Often reaching into the unknown and providing cautionary tales which revolve around mankind’s infatuation with twinning technological advancement to its own evolution, science fiction provides a creatively fertile container for developers to kick out some truly terrifying horror games. With so many sci-fi horror games to choose from, we’ve managed to whittle down a list of the best sci fi horror games that you can get on PC. Just make sure to bring a clean change of underwear with you because, well, y’know.
Best Sci Fi Horror Games On PC
Alien: Isolation
If there is another game that more lovingly reconstructs the aesthetic of its movie source material on a granular level than Alien: Isolation, I have no clue what it could be. With its faithfully modeled retro monitor screens, flashing buttons, beeping displays, distant noises, shadowy corridors encrusted with part-time lights and occasional, melancholic glimpses into the ocean of stars that lay far beyond, Alien: Isolation does a tremendous job of perfectly encapsulating everything the look of the first two Alien movies and in doing so, provides a tailor made foundation for developer Creative Assembly to fashion one of the best sci fi horror games ever made.
Set fifteen years after the events of Alien and told entirely from a first-person perspective, players find themselves cast as the daughter of series heroine Ellen Ripley and must sneak around the halls of the massive Sevastopol space station in a bid to uncover the truth behind Ellen’s disappearance.
What follows is a deadly game of cat and mouse with the titular xenomorph in which direct confrontation is suicidal folly and concealing yourself in the many lockers and shadowy crevices of the massive ship are the only way you’ll survive as you inch your way through. Almost distressingly taut, gorgeous to look at and never anything less than frequently horrifying thanks to some hugely on point sound design and the always stressful, yet iconic motion detector, Alien: Isolation is one of the best sci fi horror games full stop.
BioShock
Set in the briny Atlantic deep of the year 1960, BioShock boasts perhaps the most unique and compelling setting out of any game in this feature. Unfolding in the aftermath of a ruined underwater utopia where its tyrannical leader attempted to foster a society that would completely secede from the world above, BioShock has players stalking their way through a fallen society filled with genetically altered mad folks in the throes of a civil war that threatens to destroy whatever remains.
Absolutely dripping in atmosphere, copious amounts of body horror, some great storytelling and introducing one of gaming’s most recognisable figures, the Big Daddy, BioShock is truly an ageless sci-fi horror game that everybody should play.
Dead Space
Look, I know that Dead Space might be something of a lazy go-to for features like these but EA’s 2008 horror gem has absolutely earned its place here for a handful of very, very good reasons. A moody third-person action adventure with a dash of Event Horizon thrown in for kicks, Dead Space has you both running from and tearing apart Necromorphs – horrific corpses that have been twisted up into a series of deeply murderous configurations and which are basically the stuff of nightmares.
Dead Space also just absolutely oozes atmosphere and dread, thanks in no small part to its deep space setting, creepy enemies, superb lighting, crunchy combat and more dismemberments than you can shake a hairy stick at. Dead Space is also getting an all-singing, all-dancing remake in 2023 too, so I’m sure that will be perfectly lovely.
Metro Exodus
A hugely ambitious survival horror effort that unfurls in a compelling post-apocalyptic Russian setting, Metro Exodus is the latest entry in the Metro series of first-person shooter efforts that has players sneaking, running and gunning their way across a landscape decimated by deadly factions and irradiated monstrosities.
With its massive areas that each permit a non-linear approach, some best in class visuals and a real sense of place rooted in a decaying future, Metro Exodus tells a sweeping saga of sci-fi horror that spans the spring, summer, autumn and winter of a devastated country and the few straggling survivors that remain.
Prey
Rather than a sequel to the 2006 original, Prey is instead a full-throated reboot of the franchise which does a commendable job of coming across like a combo of two legendary games, namely System Shock and Half-Life. That is to say that Prey is good, very good indeed. After waking up on the Talos I space station which is orbiting our moon in 2032, Prey thrusts players immediately into a living nightmare as a series of failed experiments has created an insidious, endlessly evolving foe that is able to mimic the physical characteristics of objects that it comes in contact with.
Widely regarded as one of the best games to come out of Dishonored studio Arkane, Prey marries innovative combat, a freewheeling approach to exploration and a truly unique enemy to create one of the best sci-fi horror efforts of recent years.
Resident Evil 2
Though Capcom’s seminal horror sequel arguably made its bones back in 1998 on the humble PlayStation console, its latest remake on contemporary systems more than matches that legendary source material. Eschewing the fixed perspective and pre-rendered backdrops of the original game, 2020’s Resident Evil 2 instead transplants the action kicking and screaming into a vividly and fully three dimensional, third-person perspective horror odyssey that ranks among the best games in the entire franchise.
Though the broad beats of the story more or less follow the narrative trajectory of the original game, like all the best remakes Resident Evil 2 manages to keep the essence of the original intact, all the while adding in all new areas, enemies, storyline situations and of course, fresh Resident Evil 4 style third-person gunplay and an entirely new audiovisual presentation. Quite simply, Resident Evil 2 easily earns its place as one of the best sci-fi horror games out right now.
System Shock
The spiritual predecessor to not just the BioShock games, but also narrative and systems driven first person shooters in general, System Shock has certainly earned its place as one of the best sci-fi horror games of all time. In the far-flung future players take control of a newly awakened operative on a space station (it’s always space stations *tsk*) locked down by a deadly narcissistic AI that has decided to murder half of the crew on board and turn the other half into a roving band of cybernetically enhanced horrors. Your mission, as you may have guessed, is to liberate the station while uncovering the cause behind the murderous self-awareness of the SHODAN AI.
Though mixing up first-person perspective combat, environmental storytelling, puzzle solving and hacking systems in a three dimensional cyberspace were all fresh concepts when System Shock released nearly thirty years ago, it’s really System Shock’s main protagonist, SHODAN, that steals the show. Continually taunting the player throughout the game with utterly disturbing and narcissistic dialogues that sound like Amazon’s Alexa would if she existed in Hell, SHODAN’s reputation for being one of gaming’s most iconic villains is both well-earned and undimmed by the intervening years since System Shock’s release. For those of you that aren’t of a particularly ripe vintage like me and missed System Shock’s debut all the way back in 1994 on PC, you’ll be pleased to know that this sci-fi horror classic is getting a full-throated remake on current machines that looks to be very, very faithful to the original game.
And in case you were wondering, yes, SHODAN would totally body Skynet in a scrap.
