Top 10 Horror Games at E3 2016

E3 2016. Wow. As always, this past week of E3 has been a whirlwind of conferences, presentations, streams, announcements, secrets, trailers and gameplay. It's an amazing time to be a gamer. Luckily for us, it's also an amazing time to love horror games, because a good selection of games shown across the week were either outright horror, or had a disturbing twist to them. 

In case you missed anything, here's my top 10 horror games at E3 2016 (in no particular order):

1. Friday the 13th: The Game

[Ki ki ki ma ma ma]

That's right. Jason is back in Friday the 13th: The Game, and he's once more terrorising the teens of Crystal Lake in an asymmetric multiplayer that was funded on Kickstarter. One player controls Jason, while another four players work together to escape by a few different means, such as calling the police or fixing a truck. Until recently we'd only peeped through the hockey mask at a slither of pre-alpha gameplay, but this all changed at E3 2016.

Gameplay footage was shown and revealed Jason's gory environmental kills (based on kills from the films), his ability to teleport, and also a little snapshot into playing as a counsellor. Hint: they don't do so well in this playthrough. 

2. We Happy Few

This isn't the first time we've seen We Happy Few, but many a gamer has been waiting to see more. While it isn't strictly horror, what we've seen so far seems to tread the line between Bioshock and Clockwork Orange, which is a pretty cool and/or disturbing mix, if you ask me. At E3 2016, we were treated to another trailer, which shows a much darker side to the ever-joyous characters of WHF, who seem to have a real thing against anyone not taking their meds:

3. State of Decay 2

To much celebration, a sequel to the popular zombie strategy/survival game, State of Decay, was announced. Available only on Xbox 360 and PC, and later Xbox One, the sequel looks to follow this trend. It seems that the game's emphasis on building relationships with the NPCs and using teamwork to survive is a present as in the first game, and this is no doubt a game that has many gamers foaming at the mouth. 

4. Observer

Though little was shown for the newly-announced Observer, the trailer below was enough for the game to hack its way onto my radar. It's believed that the game is based around the concept of going into other people's dreams, which seem to much more closely resemble nightmares. The aspect of this game that excites me most is that dreams, or nightmares, could lend themselves to a variety of scary scenarios and still make sense within the confines of the narrative. Nothing is scarier than the unknown.

5. Days Gone

I have to admit, this reveal almost didn't make the list. First described as a post-apocalyptic (yes) Sons of Anarchy (meh), I wasn't convinced. Thankfully, a good chunk of gameplay was also shown, revealing hordes upon hordes of infected, swarming towards our Harley-riding protagonist in a way that resembled the undead crowds of World War Z. Not only is it pretty pleasing to the eye, but the absolute number of infected on-screen, and the fluidity at which they appear, is downright impressive. Days Gone has swarmed right over my scepticism and onto my E3 2016 wishlist.

6. Prey

I'd prayed for Prey, ever since the free-running, sci-fi bounty hunter gameplay that was shown for Prey 2 back in 2013. Then everything went quiet. It was unclear whether Prey 2 would ever see the neon light of day. Technically, it hasn't, because what was revealed at E3 2016 was only named Prey. All we know so far is that it will be set on a space station in 2036 where an experiment has gone wrong. Surprisingly, Prey seems to have ditched its previous parkour bounty hunter vibes for a creep factor.

I was so excited for the previous version that I'm actually not completely won over by the horror aspect yet, which is something I never thought I'd say. Let's hope we don't have to wait until 2036 to see more.

7. Dead Rising 4

Yet another Dead Rising sequel will be shuffling its way onto consoles this Winter, and it was revealed at E3 2016 with an incredibly festive trailer and 14 minutes (less if you remove the loading time, which seemed long) of gameplay. It looks to continue with the tongue-in-cheek gameplay that people have come to expect from the series, showing off massive hordes of zombies, an electric axe, a crossbow with firework explosives, an exo-suit and more. For those that love Frank West and his zany adventures, this looks to please, though I personally find the series to be a little repetitive. See what you think of the gameplay:

8. Killing Floor: Incursion

If you're looking to merge FPS action with horror and blow off some steam while you do it, I can't think of a better game than Tripwire's Killing Floor. I'm a massive fan of Killing Floor 2, and so I was pleasantly surprised to see the announcement of Killing Floor: Incursion at E3 2016, a new game in the works for Oculus Touch. It looks like it will bring the same over-the-top action and gore to the world of VR, making the gruesome creatures all that much more gruesome. I'm really not looking forward to see the spider-mutants up close...

9. Vampyr

From the first time I saw Vampyr, a surprisingly thoughtful action-RPG set in Victorian London, it had its fangs well and truly in me. Players will control Jonathan E. Reid, a doctor whom was recently turned into a vampire. He is now driven by a thirst for blood in a world where every choice he makes, every person he kills, will have consequences further down the line. These consequences, and the morals of this cursed protagonist, will be entirely in the hands of the player. It's an interesting concept, and one that could have players questioning just how carefully  they walk the path between murder and survival.

10. Resident Evil 7 

Resident Evil is back. And, for the first time in a few years, Capcom have actually given gamers hope that the series is heading backing to its horror roots. With a trailer that actually looked creepy, and an apparent move over to first-person horror, it looks to be a divisive, but much-needed change to bring the series back to relevance. Even more surprising, a demo entitled 'Beginning Hour' was immediately available on the PS Store. Naturally, I downloaded it as fast as I could and you can read what I thought in my preview. Here's the E3 2016 trailer:

Bonus

Here's a couple of bonus additions for you - because I'm nice like that.

Death Stranding

Might as well start with a game we know almost nothing about... For example, it may not even be a horror game. Death Stranding is the latest partnership between Hideo Kojima and Norman Reedus, who were working together on the much-anticipated, and unfortunately cancelled, Silent Hills. While we're yet to understand what is even going on in the trailer below, it's clearly a strange and unnerving affair. This mysterious blip will be on many radars after E3.

Inside

The next game from the studio behind Limbo has still revealed very little to the public, so there's a chance that it won't actually create any fear in the player. However, based on the bleak world that has been shown so far, and the elements of horror that were as much a part of Limbo as the puzzle-solving and platforming, I'm betting that there will be something for horror-lovers to enjoy when Inside is release. Watch the short trailer shown at E3 2016:

That wraps up the list of top 10 horror games that caught my eye during E3 2016, along with a couple of bonus games that may or may not fit into the horror genre at all. Either way, it's a list of games that I'm pretty excited for.

Which game are you most looking forward to? Let me know! I've always got time to talk horror. Please leave a comment or start a chat with me over on Twitter.