10 Horror Games that Feel Like Stephen King Novels

There isn't a horror fan in the world who doesn't know who Stephen King is: the literal King of horror (pun intended).

King's works have served as the foundation of fear for many fans of the genre, but it also serves as a stepping stone of inspiration. In the gaming sphere, there are countless horror games that take direct inspiration from Stephen King's novels, only continuing to evolve the horror genre into its own living collection.

Funny enough, there actually aren't many games that are based on King's books, despite his IPs' massive popularity. Just saying, I'd love to play as Carrie. Yet, in place of games identical to stories we've read already, his work serves as the basis for countless new stories that only expand on horror as a whole.

And for horror fans, it's like being a kid in a candy store.

10 Oxenfree

Teens Doing Creepy Teen Stuff

Everyone loves a good coming-of-age story, especially when it's flavoured like how Stephen King does it: with a group of "Losers Club" type teenagers tackling supernatural forces beyond their understanding. In Oxenfree, that's the exact situation that you (playing a teenage girl named Alex) end up in, despite the unassumingly cute art style.

Every choice that you make within this group will not just influence the outcome of the game, but it will influence the relationships that you have with others (which, in turn, influence the game — it's all that hand-in-hand). Thankfully, you can walk and talk, so you won't be stuck in one place trying to improve and flesh out a relationship; it can all happen on the go.

The story itself is very similar to IT (minus the killer clown, but including the demons), crossed with Stranger Things, with many story beats and tropes being identical to Derry's favourite group of misfits.

This is truly an underrated AA horror gem, unapologetically weird and freaky in all the ways that Stephen King is known for.

9 The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

Multiple Authors Inspired it, Actually

The nice part about a walking simulator horror game is the fact that it can focus on a killer story and atmosphere, and that's exactly the case that we get with The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

In this game, you play as a detective trying to figure out the Carter Family murders, with 12-year-old Ethan missing from the bodies. With the assistance of spiritual abilities, you're able to recreate events as if they were happening right in front of you in that exact moment, and it builds a tension you couldn't quite experience anywhere else.

Developers openly discussed how this game was inspired by the works of Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft, and you see this in every aspect of the game — of course, in its story and design, but all the way down to how characters are literally named. It's a love letter to the giants of the genre.

This particular subgenre is called "weird fiction," which is where terror resides in the confusing and fantastical, and considering how instrumental the occult is in this story, there's no shortage of weird.

8 Layers of Fear

Long Live the Tortured Artist

The tortured artist trope goes hand-in-hand with horror better than any other, and that's solely because of the potential for psychological horror that is born from it. In Layers of Fear, you play as a painter and experience his inner turmoil, a spiraling descent into madness that's identical to the events in Stephen King's 1408.

The fear showcased in this game is heavily atmospheric (and it does rely almost solely on atmosphere), and while it could be scarier to those with nerves of steel, it's a deep dive into trauma and all the darkness that comes with it.

Layers of Fear is inspired by all kinds of horror classics, with Silent Hill being a massive inspiration for the moody vibes, and Stephen King serving as a blueprint for the story. It's going to feel like playing a horror game from the golden age of survival horror, but released in the modern age instead.

If you're not in the mood to play as a group of kids on bikes, you can play as ye old tortured artist instead — and you're going to love the picture that he paints.

7 Resident Evil 7

Many Works Are Referenced

New Resident Evil fans have no idea how Resident Evil 7 revitalized the franchise from spiralling completely into action horror, by diving back into its pure survival horror roots ... emphasis on the horror. And with this emphasis comes a dramatic ton of references to Stephen King's works.

Jack Baker, for example, is inspired by Jack Torrance, the main character of The Shining, who eventually loses his mind to cabin fever and paranormal harassment. In a way, it serves as a kind of foreshadowing to what we discover happened to the entire Baker family, a tragedy that was born out of a malevolent spirit's fun and games.

If you loved the horrifying aspects of Resident Evil Requiem, you're going to be terrified and delighted with Resident Evil 7, but with a deep southern flavour and many King staples.

This isn't even considering the game's Banned Footage DLC (specifically the Bedroom Mode), which is directly inspired by Misery, another Stephen King title, and it only makes the connection between these horror giants all the stronger.

6 Deadly Premonition

Fractured Personalities Are a King Staple

When players think back on Deadly Premonition, many will remember it for the campy, B-movie style that never fails to make players laugh at the absurdity. It's a cult classic in every sense of the word, but it serves as an homage to all things weird and macabre.

The game was primarily inspired by Twin Peaks, but there are countless references to Stephen King, with the various tropes and how York is written. Specifically, he's not all upstairs, with a fractured psyche that causes bizarre behaviour at best, and reckless abandon at worst — the kind of protagonists King loves writing. These dual identities play off each other, very akin to what we see in The Dark Half.

The world that you explore around you is just as weird, in all honesty, but you're going to love all of these strange interactions the same way you'd love all the weirdest scenes in horror's most iconic IPs.

5 Control

It CAN Get Weirder!

Control is inspired by all manner of horror media, forming a hodge-podge creation of ideas that all work well together for an experience that's equal parts fun and freaky. Of course, this means you'll see plenty of homages to Stephen King in one way or another, mainly in the game's supernatural happenings and how Jesse, our protagonist, handles it.

Speaking of Jesse, one fun reference is that she's from a small town in Maine — where King frequently sets his novels — but not only that, Jesse's telekinetic abilities are practically one-to-one with what we see from Carrie. Automatically, our foundation is solid.

There are countless other oddities in this semi-open world, just as there are countless other references. At one point, Jesse even references Shawshank Redemption outright, which is a Stephen King novella — meaning that the work is canon within this new and quirky universe.

Perhaps his inspiration in Control is more low-key because of the fact that he clearly exists in this world already.

4 The Blackout Club

The Goonies Kids are Fighting Monsters

The Blackout Club isn't just inspired by Stephen King, but it also pulls a lot of inspiration from The Goonies as well: focusing on a group of kids and their terrifying adventure ... which will involve them fighting monsters. And no, these monsters aren't gentle giants that will bond with you over a Baby Ruth bar; they're actual demonic entities taking control of all the adults.

When it was originally released in 2019, there were definitely some things that needed fixing (especially with the co-op), but these issues have all been tweaked since then, meaning that players can dive right in and have a great time peeling back the lore (and clear Stephen King inspiration).

The power of friendship is going to be a key to survival here, very much on par with what we see with the Losers Club, just without the all-powerful turtle.

3 Half-Life

Pulled Right From The Mist

It doesn't matter how retro a game is; it can always provide a great time, just as fun as when you played it back in the day — and Half-Life is definitely one of those retro classics, by taking direct inspiration from another horror classic, The Mist.

It's not even implied, either; when discussing the development of Half-Life 2 in a book, Valve had confirmed that The Mist was a major source of inspiration for the series, and its homage is most prominent in the first game. The skeleton is there: an experiment to discover other dimensions backfires, tearing a cosmic rift in our world that teleports monstrous aliens to Earth ... and they are not friendly.

Half-Life is a classic horror/FPS genre hybrid, setting up the stage that defined gaming in the 90s — even now, it stands proud in gaming's hall of fame, even as the medium has long evolved.

And we have Stephen King to thank for it.

2 Silent Hill 2

Stephen King Was the Foundation

When Team Silent was creating the first Silent Hill, they had combed through a number of Stephen King books for inspiration (as confirmed in the Book of Lost Memories, which detailed the development of the first four games), and ended up pulling key points from The Mist (shocker) and Carrie. They pulled various references to other titles, such as The Shining, The Running Man, Pet Sematary, Thinner, and Misery; the team had massive fans of King's work.

It doesn't matter which game you're playing; the inspiration is as clear as day (in spite of the fog).

The games do a fantastic job at combining psychological horror and particularly symbolic monster horror, often working hand-in-hand to create a terrifying experience unlike anything else — and with the masterclass atmosphere, storytelling, and sound design, it's a must-play for horror fans everywhere (especially if they're Stephen King fans).

Now I have to play through Silent Hill f again and see if I can catch any references there, too.

1 Alan Wake

Twin Peaks + Stephen King = Horror Heaven

It's well known that the Alan Wake games were inspired by Twin Peaks, oozing in the Pacific Northwest Americana, but Remedy was also inspired by countless Stephen King novels, with Alan Wake himself being based on ... Stephen King himself. It's taking homage to the next level.

The inspiration is just as clear in Alan Wake 2, which is arguably better than the first. Interestingly, a lot of the stories that inspired the games are the ones written under Stephen King's pen names, one known for darker stories and more graphic depictions of violence: Richard Bachmann. Once this pen name was unmasked, he eventually went on to write The Dark Half, which went into that experience ... and that served as the foundation for Alan Wake.

Plus, the games start to develop a more meta-narrative as they go on, which King is known for implementing into his work. It's a Stephen King story at its core, but with a Twin Peaks filter over it all.

It's basically heaven for horror fans, as it may as well have been written by the King himself.