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Dead SpaceResident Evil 4Sons of the ForestWorld of Horror


THE BEST HORROR GAME OF 2023


IGN'S PICK OF THE SPOOKIEST, MOST SPINE-CHILLING GAMES OF THE YEAR.


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Best Horror Game of 2023



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By Matt Purslow

Updated: Dec 20, 2023 5:06 am

Posted: Dec 12, 2023 11:00 pm



With both Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 launching within the first quarter, it
was clear that 2023 was going to be a strong year for horror remakes. But what
we perhaps wouldn’t have counted on as the year began was that this was going to
be a stellar 12 months for the horror genre as a whole. It’s been such a good
year for it, in fact, that we had to give it its own award category.



There have been so many great horror games this year, spanning numerous
different sub-genres and studio sizes. As previously mentioned, it’s been a
fantastic year for remakes, proving the classics can be as relevant today in
their revitalised forms as they were when they first arrived in the 2000s. But
it’s also been a period of wonderfully experimental indies that have found brand
new ways to shake us up. World of Horror fueled our nightmares with images drawn
in Microsoft Paint (seriously!), while Dredge had us desperately wishing for a
bigger boat as a Lovecraftian nightmare unspooled its tentacles beneath our
hull. Meanwhile, we finally got a worthy spiritual successor to Alien: Isolation
in Frictional’s terrifying Amnesia: The Bunker.

But what did the IGN team think was the very best horror game of 2023? Here’s
how the voting panned out.




THE BEST HORROR GAME OF 2023

6 Images




RUNNERS-UP: SONS OF THE FOREST AND WORLD OF HORROR

Tied with 2.4% of the vote each are Sons of the Forest and World of Horror. Both
are from smaller studios (the latter is actually largely the work of a single
developer), but that didn’t stop them from taking Steam by storm.

The long-awaited sequel to one of the most respected survival games of all time,
Sons of the Forest builds on its predecessors strengths to create a chilling
journey into a cannibal-infested woodland. The crafting core of the original has
been overhauled with much more realistic building animations that enhance the
immersion; for instance, you now must snap branches in two to create firewood,
or physically cut windows out of wooden walls using an axe. But it's the
adaptive AI that really makes Sons of the Forest what it is; the freaky
cannibals of the island react to your presence in believable ways. Every enemy
has their own wants and needs, and so their behaviour is unique to them. That
makes every interaction unpredictable – will the mutant peering from the
undergrowth run in fear, or be the very last thing you see as it tears you limb
from limb?

The worlds of Junji Ito and H.P. Lovecraft combine in World of Horror, perhaps
the most unsettling of all the horror games released this year. A roguelite RPG
with turn-based combat, it’s instantly recognisable thanks to its distinctive
black-and-white ‘1-bit’ art that depicts stomach-turning monstrosities. The
apocalypse looms, so you must explore a fictitious version of Shiokawa, Japan in
the 1980s and attempt to halt the old gods’ plans. You’ll see that journey
through the eyes of 14 different characters, with each of their stories having
multiple endings based on your decisions. Despite its simple, manga-influenced
2D design, this is a sprawling, multi-layered nightmare. It’s all the work of
just a handful of people – developer Paweł Koźmiński, writer Cassandra Khaw, and
musicians ArcOfDream and Qwesta. And with its art entirely put together in MS
Paint, it's a perfect example of how greatness can bloom from even the most
humble tools.


RUNNER-UP: DEAD SPACE

Claiming 7.1% of the vote is EA Motive’s accomplished remake of Dead Space,
which took us back to the blood-drenched steel corridors of the USG Ishimura.
One of the most technically impressive games of the year, it combines
intricately detailed environments, astonishing lighting, and terrifying sound
design to create a sci-fi haunted house that drips with oppressive atmosphere.

While the moment-to-moment of Dead Space is largely unchanged from the original,
Motive’s subtle changes help not just modernise the game, but enhance its
greatest achievements. That’s true of many of the game’s mechanical elements -
the way your weapons ‘peel’ enemies apart is a splatterhouse triumph – but we’d
be remiss to forget the adjustments to Isaac Clarke himself. Previously a silent
protagonist, the remake gives Isaac a voice and personality. This helps anchor
the stranded engineer in the world and make his story of survival against all
odds even more traumatic. I guess it’s only in the horror genre where we can say
that’s actually a good thing.


RUNNER-UP: RESIDENT EVIL 4

When 2019’s Resident Evil 2 remake proved an essential horror masterpiece, fans
unsurprisingly started asking for Leon Kennedy’s adventures in Spain to get the
same treatment. They didn’t have to wait long, and this year’s Resident Evil 4
remake is every bit the lush recreation that people hoped for.

While the contrast between original and remake isn’t quite as drastic for
Resident Evil 4 as its predecessors, there’s still a huge upgrade here; this is
a grotesquely beautiful, atmospheric adventure with snappy combat and smooth
exploration. It embraces the winding level design of the original and provides
all sorts of alleyways, corridors, and stairways to poke around for secrets,
treasures, and scares in. And, of course, it gleefully plays around with the
original game’s esoteric roster of villains, from the doll-like Salazar to the
intensity of cult leader Saddler.

It did abandon some of the 2005 original’s goofy charms, though, and leaned more
on the gory chills of the series’ modern output. That makes for a scarier
interpretation of the story, but one that’s not quite as off-the-wall as its
source material. Perhaps that’s the reason behind Resi 4 coming in second place,
with 23.8% of the vote. Our winner, though, is packed with its own brand of
comedy that makes it the most out-there horror we’ve played in years…


WINNER: ALAN WAKE 2

IGN’s staff overwhelmingly chose Alan Wake 2 as their best horror game of the
year, with Remedy’s Lynchian survival horror taking 64.3% of the vote. It is a
wild ride, laced with laugh-aloud Finnish humour, astonishing musical numbers,
and a proverb-quoting janitor. But, as you’d imagine from its winning status,
it’s also an astonishingly scary journey into the clutches of murderous cults
and the depths of a supernatural, New York-shaped prison. In fact, it’s probably
the closest any studio has come to capturing the terror of Silent Hill in quite
some time.




ALAN WAKE 2 IS IGN'S PICK FOR BEST HORROR GAME OF 2023. WHAT'S YOURS?

Dead Space


Alan Wake 2


Resident Evil 4


Dredge


Sons of the Forest


Amnesia: The Bunker


Killer Frequency


World of Horror


Other (Tell us in the comments.)


AnswerSee ResultsSee Results



On the surface, Alan Wake 2 looks like Resident Evil, but beyond that familiar
over-the-shoulder perspective is a game with unmatched vision. Its confident
direction, using all manner of visual and audio tricks, drags you into a creepy
world that offers unexpected surprises in every chapter. Its parallel stories,
chronicling the lives of FBI agent Saga Anderson and haunted novelist Alan Wake,
is both pulpy and literary, relishing in genre tropes as it tells a genuinely
emotional, thought-provoking tale. We waited 13 years for Remedy to get a second
chance and continue Alan’s story, and it was worth every second of patience.
It’s the studio’s most creative, artful work to date, and the best horror game
of 2023.


HONOURABLE MENTIONS

 * Dredge
 * Amnesia: The Bunker
 * Killer Frequency


THE 2023 IGN AWARDS

 * Best Game of 2023
 * Best Movie of 2023
 * Best Open-World Game of 2023
 * Best Comic Book/Graphic Novel of 2023
 * Best Horror Movie of 2023
 * Best Horror Game of 2023
 * Best Soulslike of 2023
 * Best Stunt of 2023
 * Best Anime of 2023
 * Best Action Game of 2023
 * Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy Movie of 2023
 * Accessibility Innovation in Games in 2023
 * Best RPG of 2023
 * Best PC Game of 2023
 * Best TV Show of 2023
 * Best Character of 2023
 * Biggest "Holy F**k" Moment of 2023
 * Best PlayStation Game of 2023
 * Best Xbox Game of 2023
 * Best Nintendo Game of 2023






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and Hyung-Tae Kim on How Their Blockbusters Inspire One Another


IN THIS ARTICLE

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Dead Space
EA MotiveJan 27, 2023
ESRB: Mature

PlayStation 5Xbox Series X|SPC
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