It’s that time of year again: The Game Awards are on the horizon, and despite being one of the most talked-about genres in gaming, horror still doesn’t have its own category in the annual video game awards show. But that’s not stopping us from picking our favorites.
2025 was a fantastic year for horror — we got the first mainline Silent Hill game since 2012’s Downpour, a chilling new IP from Bloober Team, and loads of incredible indie titles. Each award category at The Game Awards features five nominees, but the Game of the Year category was expanded to include six nominees back in 2018, so we’ve put together a list of six games we’d love to see win Horror Game of the Year… if the award actually existed.
Cronos: The New Dawn
This year, Bloober Team debuted Cronos: The New Dawn — its first original horror IP since 2021’s The Medium. Cronos is a haunting sci-fi horror title set in a fictional version of 1980s Poland on Christmas Eve. An unnamed virus is running rampant in the town of New Dawn, turning infected victims into warped, horrifying monsters that can then merge with each other, becoming even deadlier. Although Cronos‘ combat is quite punishing (but still enjoyable), its mind-bending story is where the game truly shines. Kelly Burke delivers a phenomenal performance as the game’s mysterious, emotionally withdrawn protagonist, and the game’s final act will undoubtedly leave your jaw on the floor. Also, there are cats! -Claire Lewis
Hell is Us
Rogue Factor’s Hell Is Us isn’t straight-up survival horror in the way Cronos: The New Dawn or SIlent Hill f are. Instead, it’s a Soulslike that ended up being one of the scariest games I’ve played in 2025. With dimly lit dungeons hiding horrors and eerie enemies, it frightens with the best of them. Just look at those creepy-ass pale demons! Nightmare inducing. Hell Is Us also explores the horrors of war in ways that military shooters often neglect. The demons aren’t the real monsters in Hell Is Us; the humans perpetuating harrowing war crimes are. I mean, it’s kinda right there in the name — Hell is us. -Austin Manchester
KARMA: The Dark World
Like Cronos: The New Dawn, KARMA: The Dark World takes place in an alternate version of Europe during the height of the Soviet Union’s power in the early 1980s. This time around, it’s East Germany in 1984. But while the two games do share similar titles and settings, the similarities pretty much end there. KARMA blends Orwellian horror with Lynchian atmospheric weirdness, and the result is a game that is as compelling as it is scary. It plays like a fever dream in the best possible way, and manages to tell a fascinating story without over-explaining itself or leaving players in the dark. KARMA: The Dark World feels like a far more cohesive, far scarier version of We Happy Few, exploring themes of guilt, betrayal, and brainwashing in a world where information is the deadliest weapon. -Claire Lewis
No, I’m Not A Human
No, I’m Not a Human weaves several modern anxieties together into one of the year’s most tense psychological horror games. In its disastrous world, the sun is heating up and melting people in the streets during daytime hours. Humans can only safely come out at night in search of shelter for the coming day. Unfortunately, that climate crisis is happening at the same time that alien invaders have touched down on Earth and disguised themselves as humans. You play as a small home owner who, each night, has to decide who to let in and who to turn away. As news broadcasts reveal new ways to discover who is an alien each day, you’re then forced to test the people you’re sheltering for symptoms and kill anyone who doesn’t pass the smell test. It’s a pitch-black nod to social deduction games like Among Us, built for a cynical world where no one seems to trust their neighbors anymore. -Giovanni Colantonio
Eyes of Hellfire
Inspired by an Irish urban legend, Eyes of Hellfire is basically Among Us in a horror game costume — but it’s much more than that, too. Developed by the creators of Cardpocalypse and Guild of Dungeoneering, Eyes of Hellfire blends tabletop and card game elements with social deduction. Players are tasked with exploring the enormous Hellfire Lodge and given a goal to complete as a group (for example: escape the lodge). But each player also has their own private goal (chosen at random from a deck of “curse cards”) to achieve before the game comes to an end. These goals range from stealing other players’ items to getting revived a certain number of times, and are oftentimes at odds with the group’s main goal. Additionally, one player may draw the Eyes of Hellfire curse card, giving them the power to wrest the win away from the group, should they manage to correctly guess which curse card is afflicting other players. The game’s creepy setting — and the constant need to lie to your fellow players — results in an extremely tense gameplay experience that stands out from other titles in the “friendslop” genre — which is why its developers want you to experience this spine-chiller with your real-life friends. -Claire Lewis
Silent Hill f
It’s been 13 years since horror fans got a new mainline Silent Hill game, and Silent Hill f was absolutely worth the wait. Set in 1960s Japan, Silent Hill f marks the first game in the franchise to take place in a non-American town, and although the fictional town of Ebisugaoka is miles away from Toluca Lake, the foggy streets of Silent Hill f still feel familiar. With stunning enemy design and multiple, equally jaw-dropping endings, the game blends beautiful environments and grotesque monsters into a disturbing journey that unapologetically examines the horrors of growing up female. There are plenty of jumpscares to go around, but Silent Hill f‘s biggest strengths are the quiet moments of steadily building tension that eventually bloom into heart-pounding sequences of abject terror. Weeks after finishing the game, these scenes are still playing on a loop in my head. -Claire Lewis