There are many pixel horror games out there. From punchy flash games to full-blown releases, there’s a lot to cover. But if you’re wondering where to start in the pixel horror genre, I’ve curated a few worthwhile mentions. The objective here is to give a suite of recommendations that all feel distinct from one another while offering memorable, terrifying experiences. Here we go, in no particular order.

Faith: The Unholy Trinity

What hasn’t been said about Faith, the Unholy Trinity?  It’s Pixel Horror at its finest, taking us all the way back to 8-bit compression and crunched, hard audio. It tells a horrific story of, well…Faith. You step into the shoes of Father John Ward as he aims to fix an exorcism gone wrong, which left a family dead and a daughter still possessed.

The game features some amazing rotoscoping animation that sucks you into the world in ways I didn’t think possible in such a retro experience. Obviously, this tactic is well beyond the power of the systems Faith is emulating, but it does a great job of evoking that nostalgia while using contemporary tricks to enhance the experience.

Faith the Unholy Trinity comes bundled with all three games, which tell the complete story. Faith Chapter One is a quick affair, while Chapters Two and Three are more involved.

For a pixel horror game, it’s hard to get LESS pixels than Faith the Unholy Trinity. It’s a testament to how you can do SO much with SO little and how what your imagination imprints on a scene is way scarier than what can actually be seen.

You can buy Faith The Unholy Trinity on Steam 

Lone Survivor

Let’s go back to 2012. Youtube lets plays were talking off and Indie horror games were beginning to chew up that market.

Still in the genre’s infancy, Lone Survivor set itself apart by being a terrifying, fully realized pixel horror game like we hadn’t yet seen.

Wearing its influences clearly on its sleeves, Lone Survivor is a beautiful marriage of Silent Hill 2 and Twin Peaks, even going so far as to emulate the Silent Hill item pickup noise and the dreary and smokey jazz that accompanies so many Twin Peaks moments.

As the title suggests, you alone must navigate a deranged apartment building, meeting quirky tenants and dispatching or hiding from monsters. Ammo and health are scarce, demanding you pick your fights or hide in the shadows.

The atmosphere is on point. As a 2D sidescroller, it greatly limits your line of sight, keeping the camera drawn close to the player, and the environment shrouded in darkness. You’re equipped with a flashlight that does little more than create a foggy glow, further adding to the atmosphere.

Tie it together with crackly, staticky audio and you’ve got a pixel horror game that makes great use of what might be considered limitations of the genre.

You can buy Lone Survivor on Steam 

Imscared

Imscared is a different brand of pixel horror game.

This one is terrifying on a meta-level, as it seems to “infect” your PC while you play. Let me explain.

Imscared starts off explicitly telling you that it will attempt to deceive you as you play. Straight forward enough, and it begins simply enough. A first-person game where you navigate a mysterious and foggy house collecting keys.

Your field of view is limited to about three feet in front of you, everything beyond that is engulfed in darkness. It’s a great trick that causes the pixel graphics to pop out at you when they’re revealed. It creates suspense in every moment of exploration and turns the already eerie world outright hostile.

As you explore you’re quickly introduced to WhiteFace, the entity that haunts your game…and now your PC.

As you play, the narrative gets forthwall-breaking. Files are created on your desktop, and folders contain text documents that add lore or need altering to bypass puzzles in the game.

Each time you boot it up something new happens, or you awaken in a new area. Sometimes replaying earlier segments reveals something has changed.

For a pixel horror game, it uses its simple graphics and dreamy atmosphere to create unbelievable tension. While the gameplay remains light, the way it interacts with your PC and with the use of some striking and horrific pixel characters, Imscared leaves a lasting impression.

You can buy Imscared on Steam

World of Horror

World of Horror is a choose-your-own-adventure pixel horror game styled in black and white sprites, and oozing Japanese folklore.

It’s a very big game, with multiple characters, stats, and attributes that impact your abilities to solve narrative puzzles, and of course, your ability to fight the Lovecraftian/ Junjio Ito-inspired creatures in turn-based combat.

Styling itself as a “1-bit” horror game, it creates a fantastic sense of identity with its surprisingly detailed characters and environments.  This is used to great effectiveness as you investigate disturbances around the town of Shiokawa.

World of Horror has an impressive sense of scale and depth of mechanics. Multiple playthroughs are warranted as you choose from different characters and experience randomized mysteries via rogue-lite systems.

All of this is experienced through some truly impressive Microsoft Paint artwork. The amount of detail, depth, and expressiveness in the art design is remarkable and creates an environment you just soak in. The body horror is off the charts, and the gore is delightfully detailed.  Check it out.

You can buy World of Horror on Steam

Fear & Hunger

So Fear & Hunger is a…weird one.

I could write many articles on RPG Maker Horror Games, but Fear & Hunger set itself apart for a couple of reasons.

For one, it’s deeply entrenched in the horror genre.  For another, it’s a survival horror game disguised as an RPG. This is conveyed through it’s absolutely punishing combat, but we’ll get to that.

You pick your character from a lineup of pretty standard RPG archetypes, though each of the named characters has their own storylines and endings. You’re given a little introduction to the world before being set off into the Dungeons of Fear and Hunger.

Here, you experience what really qualifies Fear & Hunger as a great pixel horror game.

You explore dark hallways and gruesome torture chambers, doing your best to avoid fighting any of the creatures therein. See, Fear & Hunger punishes you for fighting. Characters die easily and lose limbs like you’re pulling twigs from a dead tree. Once your arm is gone? It’s gone for the rest of the game….that’s if you don’t bleed out.

Each horrifically rendered pixel monster is treated much more like a puzzle than a traditional fight. You must target specific parts of each monster in a specific order to succeed or you’ll be harshly punished. If you’re lucky enough to win a battle, you must tend to your party’s physical and mental health in the aftermath.

The lore itself is a whole other thing. Incredibly dark, adult material lies within, so steel yourself. Pixel horror or not, you’ll find graphic depictions of violence and sexual content.

All in all, Fear & Hunger uses its limited graphics to create a world that’s terrifying to explore and sparse enough in its animation to allow your mind to fill in all the gratuitous details. But be ready for an unforgiving, transgressive experience.

You can buy Fear & Hunger on Steam

To wrap up

While all of these games come years apart, and span many different styles within the pixel horror genre, I think they represent the best that the genre has to offer. Any of these are great entry points depending on what your preference of horror is.

If you’re still looking for more indie horror, while not pixel horror games, Chillas Art and Puppet Combo are two amazing indie horror devs that deliver retro-feeling experiences. Check out the 5 Best Chilla’s Art Games Rankled, and 5 Best Puppet Combo Games Ranked.