2025 has been a weirdly brilliant year for horror. Not just in the usual “there’s a guy with too many teeth chasing me” way, but in the sense that developers keep finding new ways to ruin our sleep schedules. Some games are existential, some are grotesque, some are just about being trapped in a corridor while the news tells you everything’s fine (it’s not). And somehow, one of the best horror games of the last 12 months stars a gang of stumbling bean-people who can’t walk in a straight line.
That’s not to say 2025 was all about the sillies. Many of the titles selected below are potential spot-holders on our list of the best survival horror games ever, while others are right up there as the most inventive indie terrors of this generation. True, they’re not all super polished – that’d be disappointingly sanitized – but all of them are unforgettable. Here are the best horror games of 2025 that messed with our collective sleep schedules the most, and hopefully at least one will require you to turn on every light in a mile radius
5. Routine
Year in Review 2025
GamesRadar+ presents Year in Review: The Best of 2025, our coverage of all the unforgettable games, movies, TV, hardware, and comics released during the last 12 months. Throughout December, we’re looking back at the very best of 2025, so be sure to check in across the month for new lists, interviews, features, and retrospectives as we guide you through the best the past year had to offer.
Developer: Lunar Software
Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series X
You’re a software engineer sent to investigate a system malfunction on a lunar base in Routine, a horror game first announced in 2012 that somehow manages to feel fresh and new despite the protracted development.
Routine’s atmosphere is top-notch, and the robots (and other spooky monsters) that populate the now-abandoned moonbase are worth the price of entry alone. The Player – really, that’s the character’s name in the credits – isn’t a soldier, and you’re armed with nothing but your Cosmonaut Assistance Tool and your wits. The stealth is slightly uninspiring, but stick with it: Routine is a visual feast, and an intelligent horror game where the story being told will both draw you in and justify the time you’ve spent with it.
4. No, I’m Not A Human
Developer: Trioskaz
Platform(s): PC
With the help of just one L-shaped hallway and a greenish filter, No I’m Not A Human’s developer Trioskaz has managed to make one of the creepiest games of the year. You, a mysterious homeowner, are stuck in the liminal space of the hallway while the world catches fire outside by day and each night waves of human detritus wash up against your door.
Or, at least, they appear to be human. Some of these humans are actually Visitors, human-faced imposters that will pick off your human friends in the dead of night if you let them in. But you have to let someone in, as having other humans is essential for your survival. The horror here is all in the paranoia as you watch TV broadcasts to try and work out how to find the Visitors amongst you, and the hopelessness when you realise there’s just no way to know for sure.
3. R.E.P.O.
Developer: Semiwork
Platform(s): PC
R.E.P.O. isn’t even out yet, but it’s somehow one of the best horror games of the year – even in Early Access. You star as one of up to six tiny bean-shaped… somethings toddling into abandoned facilities to loot valuables in the name of profit. It’s the mundanity that makes R.E.P.O sing, the fact you’re essentially playing in the role of a team of furniture movers until something appears and tries to brutally murder you.
R.E.P.O. is my favourite of the recent wave of “friendslop” horror games, mostly because the physics-based movement gives every encounter a slapstick edge that only makes the terror hit harder. You’re always slightly out of control – tripping over debris, sliding off railings, fumbling furniture while something growls in the vents. The systems keep piling small disasters on top of each other until your extraction turns into a frantic, screaming relay race. It’s messy, it’s chaotic, and it’s proof that horror doesn’t have to be stoic or serious to be effective. Sometimes fear is funniest when your friend Tim is giggling away from his hiding place under a coffee table as you’re dissected by someone with blades for arms. This is an upcoming horror game to watch for non-PC owners. Unless you do have a PC… in which case, what are you waiting for?
2. Dying Light: The Beast
Developer: Techland
Platform(s): PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
Dying Light: The Beast is Dying Light 3 by another name. Originally conceived as a DLC to Dying Light 2, this actually erases a lot of the missteps of that game and makes the most exciting Dying Light game so far, in addition to bringing back original series protagonist Kyle Crane with a host of superhuman abilities. Is it fan service? Sure, if you’re one of the people who can tell the multitude of different white dark-haired leading men in video games apart.
The story is B-movie schlock but the teeming swarms of zombies are deadly serious, and at nighttime they’ll feel like it as these are the best zombies in video games. They’re joined by Chimeras, experimental creatures that you can inject into yourself to juice up your own abilities. Dying Light: The Beast starts as a revenge thriller but expands outwards as you meet more people and explore the vibrant area of Castor Woods. Lean into it and learn about the world around you, and it’s impossible not to be drawn in for a fun, zombie-splattering, time. Our Dying Light: The Beast review will give you all the grisly details.
1. Silent Hill f
Developer: Konami, NeoBards Entertainment
Platform(s): PS5, PC, Xbox Series X
It’s been, what, 13 years since we last got a new mainline Silent Hill game? Yet Silent Hill f proves that the series doesn’t need to be set in the foggy Pyramid Head-infested streets of Silent Hill to be scary. The series has had a bit of a renaissance after last year’s Silent Hill 2 Remake, when Bloober Team surprised the doubters and got everyone excited about fog and whacking things with a steel pipe again.
The Japan-set thriller is one of the more unique titles among the best Silent Hill games on top of being my number-one pick for best horror game of 2025. But the more things change, the more they stay the same; protagonist Shimizu Hinako is as troubled as James Sutherland, while the fictional Japanese village of Ebisugaoka, while a departure from previous US settings, is every bit as terrifying as the series’ eponymous hometown when the fog draws in.
Fungal bloom replaces industrial decay, but Silent Hill f is just as adept at using notes, enemy designs and cutscenes to show a shattered psyche. It’s enough to make Silent Hill f stand toe-to-toe with the best Japanese horror games, replete with challenging puzzles and fiddly Souls-y combat, but even if the latter gives you pause, you should be here for the atmosphere. Trust me – it delivers in spades.
Silent Hill f is one of the best games of 2025. See where it ranks among your favorites!
