This article was originally published on September 26, 2025 - read the full issue

By Marie Dealessandri

It's been a good week for horror. Silent Hill F released yesterday to excellent reviews, while Hideo Kojima is seemingly (finally) going back to his P.T. roots with OD, developed in partnership with horror filmmaker Jordan Peele.

It's not like the genre has ever gone out of fashion, of course, but it continues to dominate conversations and charts at both ends of the development spectrum. Horror is leading Itch.io top charts, while triple-A studios consistently invest in big survival horror experiences even as budgets get tighter.

Off the back of Gamescom last month, Knowledge guest writer Alan Wen noticed the over-abundance of horror games at the show, and pondered over whether these were seen as a safer bet in tumultuous times. In a conversation we published just last week, Exordium Games' CEO Luka Filipović advised indies to choose horror for their first project, aligning with the (mis?)conception that the genre is easier to make than others.

So, why is horror such an enduring theme? Is the game industry banking on this ongoing demand in time of need? Is it really immune to market whims? Is horror experiencing a resurgence among indies? We ask horror experts Louise Blain (creative lead at Blumhouse Games) and Adam Vian (creative director at SFB Games), as well as analysts Chris Zukowski and Katie Holt.

The unspoken promise of horror

"Sometimes I wonder whether the appeal of a horror game isn't actually its surface-level promise of 'this is going to be scary', but rather a different, unspoken promise: this is going to be meaningful, it's going to be deliberate, and it's going to emotionally connect with you in some way," says Vian, who wrote and directed SFB's hit Crow Country with brother Tom Vian. "Horror is a proven route to find a strong connection with your player. And I do think this might be why Naughty Dog arrived at horror with The Last Of Us when pursuing the goal to make games that were impactful, meaningful, human, and memorable.

"I think this quality is actually the reason why horror games often get so much support from streamers, Youtubers, and so on. Streaming a horror game is an invitation for your audience to share in some distinct, memorable moments of human emotion – fear, surprise, sadness, and so on."

Holt, senior games research analyst at Ampere Analysis, notes that horror games have continued to reap the benefits of influencer marketing as the space has matured, with Twitch streams and short-form video playing an important role in its popularisation.

"While traditional triple-A horror games like Resident Evil were fun to play, they weren't necessarily fun to watch for mainstream audiences," she adds. "Instead, indie horror games focusing on jump scares were popularised due to the reactions they elicited from creators. This directly contributed to some of the biggest horror game franchises today, like Five Nights At Freddy's."

When Blumhouse launched its videogame arm in 2023, the production house had already accumulated decades of success in horror films. And there's a very good reason it turned to videogames for its next step: "Blumhouse really wants to be everywhere people tell scary stories, and games are such a brilliant, rich place for that," Blain explains.

A new wave of indie horror

"I do think the horror genre has always intrigued," she continues. "It's enduring because it's so different. People always want to challenge themselves. I always find, personally, that horror is actually a very safe genre, because it's controlled and through a screen. People will go there when they're stressed, [and find] survival and catharsis. People are always drawn to that, to the macabre.

"I grew up loving Resident Evil and Silent Hill, and those classics are now being revisited in so many interesting ways. But what’s important is that horror is opening up. We’re having these really interesting experiences.”

She points to Still Wakes The Deep and what she calls its "cosmic horror", or to Dredge's "cosy fishing Eldritch horror." Over the past few years, indies have continued to explore the genre and encompass a vast variety of niches. This diversification is what's contributing to its current strength.

"I do think that horror is a vital part of our gaming ecosystem," Blain says. "It thrives in indie spaces, and people continue to want unique, interesting, creepy, scary experiences. That desire isn't going to go away.”

She continues: "I think we will be [seeing] more mashups of interesting genres, bringing more into horror. I love the rise of 'anomaly horror', experiences like Cabin Factory and Exit Eight."

Looking at the hard data, Holt says that innovation in horror seems to be coming from lower-budget indie and double-A games, with developers finding traction with cross-genre and theme combinations.

"For example, Lethal Company peaked at nine million monthly active users on Steam in December 2023. Made by a single developer, it gained a healthy fanbase with a unique combination of online co-op, horror, and the emerging extraction genre. R.E.P.O also performed exceptionally well, with MAUs peaking at eight million in March 2025. The title combined popular gameplay elements like online co-op, procedural generation, extraction and emphasised physics with horror to build an audience via social media and video."

Holt adds that she's seen the increase in announced games that lean into horror themes. And the analytics firm's data confirms the audience's appetite: 33 per cent of players enjoy horror titles, and they tend to be faithful.

"Fans of the theme are highly engaged, spending around eight hours and 48 minutes gaming per week and over 30 per cent play games daily – more than the average across all themes," Holt says. "Fans of popular horror titles are also likely to engage with other horror titles: in August 2025, seven per cent of Resident Evil 4 players were also playing Dead By Daylight, and six per cent were also playing Resident Evil 2."

Zukowski, a renowned videogame marketing consultant who has been vocal in the past about why indies should make horror games, also crunched some numbers.

"I estimate that 1,077 horror games were released on Steam in 2024. Compare that to 2,042 2D platformers, 1,162 RPGs, and about 700 FPS shooters, there aren't that many more horror games than other genres. But why can there be so many? Well, because fans really want more horror games. They cannot get enough. I have seen content creators who want horror games so badly that they roleplay other games as if they were horror games. Also, the games are short – two to five hours – so fans will be on the lookout for more games once they finish the next one. The fanbase is very open-minded; if it looks like a horror game, they will give it a shot."

A cheaper, safer bet?

Looking at it from the indie developer perspective, Zukowski doubles down on his take that horror can be easier and cheaper to make. But that doesn't mean it comes without caveats, as the genre isn't immune to current market challenges of oversaturation.

"[Horror] production is less expensive, the fanbase is omnivorous and loves buying lots of games, so the market can support multiple titles. Marketing materials for horror games can go super viral – look at the trailers for Zoochosis, Choo Choo Charles, Don't Scream. All of those have very high view counts, which lead to a ridiculous number of wishlists. I think it has to do with friends liking to share ghost stories. It's as old as time.

"[Horror games] are usually set in a realistic world. This means you don't need to invent whole new fantastical environments. Most of the art can be asset-store art, thus cutting down on art resources – only the monster needs to be truly unique. The fans like horror games that are short, [which] lowers dev time and resources, and the novelty that fans seek is new types of gore or scares.

"Other genres like strategy games require developers to figure out novel mechanics. Puzzle game developers need to come up with all-new puzzles. The coding can be much harder."

Blain says horror is the place to be for interesting, creative, "slightly strange" takes, with Blumhouse targeting lower budgets of between $3 million and $5 million.

"Meaning that we can take bets on interesting projects creatively and see how they go," she adds. "The indie game market is such a fertile ground for that."

Vian agrees, saying horror "comes with an inherent promise of a tighter scope. Triple-A games these days are often bloated with repetitive busywork, but a horror game usually can't afford to lose the wind from its sails like that, so they tend to be more focused."

Blain notes that, with horror, one person can make an incredible experience on their own from start to finish. However, she does push back against the idea that horror is cheap.

"Not necessarily," she says. "I think effective horror is hard to make. What I think happens, though, is that sometimes budgetary restraints create interesting horror. When you've not got a massive budget to show everything, you have to insinuate and you have to suggest, and that's where horror settles. I certainly wouldn't say it's cheap to make horror. I wouldn't say it's easy to make horror. But you can make interesting horror at any budget."

Discoverability woes

While Zukowski does believe horror can be easier for indies, he says that making a profitable horror game can be hard.

"Out of those 1,077 horror games in 2024, I estimate that only about 101 of them actually made enough money to maybe sustain a studio. This is a hard business. As a side note, in 2024, only 77 2D platformers out of 2,042 total were 'sustainable'.”

Discoverability is of course the name of the game, with the marketer hosting a wealth of free resources for indies to ensure a baseline of visibility on Steam.

"I think horror communities are very willing to go down strange rabbit holes and try something, but I don't think any genre is immune [to discoverability issues]," Blain adds.

From Vian's perspective as the co-founder of an indie studio that recently had a hit horror game, "it certainly doesn't seem like making a horror game is any kind of safe bet."

He continues: "As far as indie horror darlings go, that ship may well have sailed – at the very least, you'd need to do something really special to stand out. Things move quickly these days, and trends become passé much younger than they used to – I've already spotted people referring to PS1-styled horror games as 'nostalgiaslop' or similar. Personally, I've had to make peace with the fact that it's already a much more saturated market now than when Crow Country came out, only a year and a half ago. And when the time comes to market my next horror game – in a few years, perhaps – I'm going to have to hope to get lucky all over again."

Holt concurs: "Established horror franchises are among the most recognisable in the games space, but new triple-A IP is risky as budgets have spiralled upwards and competition has grown. Indie or smaller-budget double-A titles can thrive on Steam, but the space is oversaturated at all price points.

But for indie developers out there who are passionate about the genre, Blain has some words of advice: "Make the horror game that scares you."

"Speak from your horror heart, because we need unique voices and interesting angles. I think that's one thing we're looking for: really creative lenses that flip things in a way that people don't expect. You're never too weird. Being unique and not doubting what you find scary and interesting is probably the most important thing."

This article was originally published on September 26, 2025 - read the full issue