Most horror games out there are mostly a single-player experience or asymmetric PVP like Dead by Daylight. It’s not that often we get something with a huge focus on PVE instead. But thanks to the recent popularity of Phasmophobia, a four-player online co-op game where you explore a haunted house, things might change. Before we see a resurgence in pure co-op horror games in the future, though, here are 13 other games like Phasmophobia you can play with your friends this Halloween.
1. The Dark Pictures Anthology
It’s quite rare that we get a horror-focused AAA title that comes with a co-op element. Thankfully Supermassive Games delivers. So far, it has made two titles under its The Dark Pictures Anthology umbrella, Man of Medan and Little Hope. In the former, five friends set sail on a holiday diving trip that soon changes into something much more sinister when they are caught by pirates and brought to the fabled ghost ship Ourang Medan. While the latter follows several college students, who become stranded in a town after a bus crash and witness an execution of a group of settlers from the past who look exactly like them.
The Dark Pictures titles provide two kinds of co-op modes. One, the Movie Night mode, is a local co-op where you pass around the controller every time the game switches its playable characters. The other is Shared Story mode, the more basic online co-op where two players play two different characters at the same time.
2. White Noise Online
There’s a sequel, but they went with “asymmetric PVP” gameplay instead.
You and three other friends have to investigate a spooky mystery and looking for clues while avoiding being devoured by a supernatural creature. Featuring over 15 playable characters and six different scenarios to explore, White Noise Online can be played solo as well. This 2014-released horror co-op game also has a ‘Replay Screen’ feature, where you can check the path you and your friends followed once a game session is over.
3. Sign of Silence
Escaping from a strange, ominous small town called Danwille won’t be an easy task. This four-player co-op game covers a few square miles area. Traverse through woods, swamps, and desolated streets, avoid making too much noise as not to attract monsters’ attention, and carefully working together to ensure your survival. But while you’re studying the dark secret behind the town, be wary that someone else is also lurking around in the forest aside from monsters…
4. Bigfoot
If you’re bored with hunting ghosts, how about hunting a bigfoot this time? Explore the wilderness alone or with friends, hunt animals for bait, defend yourself against bears, endure the harsh weather, and in time you will come face to face with the legend itself. Unfortunately, as an Early Access title, people are still having issues with the game. Notably, the huge downtime looking for the creature and the bigfoot having too much health while players don’t have enough resources to beat it. Hopefully, the developer can polish it quickly.
5. The Blackout Club
If you prefer your spooky experience to be more in line with IT or Stranger Things, this game is for you. Every night, everyone in town gets out of bed and sleepwalks but have no recollection of it when they wake up. But one day, one of your friends goes missing in the middle of a “blackout” — and their parents, the teachers, the police, no one believes you. The Blackout Club was then formed to get to the bottom of it. Be careful though, the mysterious Shape that’s only visible when you close your eyes is coming for the club.
Missions are procedurally-generated and vary according to your level. Each member gets to create their own character as well as customize their looks and abilities. The game also features drop-in/drop-out multiplayer for one to four players.
6. Labyrinthine
Also quite different from most horror games like Phasmophobia, this one takes you and up to three friends into a creepy hedge maze. Try to find a way out of there by finding tools such as a compass or a flaregun, read on scattered notes about the history and lore of the maze, and avoid the prowling monsters inside of it.
7. Loco Parentis
It was your usual day in your usual decrepit apartment, well, at least until a little girl asks you to help her find her mother anyway. And then everything goes completely off the rail. The road to hell is paved by good intentions, as people said. Help your friends look in the dark using a flashlight. Save your friend’s skin from unknown horrors with a blast from your gun. Don’t forget to say hello to the other tenants like that deformed hunchback or that old lady having a seizure in the bathtub. And finally, uncover the mystery behind the lost little girl and reunite her with her mom — or die trying. Just like Phasmophobia, Loco Parentis also support VR headsets if that’s your thing.
8. Handy Harry’s Haunted House Services
There’s nothing wrong with your browser, that’s just how the game actually looks.
Fuse boxes in a haunted place are broken, and it is your job to fix it. Find those broken fuse boxes and fix them quickly before the ghosts can catch you. The game features “retro” visual, eight-player co-op, randomly generated levels, “AI-generated” jumpscares, and character customization. Handy Harry’s also has two more game modes, PvP Mode, where one of you becomes the ghost, and the survival Endless Mode.
9. Escape from Kyoto House
Solve puzzles, crack riddles, and discover hidden secrets in your adventure to escape this particular Japanese-themed room. But what’s so scary about an escape room game, you asked? Well, Taichi Games has released a “Horror Mode,” which remixes the puzzles and greatly increases the difficulty, adding some terrifying new mechanics as well as evil spirits into the game. Like Handy Harry’s, the graphics are cartoony, but that doesn’t mean both games won’t get intense as you’re being chased by creepy ghosts.
10. Pacify
As a new member of Paranormal Activity Helpers Incorporated, it’s your job to go to a supposedly haunted place and bring some solid evidence of a haunting back to the company. Together with three other agents, you must now investigate a 100 years-old funeral parlor that’s haunted by the spirit of a little girl. Either play in co-op, where you all work to help each other escape both the girl and the house. Or screw each other up in the PvP, where everyone is an intern for the company, and the one that does the most work gets hired.
11. Unfortunate Spacemen
Horror doesn’t mean you have to face supernatural or ghostly enemies all the time. Play as an astronaut stranded in desolate outposts and complete a bunch of randomized objectives to escape them while being hunted by deadly aliens. Unfortunate Spacemen supports six-player Story Mode, nine-player Survival Mode, as well as 16-player Among Us-like game mode. Great deal for a free-to-play title.
12. Obscure
Compared to the other titles in this list (except Dark Pictures), the last two games will be more story-driven. The first one is Obscure. Set in a school campus, you have to take control of a group of five students that are trying to investigate the mystery behind missing students. Both Obscure and Obscure II support local co-op mode. If you enjoy cheesy horror and thriller movies and can stand the PS2-tier visual, this series should be put on your wishlist.
13. Dead Rising
The ticking clock element is the true horror in this series.
And the other is Capcom’s popular zombie game. In each title, zombies are a mere obstacle, and humanity is the real monster. Help other survivors, stay alive, and slowly unravel the sinister mystery behind the zombie outbreaks. Only the first Dead Rising and Dead Rising 4 don’t have a co-op feature in the story mode.
Those are the best PVE-oriented cooperative horror games you can play together with your friends. Although coming up with “13” titles was just a pure coincidence. Do you think the list is missing your other favorites? Let me know in the comments.
