You know that feeling. You’re sitting in a Discord call at 1:00 AM, the lights are off, and someone suggests a horror game. It’s always a gamble. Half the time, the "scary" game is just a buggy mess where the only thing frightening is the frame rate. But when it works? It’s peak gaming. There is something fundamentally different about being hunted by a digital ghost when your best friend is screaming in your ear like a Victorian child.
Finding the right scary games to play with your friends isn't just about jump scares. It’s about the tension. It’s about that moment where you realize you have to go back into the dark hallway to get a fuse, and you know—absolutely know—that your teammates are going to let you die. Honestly, the social dynamics are usually scarier than the monsters.
Why Phasmophobia still owns the room
Kinetic Games basically changed the landscape back in 2020, and even in 2026, it holds up because of the voice recognition. If you haven't played it lately, the "Ascension" update overhauled the progression system entirely. It’s not just about smudge sticks anymore. You’re dealing with Tier 1 equipment that feels like it’s held together by duct tape and prayers.
The magic of Phasmophobia is the silence. You’re standing in the basement of Tanglewood Drive. Your flashlight is flickering. You whisper the ghost's name, "Nancy Thomas," and the spirit box crackles with a single word: "E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E." That’s the hook. It’s a slow burn. Most horror games try to startle you every five seconds, but Phasmophobia lets the dread marinate until you're too scared to even check the van.
It’s also surprisingly tactical. You have to learn the difference between a Revenant’s footstep speed and a Jinn’s acceleration. If you’re playing with a group that takes it seriously, it feels like a high-stakes investigation. If you play with trolls, it’s a slapstick comedy where someone dies because they were trying to take a photo of the ghost's feet. Both are valid.
The chaotic terror of Lethal Company
If Phasmophobia is a thriller, Lethal Company is a dark comedy slasher. Zeekerss tapped into something primal here. The proximity voice chat is the secret sauce. Hearing your friend's voice cut out mid-sentence because a Coil-Head snapped their neck is objectively hilarious and terrifying at the same time.
You're a "great asset" to the Company. Basically, you’re an intern being sent to industrial moons to pick up scrap metal while giant eyeless dogs and forest giants try to eat you. The low-fidelity graphics actually make it scarier. Your brain fills in the gaps that high-res textures usually solve.
- The Bracken (or the Flower Man) is the worst. He doesn't just run at you. He stalks. You see two white eyes in a dark vent, and then he's gone.
- The Hoarding Bugs are kinda cute until they decide you’ve touched their trash.
- The quota system adds a layer of genuine stress that makes you take risks you shouldn't.
One minute you’re laughing because someone fell in a hole, and the next, you’re the last one alive, sprinting back to the ship while a Jester cranks its music box in the distance. It’s the quintessential experience when looking for scary games to play with your friends because it rewards greed and punishes panic.
Content Warning: Fame or death?
Landfall Publishing released Content Warning as an April Fools' joke, but it became a legitimate staple for horror nights. It’s built on the premise of "SpookTube." You and your friends go down to the "Old World" with a camera to film scary stuff. The goal? Get views.
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It’s a brilliant meta-commentary on creator culture. You find a monster, and instead of running, you have to make sure your friend is framing the shot correctly while you get chased. "Get the shot! Get the shot!" becomes the mantra. The horror comes from the fact that you have to put yourself in danger to progress. If you don't get the footage, you don't get the money for better gear.
The physics-based movement makes everything feel slightly clumsy, which adds to the frantic energy. When a giant spider grabs your cameraman, you aren't just losing a teammate; you're losing the footage. It hits a different nerve than traditional survival horror.
The asymmetrical nightmare of Dead by Daylight
We can’t talk about multiplayer horror without mentioning the behemoth. Dead by Daylight (DbD) has been around forever, but its roster of licensed killers is unmatched. You can literally play a game where Ghostface from Scream is chasing Nicolas Cage.
It’s a 4v1 setup. Four survivors trying to repair five generators while one killer hunts them. It sounds simple, but the "meta" is incredibly deep. You have to manage "perks," understand "looping" mechanics, and know when to take a hit for a teammate.
The salt levels in the DbD community are legendary, but if you’re playing as a "Survive With Friends" (SWF) group, it’s a blast. The tension of hearing the heartbeat (the Terror Radius) get louder while you’re 90% done with a generator is a specific kind of adrenaline. It’s less about "scary" in the sense of being afraid of the dark and more about the "scary" of a high-speed chase.
Outlast Trials: Science, gore, and cooperation
Red Barrels took the single-player trauma of Outlast and managed to make it work for four people. The Outlast Trials is brutal. It’s set during the Cold War, and you’re basically a test subject in a Murkoff Corporation facility.
Unlike the other games mentioned, this is high-production gore. It’s visceral. You’re sliding through blood and hiding in lockers while "Prime Assets" like Mother Gooseberry hunt you down with a drill-puppet.
The cooperative element is actually necessary here. You can’t just solo everything. You need someone to kick a monster off your back or help you jump-start a generator. It feels more like a "gauntlet" than a hide-and-seek game. It’s intense, loud, and probably the most visually disturbing game on this list.
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For the VR enthusiasts: Propagation: Paradise Hotel
If you really want to ruin your friendship, put on a VR headset. While many horror VR games are solo, titles like Propagation or even the VR mode in Phasmophobia change the physics of fear. In VR, you aren't just pressing 'E' to open a door. Your hand is shaking as you reach for the handle.
The psychological toll of "The Outlast Trials" and "Sons of the Forest"
Sons of the Forest deserves a mention because it handles "scary" through isolation and scale. You’re on a massive island. The cannibals don’t just attack you; they observe you. They’ll stand in the trees and watch you build your base. It’s eerie.
Then you go into the caves.
The caves in Sons of the Forest are some of the most claustrophobic environments in gaming. When your flashlight batteries are low and you hear the wet, slapping sound of a "Fingers" mutant moving toward you, it’s genuinely upsetting. Playing this with friends makes the building parts fun—you can build a literal mansion—but the horror parts are still devastatingly effective.
Real talk: What makes a horror game work?
Psychologically, horror games with friends work because of "misattribution of arousal." Your heart rate is up because of the game, but you’re sharing that state with people you trust. It creates a bonding experience.
But there’s a limit. A game that relies too heavily on "jumpscare simulators" (those cheap indie games that just scream in your face) usually fails because the novelty wears off in twenty minutes. The best scary games to play with your friends are the ones where the mechanics create the fear.
- Limited Resources: Only one person having a flashlight.
- Split Objectives: "I'll go to the basement, you stay here."
- Information Asymmetry: One person seeing something the others can't.
Take Demonologist, for example. It’s similar to Phasmophobia but built on Unreal Engine 5. It looks incredible, but it’s the "Exorcism" phase that makes it unique. You don't just identify the ghost; you have to banish it. That shift from "investigator" to "prey" during the banishment is where the real horror lives.
Don't sleep on the "Social Deduction" horror
Among Us might be a meme now, but games like The Mimic on Roblox or Lurk in the Dark prove that the "traitor" mechanic is still terrifying. There’s a game called Deceit 2 that leans heavily into this. You’re trapped in a ritual, and some of your friends are infected.
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The horror here isn't a monster; it's the fact that your buddy Dave is lying to your face while he waits for the lights to go out so he can transform and eat you. That paranoia is a different flavor of scary. It ruins friendships in the best way possible.
How to actually have a good horror night
If you want to maximize the experience, you need to set the stage. Most people play these games with the lights on and music in the background. Stop that.
- Use Proximity Chat: If a game has its own voice system, use it. Do not stay in Discord. The fear of being separated from your group and losing the ability to hear them is the most powerful tool a developer has.
- No Spoilers: Don't look up the monsters beforehand. The first time you see a Thumper in Lethal Company, you should have no idea how it works. Learning the "rules" of the monster while it’s actively trying to kill you is the peak of the genre.
- Check the Specs: Especially for games like The Outlast Trials or Sons of the Forest. Lag kills the immersion. Nothing ruins a jump scare like a 2-second stutter.
Actionable steps for your next session
If you're looking for the best entry point, start with Phasmophobia. It’s the most "stable" and has the best difficulty scaling. You can go from "Amateur" where the ghost is basically a Casper-wannabe to "Insanity" where you have zero sanity and the ghost is hunting every thirty seconds.
If your group wants something faster, go for Lethal Company. It’s cheap, runs on almost any PC, and the mods are incredible. You can add mods that let you have up to 40 players, or mods that add even more terrifying monsters to the pool.
For the hardcore horror fans who want high-end graphics and genuine gore, The Outlast Trials is the winner. It feels like playing through a big-budget horror movie.
The reality is that scary games to play with your friends are in a golden age. We’ve moved past the era of Slender-man clones. We now have complex, systemic horror that uses AI, voice recognition, and physics to keep us awake. Pick a game, turn off your lights, and try not to scream too loud—your neighbors probably don't know you're just playing a video game.
Check the system requirements for these titles on Steam or the Epic Games Store before buying, as horror games using Unreal Engine 5 can be surprisingly demanding on older GPUs. Once you're set, grab a headset with a decent mic; communication is literally the difference between life and death in these worlds.