10 Horror Games with Tons of Content

When players think about horror games, the runtime isn't often something that's considered too deeply. Normally, survival horror games run on average between the 10-20 hour range, not too long and not too short for a good scare. Players don't tend to think of horror games being long, not unless you're replaying the heck out of it.

But, there are plenty of horror games that you can log over many dozens of hours in, easily. They may not be written down as requiring that kind of time (typically that's more for a completionist route), but when you check your hours, don't be surprised if you do see triple digits.

Whether it's trying to obtain a platinum, soak in all the lore, gather information, or whatever other reasoning you may have, these horror games will have you clocking in and out like it's a work shift. Yet, the entire time, it's a blast ... and a terror.

So, if you're looking for a horror game that you can sink a ton of your time into, we've got some suggestions that are sure to keep you busy as well as keep you in suspense.

10 Resident Evil 4 Remake

That Platinum is No Joke

The average Bingo game is wrapped up within about 15 minutes; the average playthrough of Resident Evil 4 Remake's main story takes about 15 hours. However, if players are wanting to do a completionist route, that's closer to 66 hours, and that's not even including the Separate Ways DLC and Mercenaries Mode, which add a lot of content too. That's a lot of Bingo.

That's also if players are able to get the platinum on their first attempt at certain game modes. In order to platinum the game, you have to beat the game on the hardest difficulties with an S+ rank, which is far easier said than done and will likely take a couple playthroughs before you're able to actually achieve it.

Given the amount of time that you're going to have to backtrack and correct any previous gameplay, you're going to get used to seeing your playtime in the triple digits with Resident Evil 4 Remake, and you're going to love every single second of it.

Resident Evil 4 is a classic in the survival horror genre that left a major impact on the gaming industry, one that the remake improves upon in every single way. Not to mention, with Resident Evil Requiem's recent release, it's a good idea to get in the spirit by playing the game that basically set the foundation for the entire modern Resident Evil experience.

9 The Forest/Sons of The Forest

Horror Isn't Often Open World

When you think of open world games, most people think of the incredibly popular open world fantasy titles that defined the genre — not many players will think of horror games being open world, meaning they wouldn't think of games like The Forest nor its sequel, Sons of the Forest. Yet, open world horror games are just as full of content.

In The Forest, you play as a father trying to find your son after surviving a plane crash, but things continue to deteriorate for the worse as you run into literal cannibals. These enemies are particularly ruthless and incredibly intelligent; combined with the already-distant prospect of survival (complete with scavenging and inventory management), players are in for a solid amount of challenge.

If you know what you're doing and you completely avoid the openness of the open world, just focusing on what needs to be done to get that coveted platinum, The Forest would take you about 60 hours. However, if you actually take your time to explore and soak everything in, you'll end up with a much higher playtime — and this isn't even considering how Sons of the Forest is identical in length.

An open world game is an easy time sink, and horror, thankfully, isn't an exception to that.

8 7 Days to Die

Practice Those Zombie Apocalypse Skills

We've all thought about what we would do in a zombie apocalypse type of situation, either as a fun "what-if" or as a genuine icebreaker question — and in 7 Days to Die, you get to really hone in on those skills. Think of it like a free trial of the zombie apocalypse, especially with how the game never really ends.

7 Days to Die is a survival sandbox with emphasis on base-building/tower defense, and as you play, you have to sort through the world around you for anything that can tip the scales in your favor. And trust me, you'll want to find any way possible to keep yourself and your home in tip-top shape because the enemies are just that cutthroat.

7 Days to Die is a massive game, with players sinking hundreds of hours into the game before they can even get a platinum trophy. Seriously, the platinum alone will take forever, and as mentioned earlier, the game doesn't stop when the game ends, since it's a sandbox. This means that even when you've done everything there is to do, you're still not done.

If you're looking for a game that's going to genuinely keep you preoccupied (and thoroughly spooked) for all your free time for the next few weeks, 7 Days to Die will scratch that itch.

7 Dead Rising

Gotta Save 'Em All!

On its own and only focusing on yourself, Dead Rising will only take you about 12 hours to get through. However, if you're trying to save every single survivor (which will get annoying really quickly with their immense lack of self-preservation), you'll be pushing 80 hours ... and that's if you succeed on the first try every single time. Including the guaranteed redos you'll have to fix, you're likely looking at more.

Dead Rising follows a simple premise, one that will keep you entertained for the entire time and then some: survive in a zombie-infested mall while waiting for rescue to arrive. In the meantime, you can try to rescue the many other survivors and find collectibles until your time runs out.

But, for the most part, you're going to be caught up in the pure fun and hilarity of the situations you end up in. After all, what other game allows you to kill zombies with a display shelf while wearing a LEGO head? The answer is none, unless you want to count the Dead Rising sequels that are similar in time/length.

Either way, there's a magic and charm to the first game that will keep players tethered to their screen for hours.

6 Darkwood

Genuinely, Good Luck

Survival games will take a good amount of time to get through on their own — especially as you die and lose hours of progress; and it only gets more challenging once you add horror into the mix. Darkwood isn't your traditional survival horror game like we're used to with the classics, but rather a fleeting, brutal fight to keep your protagonist alive.

The amount of lives you have (if you even have more than one) is determined by your game's difficulty, with the hardest featuring a permadeath mode that will restart you from the very beginning if you lose. If you manage to do everything correctly on your first try, a full completionist run of the game will take about 50 hours — but let's be real, nobody would be that good when they first begin, and it's going to take several instances of lost progress before you reach the credits. By that point, you're closer to triple digits.

The premise of Darkwood is simple: you're in a dark, terrifying forest, where monsters come out at night. You have to survive these days and nights while thinking through your survival in painstaking detail; one small slip up will cost you your life, and if you happen to be playing on permadeath, say goodbye to your game file.

Learning the world and how to survive in it is what's going to take up most of your time, but if you're a fan of good sound design and killer atmosphere, you're going to have a great time with Darkwood.

5 DREDGE

Not Long, but Easily Addictive

If you do everything that you're supposed to do in DREDGE, a Lovecraftian maritime horror game where you play as a lone fisherman, the game takes you not even a full 25 hours to complete, pushing maybe 30 if you want to include the DLCs. However, the gameplay loop is so fun and addictive, I had easily logged in hundreds of hours before realising the time I sunk.

Not only do you have to find every single kind of fish, but also their various aberrations that they can turn into thanks to the eldritch horror waiting below the waters. This act alone will take up a good chunk of time, and that's if you know where to find those fish.

The inventory management of this game is a huge reason for its addictive gameplay, a satisfying puzzle in and of itself that scratches an itch similar to Tetris, but with a lot more ASMR qualities in the mix. The horror is also toned back, being more of a cozy horror game than anything else, making for a gaming experience that's as relaxing as it is entertaining.

So while the game itself is actually short, it's going to eat up your time anyway, and you're going to love every hour of it.

4 Phasmophobia

Time Flies with Friends

Phasmophobia is about a 45-hour game, regardless of if you're playing solo or co-op as intended. However, as you play with friends and enjoy the hilarity that ensues from watching your friends be jumped by supernatural creatures, that time will fly and accumulate much quicker than anyone would anticipate.

This isn't including the fact that when people play with friends, they tend to do multiple games/rounds of the game, and Phasmophobia is no exception to that. You play as a group of ghost hunters, after all, so there are many ways that your playthroughs will go off-the-wall insane, especially when it involves entities you've not encountered yet.

The near-infinite replayability is what makes this game a time-sink, and as you get to spend that sinking time with your friends, you won't even realise the hundreds of hours that have already passed.

3 Pathologic (Classic)

So Much More to Complete

When looking at the Pathologic games, everyone recommends the remake and/or the sequels as the best way to soak it in — and while they're right in that regard, the time difference with the games is astonishing. The original Pathologic that came out in 2015 has an extra few dozen hours over the other games, putting the completionist route at around 81 hours ... again, that's if you know what you're doing, and Pathologic does not hold your hand.

You're on a strict time limit with Pathologic, trying to figure out a cure for a town's plague and all the mayhem that's happening as a result of it. It will take a long while before you get to the root of the problem to begin with, much less get everything under control. After some do-overs and failures, getting the hang of the game and getting to the end, it'll push you closer to 100 hours or more.

There is genuinely so much to do in the classic Pathologic, it's dizzying, and it's part of the reason why so many players (even fans of the series) will recommend starting with Pathologic 2 first. But, if you're wanting a game that you can sit down with for a long while, taking all the time you need to unravel a plot, go with the first game instead.

You're going to have fun regardless, it's just up to you if you want to take on a bunch of extra busywork.

2 Bloodborne

Playtime Will Consist of 99% Do-Overs

While Bloodborne isn't officially classified as a horror game necessarily, it's packed with so much Eldritch horror and Lovecraftian inspiration that it's at the very least a genre-hybrid, a cross between cosmic horror and a Souls game. And, since it's a FromSoftware game, you can expect to spend a long time with the game, most of which involves you trying (and failing) to defeat a boss for the thousandth time.

The game should take about 76 hours to platinum (without save scumming), but that number depends on just how "gud" you "git"... and let's be real, you're going to die many, many times while playing. In fact, a large percentage of your gameplay is going to be attempting a difficult encounter numerous times, dying repeatedly until you finally push through.

Bloodborne is also rich with complicated lore that will keep you pre-occupied for some time trying to piece it all together, and if you're someone like me who loves soaking in all these little details, you're going to be held up for some time.

I don't personally play Soulslike games, so if anything, I'm giddy with excitement over the upcoming animated film by Seán McLoughlin (better known by his YouTuber alias Jacksepticeye), so that way, I can finally soak in the game in a way that doesn't involve watching someone else play.

1 Dying Light

With or Without the DLCs

Whether you choose to play Dying Light with or without its many DLCs, you're going to be in the game for hundreds of hours regardless — seriously, Dying Light 2 alone is 102 hours, and this is just a base game without any additional content. The first game, which takes roughly 65 hours to get through, has multiple DLCs that are each 20 hours or longer, and that's not even for the advanced edition of the game (which is actually closer to 81 hours long). Simply put, once you start playing, you're going to be here for a long while.

Dying Light is an open world horror game that follows a routine day/night cycle, with the player tasked with staying alive in spite of the hoards upon hoards of zombies that come out at night. Not only is it time-consuming to practice genuine survival skills, but it's also just a fun world to run around and explore. Seriously, it's an underrated gem of a world.

Players have a multitude of options with Dying Light and how they want to play it, especially as they become more engrossed in the story and its world — which would lead to continuing on with DLCs, slowly ticking up that playtime into the hundreds. Either way, you're going to spend a lot of time here.

Of all the horror games that contain hundreds of hours of content, you're going to be the most entertained and pre-occupied with Dying Light, however that ends up looking.