5 Best Video Games Like Silent Hill

The "Silent Hill" franchise has brought a more noticeably psychological edge in delivering its own survival horror frights since the original 1999 game on PlayStation. Since then, the "Silent Hill" series has risen and fallen, but fortunately is in the midst of a rebirth led by the 2024 remake of "Silent Hill 2." As the Konami property has ebbed and flowed, it's revolved around largely troubled protagonists exploring disturbing, mist-shrouded environments as their inner demons take on monstrous manifestations. These terror-driven titles have certainly connected with gamers worldwide, producing some of the most essential horror video games to play.

As fans wait for the latest "Silent Hill" game to haunt their consoles, there is no shortage of similarly spooky titles to try out. These games also rely heavily on unsettling atmosphere and white-knuckled gameplay to keep players riveted. We're highlighting the greatest of these, visibly inspired by "Silent Hill" while providing their own unique scares. These are the five best video games like "Silent Hill," deriving their survival horror thrills from unsettling psychological terror in the most effective ways.

The 2020 indie game "Visage" took a claustrophobic and psychologically disturbing approach to its haunted house story. The game's protagonist is Dwayne Anderson, who finds himself trapped in a nightmarish vision of his home after killing himself after he murdered his family. As Anderson is stalked throughout the large, darkened house by a malevolent presence, he learns about the tragic history of its past residents. The more time that Anderson spends in the darkness, the more his sanity steadily erodes, making him more vulnerable to paranormal activity, including ghostly attacks.

With its emphasis on maintaining sanity and its scary suburban setting, "Visage" feels like a cross between "Amnesia" and "P.T." Like so many "Silent Hill" protagonists, Anderson has a truly messed up backstory that fuels much of the game's story and that of its other unfortunate characters. Gameplay-wise, the title is as anxiety-inducing as modern gaming gets, particularly whenever players have to brave the dark to progress. A video game that you should never play by yourself, "Visage" is a modern indie masterpiece.

The Polish game studio Bloober Team are the developers behind the 2024 "Silent Hill 2" remake and the upcoming remake of the first game. Before that, they developed several acclaimed original horror games that evoked the "Silent Hill" tone, including the 2021 game "The Medium." The game's protagonist is Marianne, a psychic who helps restless souls find peace while grieving the loss of her foster father. Curious about the nature and origins of her powers, Marianne investigates a remote vacation resort abandoned after the collapse of communism only to find a deadly supernatural mystery.

There is no shortage of creepy things found in "The Medium," largely fueled by tragedy and other melancholic and turbulent emotions. The game's environment juxtaposes the ghosts of Poland's Cold War past with literal ghosts, each haunting and terrifying all at once. To heighten this foreboding atmosphere, longtime "Silent Hill" composer Akira Yamaoka co-wrote the game's score, giving the proceedings an operatic quality. One of the best psychological horror games in years, "The Medium" is Bloober Team's most distinct original title yet.

Not every horror game influenced by "Silent Hill" needs to be told from a third-person or first-person perspective, of course. German studio rose-engine demonstrates the effectiveness of that change in perspective beautifully with its 2022 title "Signalis," played from a top-down point-of-view. The game is set in a dystopian futuristic world with the protagonist, Elster, exploring an abandoned mining facility where workers were killed or transformed by a strange contagion. As Elster progresses, she begins to regain her memories and the true nature of her relationships driving her forward.

"Signalis" comes off as a lo-fi cross between "Silent Hill" and "Dead Space," telling an emotionally involving story with an ominous science fiction setting. Elster's emotional arc plays out similarly to many "Silent Hill" protagonists while the game also features a healthy amount of puzzle-solving. The top-down perspective also helps elevate the atmosphere and distinguish it from any number of thematically similar contemporaries. "Signalis" is perfect to sink countless hours into, providing players with a memorable sci-fi horror tale that keeps its scares intimately personal.

After launching the "Layers of Fear" series in 2016, Bloober Team returned it to its roots with a 2023 reimagining. The game combines and updates the story from the preceding two titles while adding a new narrative tying them more explicitly together. This new chapter centers on a writer who experiences the stories of a painter exploring a Victorian mansion and an actor trapped on a ship. These troubled characters all rediscover their respectively traumatic pasts as they separately delve into haunted environments.

The 2023 "Layers of Fear" brings new depths of madness to the familiar stories and the gameplay and presentation noticeably refined. Like "Silent Hill," the "Layers of Fear" series has always been about recognizing and reconciling with trauma, something more saliently articulated by the 2023 game. Using more modern hardware, Bloober Team is able to deliver truly chilling environments for players to explore, maintaining an unrelentingly ominous atmosphere. Another clear example of why Bloober Team got the nod to revive "Silent Hill," "Layers of Fear" is a solid scary story.

The indie studio Headware Games has produced plenty of titles visibly influenced by the original PlayStation era, like "Chasing Static." These sensibilities extend to its 2024 game "Hollowbody," whose protagonist, Mica, explores an abandoned British city. Mica ventures into this sinister citadel in search for her missing partner Sasha, battling ravenous monsters every step of the way. Mica must find a way to escape from this monster-ridden metropolis in one piece, solving puzzles along the way.

"Hollowbody" channels the classic early 2000s era of survival horror games without coming off as dated or derivative. The game evokes its influences through its frequent use of fixed-angle camera positions, just like those initial "Resident Evil" and "Silent Hill" games. But beyond its horror bonafides, the game is a bit more accessible than most survival horror titles, with its well-timed save points and adjustable difficulty. A haunting, dystopian future take on the genre, "Hollowbody" gives players a nightmarish new environment to immerse themselves into.