Eight Terrifying Games And Series To Pick Up During Xbox’s Halloween Sale

It’s hard to go wrong with picking up any Resident Evil title this Halloween, since I’d argue they’re all varying degrees of good, depending on what you’re looking for. Everyone loves the Resident Evil 2 remake that was released a few years back, as well as Resident Evil 4 from just last year, but my favorite of the bunch is RE7 Biohazard. It’s the first game in the series that I ever completed, and it’s one of the most effective horror games I’ve ever played. It turns out that a more methodical approach, a change in perspective, and a creepy Louisiana swamp and manor were all I needed to finally get into the series. You can pick up Resident Evil 7 Biohazard and all its DLC in the gold edition, which is available for just $16.

Dead Space is simply one of the best to ever do it. It was a brutal and necessary revitalization of the survival-horror genre back in 2008, and its remake inherits the finest qualities of the original while polishing its roughest edges. At a time when remakes are more prevalent than ever—and they often buck the trend by being more stylistic reinterpretations rather than 1:1 retellings—the latest Dead Space is shockingly faithful, and it’s a welcome sight. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and Dead Space is incredibly smart to leave well enough alone. However, it also brings the original’s already sky-high production values to an even more elevated level, making it one of the most robust and impressive horror packages available. Dead Space is only $21 right now, but alternatively you can pick it up on EA Play through Game Pass.

Alien: Isolation is finally receiving a sequel, which seemed like such an easy layup when it first set the world on fire ten years ago. That means that this first-person horror game is now essential material to get to before that sequel is eventually released. And what a great time you’re about to have with it, because Alien: Isolation is an all-timer.

Talk about ridiculously high production values; Isolation nails the retro-futuristic vision of the dystopian capitalist nightmare Ridley Scott’s film so thoroughly brought to life. The gadgetry that you use in Isolation, and the surfaces of the station you explore, all seem positively ripped from the set of Alien. Best of all, it makes a tangible and menacing threat of the Xenomorph, which stalks you throughout the game. The game might be too long for its own good, but Alien: Isolation is still one of the most important horror games of the 2010s, and one of the very best licensed titles out there. You can now snag it for $10.

I think there are fewer real things more frightening than the sea. I’ll never go to space and witness the expanse of that void for myself, but I do regularly dip my toe into the Atlantic, and that’s about as close to that experience as I’m getting. I enjoy a good beach, but it’s everything beyond them that sends a chill down my spine. The sea goes so much deeper than we can really fathom (You’re fired—Ed), and hides so many freaky creatures and manners of life that are hard to conceive. Dredge taps into that for its nightmare fuel.

In this Lovecraftian mystery set at sea, you are tasked with the operation of a small ship adrift on cursed waters. On your utterly horrifying voyages, you will dredge (heh) up all manner of sea creatures, from mundane fish to…other stranger things that dare not be named or looked at. At night, a fog falls over the sea that restricts your sight, plays tricks on the mind, and deteriorates your sanity unless you rest or find a safe harbor. Dredge is never outright terrifying, but like my favorite horror, there’s a tinge of dread everywhere you go that more than makes up for the lack of jump scares. Dredge and all its DLC are available in a complete edition for $32.

So the Dead Rising games aren’t really scary (unless you’re absolutely terrified by the passage of time) but neither is every single piece of work in the horror genre. Horror is so immensely flexible, and it is quite often actually deeply funny. Dead Rising takes zombies and makes them hilarious by dropping you into worlds filled with tools to mix and match, to create ridiculous weapons of mass undead slaughter—like motorcycles with chainsaws attached to them.

If hacking and slashing scores of the undead in an increasingly wacky fashion sounds like the ideal way to spend your Halloween season, then pick up any of the Dead Rising games that are currently discounted on Xbox. Dead Rising 2 and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record seem like the fan favorites, but 3 and 4 are also on sale, and all of them are going for five or six dollars right now, making them a steal no matter what.

I think the Metro series from 4A Games are some of the tightest, weirdest, and most immersive first-person shooters on the market right now. But while Exodus is my favorite, it’s hard to recommend for anyone looking for a horror game right now. However, the first two games in the series—Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light,—are both much more linear and scarier titles.

Both are mainly set in the claustrophobic tunnels of the Russian underground, which are plagued by monstrosities and supernatural phenomena that lurk in the dark. Encounters against these creatures are regularly fraught with tension, and both 2033 and Last Light lean more into the rhythm and pace of the horror genre, while sprinkling in doses of human drama and psychological terror. They’re also, crucially, shorter games, meaning that you can reasonably pack all those scares into a weekend. Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light are each discounted to $3, or you can pick up the bundle of all three games for $9.

I don’t really consider Prey a horror game, but it does terrify the player frequently enough that I might begin reconsidering that position. Every new room you step into is, after all, an entirely new environment that could be hiding a shape-shifting alien waiting to get the jump on you. Mimics aren’t even the worst thing you run into in Prey. Typhon alien species takes various shapes, like the always-intimidating Phantoms that blast you the minute they catch sight of you.Late in the game, a particularly huge Typhon simply hangs over you in certain areas and menaces you to no end.

There are lots of smaller moments and decisions like these that lend Prey the energy of a horror game, and it manages to get under your skin more effectively than a lot of attempts at horror in this medium. If you want to see for yourself how terrifying Prey can really be, pick it up while it’s $6, or snag it on Game Pass.

First off, it goes without saying that in order to enjoy Undead Nightmare, you must first have Red Dead Redemption. You might want to have played the game too, because this zombie-themed DLC functions as a bit of a goofy epilogue to the main story. However it’s worth it to be able to play Undead Nightmare, which is still one of the very best DLCs I’ve ever picked up. A curse has fallen over the West, resurrecting the dead in hordes and turning Red Dead Redemption into a campy, Evil Dead-ish parody of itself and the horror genre. It is wonderful.

I remember Undead Nightmare being particularly impressive when it was released. Red Dead Redemption’s vision of the dying west was always sparse, but this DLC turned that quiet contemplative isolation into something to be scared of. Scores of zombies appear seemingly out of nowhere and set on you and your horse, and the primary design of its set-piece missions involves fighting off waves of them in order to defend the few spots of civilization left. Mythical creatures, like four horses that resemble the horsemen of the apocalypse, can be found in the wild. Undead Nightmare utterly transforms the game in ways I didn’t think Rockstar would ever do, and it’s a trick that the developer has seemed reluctant to pull off again in the decade-and-a-half since. So if you’ve got the original game on your Xbox and $8 to spare, pick up Undead Nightmare and experience one of the goofiest and best DLCs to ever grace a game.