There are a great number of horror games available on Xbox Game Pass, Game Pass for PC, and Game Pass Ultimate, but if you want to play the best horror games on Game Pass, that list is a bit shorter. The elite few that make up this list represent the scariest, most engrossing, and sometimes simply grossest of the Game Pass horror games available as of 2024. Whether you’re playing these in the fall before Halloween or coming back to the list months later to play them all, you can’t go wrong with any of these scary games on Game Pass.

Of course, if you don’t have Game Pass, we also have a wider list of the best horror games, and if you have Game Pass but no appetite for scary games, you may prefer our list of the best games on Game Pass. For more on the best horror games on Xbox Game Pass, keep reading.

If you’re looking for a deal on Xbox Game Pass subscriptions, this is the best of them available right now. It gives you a membership that reflects the price it went for before two recent increases.

DayZ

• Release Year: 2018 on PC, 2019 on Xbox
• Developer: Bohemia Interactive
• Players: 1-60
• Scare Factor: 8

The de facto leader in the busy subgenre of open-world survival games featuring zombies, DayZ has been dominating the scene for years now and remains a compelling and unflinching experience today. With a new expansion on the way, it’s a great time to get into the game. Just know that it’s not going to be easy. Expect to starve, freeze, or bleed to death early on as you find your footing with the game. Nothing comes easily in DayZ, which makes your minor victories–like sneaking out a back door as zombies bang on the front door–all the more riveting.

Dead by Daylight

• Release Year: 2016 on PC, 2017 on Xbox
• Developer: Behaviour Interactive
• Players: 2-5
• Scare Factor: 7

There are many asymmetrical horror games today, but they’re all still chasing the 4v1 DBD in popularity. Behaviour’s monster mash-up–or Spooky Fortnite, as I like to call it–features dozens of bad guys, including many from licensed properties like Scream, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween, and has built up a passionate (albeit sometimes too passionate) community for itself, making it the biggest game in its field. There’s no telling what, if anything, will knock DBD off its pedestal, which is owed in part to the game’s high skill ceiling, not just its museum of famous villains.

The Evil Within 2

• Release Year: 2017
• Developer: Tango Gameworks
• Players: 1
• Scare Factor: 8

The Evil Within felt like a strange but charming amalgam of eclectic horror ideas all mashed into one game. The Evil Within 2 hones in on its main ideas a bit more, though never loses its touch of unpredictable madness. With visually striking boss battles, some gameplay inspirations from The Last of Us, and a particular recurring ghost encounter that shook me to my core, The Evil Within 2 is the better, more refined game in a series I hope we see again someday.

Inside

• Release Year: 2016
• Developer: Playdead
• Players: 1
• Scare Factor: 7

Both of Playdead’s incredibly moody puzzle-platformers are on Game Pass, and you’d not be wrong to play Limbo, too, but if you can make time for just one, Inside is the stronger pick. With a story I dare not spoil, nor one I could easily explain anyway, Inside is tense, atmospheric, and mechanically tight to the point of virtual perfection. Making your way through its nightmarish world is an unforgettable experience, and you should play it with headphones–though that probably goes for every game on this list, to be fair. The whole game is great, but the ending will have you jumping into YouTube breakdowns and Reddit discussions in record time.

The Walking Dead (Telltale series)

• Release Year: 2012
• Developer: Telltale
• Players: 1
• Scare Factor: 5

The entire Telltale series is on Game Pass, which actually makes me jealous of folks who haven’t played them before. Though the series’ game engine shows its age–it did even when these four games were new–the story remains compelling and single-handedly launched Telltale into a stratosphere of popularity it had never achieved earlier with more puzzle-centric games like Back to the Future and Jurassic Park. The Walking Dead games ignore most puzzle opportunities in favor of mainlining story beats and character development, and it proved to be a winning formula.

World War Z

• Release Year: 2019
• Developer: Saber Interactive
• Players: 1-4 in co-op, 2-8 in PvP
• Scare Factor: 6

Though Left 4 Dead isn’t on Game Pass, one of its best imitators is. World War Z comes from Saber Interactive and is still receiving updates as recently as a few weeks ago at the time of this article’s publishing. Played in four-player co-op, with first- and third-person options, WWZ is a horde shooter obviously modeled after Valve’s GOAT. It doesn’t quite reach the same heights, but with so many updates piling on the cool new campaigns, characters, and game modes, the game is also a much fuller experience than L4D, which was a less-is-more kind of game. That worked there, but WWZ’s approach works too, making it an excellent co-op zombie shooter.

Amnesia: The Bunker

• Release Year: 2023
• Developer: Frictional Games
• Players: 1
• Scare Factor: 9

The most recent Amnesia game of the four is also the scariest. In it, you play a World War I soldier left stranded in a military bunker after the exits have been covered in rubble. You’ll need to find your way out through a series of dimly lit puzzles all while…something stalks the halls. The Bunker uses a dynamic enemy AI system akin to Alien: Isolation in which the monster reacts to your behavior, following your sound or falling for your distractions. The semi-unscripted nature of the beast makes escaping it the best Amnesia game to date, and subsequent playthroughs go a step further by changing the locations of quest items, giving you a fresh nightmare each time you restart the game.

Dead Space

• Release Year: 2023
• Developer: EA Motive
• Players: 1
• Scare Factor: 8

The Xbox 360 and PS3 era was especially quiet for horror games, but Dead Space would’ve been a hit in any era. Though the original is a part of Game Pass Ultimate via EA Play, the 2023 remake is also included and makes for a better starting point for new players. The gorgeous remake from EA Motive recaptures so much of the original game’s excellence, but builds on top of it with more missions, added story content, and a greater sense of dread. Dead Space is an all-time great horror game, and if you’ve played nothing on this list, it may be your best bet if you can only play one of them.

Resident Evil 2

• Release Year: 2019
• Developer: Capcom
• Players: 1
• Scare Factor: 7

The remake of a classic survival-horror game is now itself a classic survival-horror game. That’s not always how that turns out, so it’s nice that it did here. The Resident Evil 2 remake is a masterful entry in the long-running franchise–some might argue it’s the best Resident Evil game of them all. The game is largely faithful to the original, but where it differs, it’s usually for the better, like some terrifying new sequences featuring instantly memorable monsters we’ll merely tease in this space.

Still Wakes The Deep

• Release Year: 2024
• Developer: The Chinese Room
• Players: 1
• Scare Factor: 6

Some stories on this list are quite complicated. Others aren’t. Still Wakes The Deep falls into the latter camp, and that’s part of its appeal. In a short sentence, the game is John Carpenter’s The Thing, but set on an oil rig. The creature feature also has a bit of Alien DNA in it, given how the blue-collar workers are picked off by an incomprehensible threat one by one. There is an added narrative layer to the game that we’ll let you discover on your own, but really you could go into it with the above premise in mind and take from it nearly everything you’re meant to. And at about 5-7 hours long, it makes for a great Halloween all-nighter.

Dead Island 2

• Release Year: 2023
• Developer: Dambuster Studios
• Players: 1-3
• Scare Factor: 5

Let’s get the obvious joke out of the way: Yes, Dead Island 2 is set in Los Angeles, which is famously not an island. But set aside that funny disconnect between name and setting and you’ll discover a fun first-person zombie co-op game that has a GTA-like view of Hollywood. The satirical zombie-slaying RPG lets up to three players join together and take on dozens of missions across several large hubs around the city. And as comical as the game often is, it’s also quite tense, with combat that levels alongside your character very well. You’ll rarely feel overpowered in this sunny metropolis swarming with the undead, so bring a friend or two.

State of Decay 2

• Release Year: 2018
• Developer: Undead labs
• Players: 1-4
• Scare Factor: 7

If DayZ is the global leader in the open-world-zombie-survival-sim subgenre, State of Decay 2 is the more approachable sibling. While it doesn’t offer as many systems to contend with, that makes it easier to take control of, without exactly being easy itself. Several difficulty options allow for increased customization, with the hardest of them actually exceeding DayZ in its willingness to dole out punishment. State of Decay 2 is actually my favorite zombie game ever, and I’ve played nearly all of them. Catch up with this classic before State of Decay 3 launches and hopefully raises the bar higher.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood

• Release Year: 2015
• Developer: MachineGames
• Players: 1
• Scare Factor: 4

For a while, Bethesda was experimenting with standalone chapters of its most popular games that went in weird directions. The Old Blood is one of those, as it reimagines what is typically a Nazi-killing shooter series in a zombie framework. It turns out that works just fine, as it keeps intact the game’s excellent, fast-paced first-person combat and adds a touch of mysticism, turning the aggressively violent historical fiction series into a horror story. It would’ve been very easy for this game never to become a reality, but I’m glad we don’t exist in that timeline.

The Quarry

• Release Year: 2022
• Developer: Supermassive
• Players: 1, with up to 7 more influencing decisions
• Scare Factor: 6

Supermassive launched itself into a new tier as a studio to watch with 2015’s Until Dawn, and since then, it’s been chasing that high with a half-dozen and counting other horror games. The Quarry comes closest to that summit, with a supernatural slasher filled to the brim with spooky vibes, fun scenarios, and gorgeous visuals. It’s actually the team’s best-looking game to date, perfectly capturing the counselors-by-campfire mood of things like Friday The 13th and Sleepaway Camp with animation tech that outperforms the team’s other games like The Dark Pictures Anthology and The Casting of Frank Stone. It also stars I Saw The TV Glow’s Justice Smith in a role that predates his extraordinary performance in 2024’s best horror movie.

A Plague Tale: Requiem

Release Year: 2023

Developer: Asobo Studio

Players: 1

Scare Factor: 3; 8 if you’re afraid of rats

If you played Plague Tale: Innocence, you already have a pretty solid grasp on what to expect out of Requiem, though the sequel is far more expansive in its cast of characters, hallucinatory displays of Hugo’s disease, and the destruction left in Amicia and Hugo’s wake. The short version for newbies, though, is that it’s a stealthy adventure game taking place during the Black Plague in France. The Plague would be enough of a problem but in the case of poor Hugo de Rune, he’s got a far more sinister affliction infecting his blood that both weakens him and gives him supernatural powers including, unfortunately, summoning hordes of hungry Plague rats to his location. His big sister, and actual protagonist Amicia, has done a good job of keeping Hugo’s power dormant, but that all changes when they find themselves on the radar of a pagan cult. That’s a severe shorthand for a story out to cause all sorts of emotional and property damage. That is, when Amicia’s not creeping around ruining French scumbags with a slingshot.

The Casting of Frank Stone

Release Year: 2024

Developer: Supermassive Games

Players: 1

Scare Factor: 6

Every Dead by Daylight fan loves horror on some level, but not every horror fan enjoys online multiplayer. That makes The Casting of Frank Stone a godsend for the folks who just want to hang out in an ever-expansive universe without getting merked by Clown from Slipknot 26 times an hour. Instead, it’s Supermassive doing what it does best–a decision-based narrative game populated with hapless cannon fodder for a bloodthirsty menace, and your job is to make the right decisions that will keep them alive. The staunch Dead by Daylight fans will just get a little more out of the deal, with the game’s narrative filling in a few big gaps in the overarching lore, particularly in justifying the original game’s specific 4v1 setup.

Ghostwire Tokyo

Release Year: 2022

Developer: Tango Gameworks

Players: 1

Scare Factor: it’s spoooooky

It’s always a treat whenever Japanese concepts of arcane horror show up in a game, but there’s no real equivalent to how well Tango Gameworks marries it with modern day in Ghostwire Tokyo. As a mysterious fog rolls into the middle of Tokyo one night, the entire population evaporates aside from our hero, Akito. And that’s only because he’s possessed by a spirit already. Everyone else, however, has been replaced by all manner of forgotten cryptids, yokai, and good old-fashioned ghosts. Being the only living being in the city, Akito is tasked with hunting down an elusive man in a Hannya mask who’s responsible for summoning all these things to Tokyo. Akito does this with a combat style that feels like playing a first-person Doctor Strange anime. It’s an oddball gameplay loop, but it’s also chock full of creepiness, effective ghost stories, and supernatural curiosities. It’s one of the most unique titles of recent memory.

Carrion

Release Year: 2020

Developer: Phobia Game Studio

Players: 1

Scare Factor: 7

How many times have you been sitting around watching John Carpenter’s The Thing, seeing an unholy abomination of tentacles and abortive genetic material lay waste to the works of mankind, sighed and said, “That should be me, dammit.” Welp, for whichever sickos that just described, there’s a game for that. Carrion puts you in the–well, not shoes, that’s for damn sure–but in control of a massive tentacled monster that escapes from an underground lab. Your job is simply to find a way out of this place. Oh, and mercilessly slaughter and eviscerate any screaming scientists you might find along the way. Occasionally, you can even infect and possess them, manipulating them to pull switches and use guns for you. Have we mentioned this thing slaughters and eviscerates a lot of people in this game?