When fans play a horror game like Dead By Daylight, it’s not impossible for horror fans to miss some other scary games referenced or outright lifted to participate in the terrifying death game. After all, games like Dead By Daylight want to show players that sometimes the most terrifying killers out there can’t be killed, only outran. However, more hardcore horror fans might realize that the last statement isn’t necessarily the case - especially for extremely specific games.
In fact, there are actually some horror games with surprisingly wholesome endings. This can catch players off-guard, especially when dealing with games that have an extremely unsettling or scary premise.
8 The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (2000)
While The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is certainly an adventure game, some fans would argue it’s one of the darkest among the Zelda titles, with even hints of horror. Its story will have Link end up in Terminus, a dimension parallel to Hyrule, as he uses magical masks to stop the Moon from falling into the world and destroying it. Link only has three days to do this and would have to repeat the same three-day cycle whenever he fails on this quest.
Although bleak in terms of having Link on an eternal purgatorial loop, Link manages to save the day by lifting four dark curses that plagued the land. It’s revealed that the fabled Majora’s Mask itself is the source of all evil in Termina, with Link finally waking up in what seems to be a dream in a forest.
7 Haunting Grounds (2005)
Haunting Grounds is considered the spiritual successor of the Clock Tower series, with protagonist Fiona Belli finding herself trapped in a castle in an undisclosed location after a car accident with her parents. As she starts finding her way out, she befriends a dog named Hewie that becomes an integral part of the game.
Throughout the story, Fiona discovers that she carries the alchemical element Azoth, which the game’s antagonist Riccardo aspires to acquire for immortality. She faces multiple castle officers throughout the game, such as groundskeeper Debilitas who becomes a rival of sorts in the story.
Despite her struggles, Fiona and Hewie’s friendship would help them finally leave the castle in peace as the game’s true ending - quite unlike other survival horror titles that often leave survivors alive with some price. Moreover, letting Debilitas live would have allowed him to allow the pair to escape - with a second playthrough even allowing Debilitas to help them escape much earlier.
6 Parasite Eve (1998)
The running gag that “the Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” becomes a part of the terrifying reality in Parasite Eve, as the game involves NYPD rookie Aya Brea in her quest to stop a being known only as Mitochondria Eve, an entity capable of controlling Neo-Mitochondrial Creatures, or lifeforms spawned out of evolved mitochondria. She aims to create a “perfect world” with herself as its ruler, something Aya and her newly-found Parasite Energy want to stop.
At the end of the game, Aya manages to defeat Eve in her transformation as the “Ultimate Being,” retaining her mitochondrial powers that she uses to save the world two more times in the game’s sequels.
In New Game Plus, Aya manages to have a tearful reunion with her twin sister, Maya, who died two decades prior to the game. Now “the Original Eve,” Aya would eventually have to fight this version of Maya, only for Maya’s consciousness to fight back and purge the Eve persona at the cost of their own lives. This will have Aya lose her powers - a worthy cost, considering how this encounter helped her finally come to terms with the death of her sister.
5 Sweet Home (1989)
Despite the rather primitive graphics of Sweet Home, its story remains horrifying and its gameplay captivating enough for fans to state this game laid the groundwork for survival horror. It begins when five documentarists go to an abandoned mansion to uncover the paintings of famous artist Ichiro Mamiya. They soon learn they’re in for a fight for survival as the ghost of a woman traps them inside along with monsters out to kill them.
Throughout the game, the team realizes that the ghost is none other than Lady Mamiya, the wife of Ichiro Mamiya, who remains in grief after the death of their son. After a lengthy final battle, the team manages to appease her soul and help her pass to the afterlife just moments before rescuers arrive to save the team from the crumbling mansion.
4 Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010)
A Lovecraftian game through and through, some hail Amnesia: The Dark Descent as one of the most horrifying games of all time - especially when tiredness and being ‘scared” itself as a mechanic, with protagonist Daniel (and the player) suffering more delusions the more he got scared. This all happens when Daniel wakes up in an abandoned castle with no memory of who he truly was or what’s happened.
As the story reveals, this all began after Daniel discovers a strange orb that summoned a guardian known only as the Shadow which started killing everyone else who came in contact with it. Consumed by guilt due to the extent of what he’s done to “protect” himself, Daniel forces himself to forget his memories, prompting the game to start. And while all seems lost for a happy ending, Daniel manages to redeem himself from eternal darkness, all while demonstrating the willingness to sacrifice a part of himself.
3 Silent Hill (1999)
The Silent Hill franchise proves that one’s mind can be one’s worst enemy - especially in the face of a vengeful spirit, a cult aiming to raise its twisted version of a god, and a town capable of bringing horrors to life. The story begins when Harry Mason has to search for his adopted daughter Cheryl, who was separated from him after a car crash en route to the resort town Silent Hill. This journey periodically brings him to a horrifying alternate dimension called the Otherworld, all the while meeting unlikely allies such as police officer Cybil Bennett.
The first game meets its climax deep in the Otherworld, where the malevolent Order has begun preparations for sacrificing Cheryl to call forth an evil god. Despite this dark premise, Silent Hill 3 proves there is still light amid true darkness, as Heather Mason was shown to be Cheryl reborn, making Silent Hill’s good ending canonical. Moreover, its Good+ ending will have both Harry and Cibyl survive, providing Heather with a mother figure to look up to.
2 Alien Isolation (2014)
Of all games within the Alien franchise, it’s probably Alien: Isolation that captured the sheer terror the films carried with them. Starring Ellen Ripley’s estranged daughter Amanda Ripley, players would have to help Amanda recover the black box of Ellen’s ship the Nostromo inside the abandoned Sevastopol Station to help uncover her whereabouts. Unfortunately for Ellen, this hulking space station is the only thing keeping her alive from a Xenomorph that has killed everyone inside the ship.
With the game not allowing players to truly kill the Xenomorph, Ellen had no choice but to simply try to escape its clutches. In order to avoid the Xenomorph infecting the rest of humanity, Ellen made the ultimate sacrifice of not just bringing the spaceship to the atmosphere to be burnt but also killing the Xenomorph in the vacuum of space. Just when Ellen thought she would be left alone in space to die, a searchlight is seen pointing at her face, indicating rescue.
1 Resident Evil 2 Remake (2019)
A retelling of the iconic Raccoon City Destruction Incident of 1998, Resident Evil 2 Remake will have players once again control Claire Redfield and rookie police officer Leon Kennedy as they fight for their lives in a city plagued by the undead. The two protagonists meet young Sherry Birkin, daughter of scientist William Birkin who discovered the G-Virus, and accompany her as they survive the eventual missile strike that annihilated Raccoon City and its zombie inhabitants.
While the original Resident Evil 2 game will have all of them survive and go their separate ways, the Remake definitely added more lighthearted dialogue into the mix. After completing the game twice, people will see the trio walking on the outskirts of the city while having witty banter, as well as a reveal of just how close Claire and Leon have gotten throughout the series. This was a great way to showcase their development, considering Claire and Sherry would eventually pursue anti-bioterrorism work while Leon would become the go-to government agent on bioterrorism throughout the sequels.
