To play scary on Halloween, there are horror video games. Here is our selection of the best titles of the year so as not to sleep overnight.
RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE
The eighth episode of the famous horror saga created twenty-five years ago, Resident Evil Village takes us to a sinister town in Eastern Europe. Ethan Winters, hero of this adventure, will go in search of his daughter Rose, kidnapped by the mysterious mother Miranda and her furious acolytes.
Right off the bat, RE8 sets the tone with monsters popping up on all sides and an Ethan shooting at anything that moves. It sometimes feels like playing an FPS as there are so many gun fights. The shotgun is our best friend here. This new opus delivers a dark, sometimes stifling, journey. A sublimated atmosphere thanks to the beautiful scenery with, on PS5 and Xbox Series X, very realistic light effects. Beautiful, intense, sometimes frightening, this episode, while being very "action" oriented, quickly turns out to be gripping. A shooter in "horror movie" mode more than a survival horror.
Resident Evil Village, Capcom, on Xbox Series X / S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, PC and Stadia.
BACK 4 BLOOD
Not everyone had the chance to play Left 4 Dead in 2008 or its sequel a year later… Even if it succeeds a World War Z on the same theme, Back 4 Blood (from the same creators as L4D) returns to its origins by offering a multiplayer experience under the sign of cooperation. The scenario is simple: four heroes / heroines must survive hordes of zombies, period. No open world here, but extended levels that it will take, guns in hand, trying to get through. The missions can vary: rescue survivors, transporting packages (one of the players then has his hands taken and cannot use a weapon), crossing an area densely populated by stiffs ... there is something to do and coordination between the different members of the team quickly becomes essential. If you don't like talking to your neighbor, go your way.
To try to survive you have to palaver, discuss, debate ... otherwise the game over will come fairly quickly. Unless you play in "easy" mode, going through each level is intense. You have to find healing, ammunition and other essentials for your progress. In addition, there is a card / perk system that allows characters to gain strengths that they will need before each mission to choose carefully. A way to bring a touch of originality to a concept that in fine remains ultra classic ... for those who have known Left 4 Dead at least. For others, the vast majority of players will only have to find a handful of friends to face this fun and gory end of the world.
Back 4 Blood, Warner Bros. Games, on Xbox Series X / S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4 and PC.
THE DARK PICTURES ANTHOLOGY: HOUSE OF ASHES
Direction Mesopotamia, 2000 years before our era! For this third opus of its Dark Pictures Anthology, the British studio SuperMassive changes the setting and register for its new horrific tale. After a long introduction, the story propels us into 2003 in the middle of the war in Iraq. House of Ashes is inspired by real historical facts. There, a squad of Marines goes in search of supposed chemical weapons buried in the country of Saddam Hussein. But that's something else that awaits them once underground ... No need to say more about the plot, which is inspired by Sumerian myths around the demon Pazuzu and the hell known as "house of ashes".
As for the change of scenery, this episode does the job. What to mark the difference with the first two opus even if the game mechanics remain more or less the same. Cinematographic direction and QTE (you have to press a button at the right time) constitute the very essence of this title which, once again, offers multiple scriptwriting branches. Many dialogues punctuate these underground peregrinations. You must then choose the answer you want to give, often in a limited time, in order to orient the story but also the relationships between the characters. Where House of Ashes stands out is that it puts more emphasis on the possibility of doing nothing. Not acting or saying nothing constitutes an action in itself and can also have consequences ... sometimes happy! Just because the game prompts you to press a button doesn't mean you have to. Beyond the jump scares (you have to play with headphones), House of Ashes manages to create a real tension at the same time as an atmosphere. So yes, the character modeling is patchy, the staging sometimes curious, and the action sequences a bit sluggish, but despite that, the formula still works. We hang out, to have the final word of the story as well as to discover which characters will survive this journey into the heart of oriental mythologies.
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes, Bandai Namco, on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X / S, Xbox One, and PC.
THE MEDIUM
When horror video game specialists come up with a new adventure, the result is bound to be shivering. The Medium is a title exclusive to the new Xbox Series X / S, PS5 and PC consoles.
The adventure began at the end of the 1990s, in Krakow (Poland), in a small funeral director. This is where Marianne says goodbye to her adoptive father. This is also where the player understands that the young woman has certain powers. She can indeed communicate and move in the spirit world. An ability which, on the screen, translates into certain passages where the action is visible simultaneously on both planes.
Once again, Bloober Team traces in broad strokes the dark designs and springs of the human soul for a sometimes chilling but nonetheless alluring adventure which already has many players around the world. It climbs into the top of the best video games of the year.
The Medium, Bloober Team, on Xbox Series X / S, PS5, and PC.
RETURNAL
In the trend of so-called "demanding" video games, Returnal propels the player into a mysterious SF universe where death lurks at every moment. It is trying and exhilarating at the same time.
It all starts with a crash. That of Selene and her spaceship Helios, somewhere on the strange exoplanet Atropos. The starting point of an adventure that takes the form of an action game mixed with a sci-fi thriller. The site of this crash will soon have no secrets for the player who will return there again and again, tirelessly, the better to return to explore the mysterious planet.
Because, as this PlayStation 5 exclusivity (also) suggests, we very often return, after each death, to this starting point. Returnal follows the trend of those titles where we repeatedly die. Adventure with multiple inspirations, Returnal manages to demonstrate his own singularity. Difficult, tough but fair, the title of Husarque offers a quickly exhilarating challenge as long as we manage to hang on and start over and over again the same passage, the same fight ... Until we reach a kind of saving perfection.
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