-wettingly scary in places. The sequel, No More Room In Hell 2 was released earlier this year, but the first game is better reviewed and completely free.

4 SEPTEMBER 1999 (10 October 2018)

There's something particularly disturbing about found-footage horror. Movies like the Blair Witch project and Paranormal Activity (the first one, at least) resonated with audiences because they found fear in the mundane, often letting your mind fill in the blanks. SEPTEMBER 1999 is a very similar vibe, and a short burst of pure horror. The game only runs for the length of the "recorded footage", so you have five minutes and 30 seconds to work out what exactly happened on September 1999.

3 Exhibit Of Sorrows (23 April 2022)

Exhibit Of Sorrows starts off as a pretty simple point-and-click game that looks like pretty much any Flash game from the 00s. However, it quickly turns nasty, and you'll soon find yourself navigating a series of increasingly disturbing scenes. Light on challenge, but definitely freaky. Do not play if you're afraid of clowns.

2 Burger & Frights (23 August 2021)

The wonderfully named Burger & Frights is a low-poly horror game you can play in your browser. It's a pretty simple concept: you wanted a burger, so now you have to ride home from the fast food joint in the dark on your bike. Anyone who's had to travel through the woods at night to get home will know it's not exactly a fun experience, and Burger & Frights nails the feeling of terror lurking in every shadowy crevice.

1 NextDoor (2 April 2021)

A short cinematic pixel horror game inspired by Junji Ito's horror manga. If you know anything about Junji Ito, you'll know this means NextDoor is pretty damn disturbing. This is another browser-based horror game, and one you can beat in one sitting. The pixel-art really adds to the nostalgic horror vibe, and it's definitely worth a look if you're feeling brave.