The Best Survival Horror Games With Retro-Style Graphics
Featuring ‘90s and PS1-style visuals, these stellar survival horror games revive a retro era of item scarcity and murky visuals to deliver a distinct fear factor.
Posted 2 months ago
We’re living in a golden age of retro-styled survival horror. Remakes like Silent Hill 2 are welcome, certainly, but it’s the indie terrors that are truly leaving us breathless. Taking visual inspiration from the graphics of the ‘90s and consoles like the PS1, these excellent retro-style survival horror games are resurrecting an era in which murky visuals generated a unique sense of unease. But more than that, the best of them are carving their own indelible and unforgettably disquieting marks on the genre. These are our favorite survival horror games with retro-style graphics.
Signalis
Signalis is a modern classic. And we don’t mean that just because of its sleek and stylish take on old-school visuals. This enigmatic tale of androids, secret facilities, and mental fragmentation blends puzzles and combat with a genuinely engrossing narrative. A tale with tendrils that will wriggle under your skin and writhe within your mind as you attempt to thread them together. Think the gameplay of classic Resident Evil mixed with Silent Hill’s reality-warping story elements and you’ll be touching upon what Signalis brings to the survival horror field.
The story begins as your spaceship crash-lands on an icy planet. From there, you delve into a labyrinthine underground facility packed with juddering horrors that your eyes can barely comprehend. All the while, you’re dogged by a compulsion to make good on a promise you struggle to even recall. Don’t expect to grasp Signalis’ full story in a single playthrough. What you see is only the first layer to the mystery. But even if you understand little, the core experience is a sublime revival of old-school survival horror systems. No fan of the genre should miss it.
Signalis
Release Date: October 27, 2022
Digital Only
The Tartarus Key
©Vertical Reach
If you prefer puzzles, thrills, and chills to training a crosshair on a zombie’s decaying dome, then the Tartarus Key has the unsettling setup you’re after. Bundled in PS1-inspired visual wrapping, this trap-laden tale sees protagonist Alex Young awaken in a mysterious mansion. As she explores, she encounters others rigged in a variety of lethal (and sometimes magical) cages fit to cover any fantasy base the Saw franchise might fancy branching into. You’ve got a creepy mansion, cult rituals, a secret lab – the lot.
Solve puzzles correctly and you may help your companions escape their cages. Fail, and they’ll likely face a grisly fate. It’s a life-and-death escape room of a game. Patience and careful consideration forge the path to success in The Tartarus Key. It’s less traditionally survival horror, as unlike most of its contemporary rivals, it won’t ask you to fight with or flee from monsters. Expect spooky with smarts, not a shotgun.
The Tartarus Key
Release Date: May 31, 2023
Digital Only
Crow Country
Combining classic survival horror gameplay with the visual vibe of Final Fantasy 7 (the original, not the remakes) shouldn’t really work, yet somehow Crow Country manages to pull it off with aplomb. The setting is excellent: a decrepit theme park packed with rusted, broken attractions that mask a far seedier underlying purpose. The puzzles riff on older Resident Evil games’ note-based clues and item-collection systems, but there’s no demand here for tedious inventory management. The camera allows for full free rotation, yet somehow it also also perfectly captures the feel of fixed-perspective horror games wherever your view stops.
Genre stalwarts won’t find Crow Country particularly scary or challenging. In fact, there’s a good deal of humor dotted throughout. But as our more detailed feature explains, there’s a simple delight to be found in piecing together which item goes where and when as you progress through its freaky fairground.
Crow Country
Release Date: May 9, 2024
Digital Only
Alisa
©Casper Croes
Here’s one for the die-hard survival horror fans in the retro-styled room. Alisa has been studying the manuals of the late ‘90s. Studying diligently. Right down to the tank controls, pre-rendered backdrops, awkward voice acting, and often obtuse-to-the-point-of frustration puzzles. New to the genre? It’s probably best to start elsewhere. But experienced fans may find much to love here – so long as they’re up to the challenge.
After tracking an escaped spy to a Victorian mansion, protagonist and 1920s special agent Alisa awakens inside to find herself dressed in an extravagant outfit and pursued by murderous mechanical dolls. It’s no Spencer mansion, but an intriguing location nonetheless. In addition to puzzles, Alisa throws plenty of creepy enemies at you, including several boss fights that can feel particularly unfair. It’s likely to put some off, but in many ways, Alisa’s rougher edges make it a more accurate reflection of the games it’s inspired by.
Conscript
The shift to a top-down perspective isn’t the biggest departure Conscript makes from most classic survival horror games. It’s that there are no supernatural elements at play here. No zombies, no monsters. Only the horrors of war. This is a desperate struggle for survival that takes place amid the Battle of Verdun in the Great War. You play as a French soldier searching for his brother, using whatever weapons and items he can salvage to fend off enemies in the trenches and beleaguered towns.
While Conscript clearly pays its respects to classics of the genre, the unique setting and perspective help it stand apart instead of solely feeling like an homage or love letter. Due to the limited inventory space, however, you’ll need to be prepared for plenty of backtracking as you shift between key progression items.
Horror Games With Retro Visuals
Because there's nothing scarier than PS1 graphics.
Upcoming: Fear the Spotlight
Arriving later this year, Blumhouse Games’ Fear the Spotlight is shaping up to be quite the treat for fans of horror games with old-school visuals. The story follows two girls who sneak into school at night to conduct a seance. One which with dire consequences. The, er, spotlight of Fear the Spotlight looks to be on narrative, puzzles, and stealthy sneaking rather than than resource management and combat. But we’re pretty confident it’ll tickle the terror-craving fancy of classic survival horror game fans.
Fear the Spotlight
Release Date: October 22, 2024
Digital Only