Horror Games with Peaceful Modes

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Horror Games with Peaceful Modes Still Wakes the Deep Amnesia Rebirth Maid of Sker Phasmophobia

Published Feb 10, 2026, 4:19 PM EST

Elena Chapella (She/Her) is a current Writer for DualShockers, formerly an award-winning journalist for local news stations and newspapers in central Indiana.

Elena is passionate about writing, playing Dungeons & Dragons with her friends, and, of course, playing video games.

When she's not writing, Elena is actually a high school teacher by day. She teaches students essential life skills for adulthood, including job readiness, financial literacy, and college preparation.

Horror games come in a variety of difficulties, some far more difficult than others. But more often than not in the survival horror sphere, games give you the ability to select your difficulty and what it all entails.

For some horror games, they even go as far as to remove any and all threats entirely.

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Some players want to soak in the game's atmosphere and tension without having to constantly fight for their lives. Even if the horror game is beginner-friendly, there can still be a challenge with enemies. Insert these games that allow you the ability to disable enemies entirely, empowering you to roam freely and get spooked without the lingering threat of death.

Just know that just because you may be in a safe or peaceful difficulty mode, however, doesn't mean that it's a non-scary mode, as these games can still give you a fright unlike any other, no monsters required.

10 The Long Dark

Push Away the Horror Elements

There's a bit of a debate on whether The Long Dark could count as a horror game, and I'd say it's horror-adjacent, with its grueling survival elements and ruthless day/night cycle making you feel the desperate cling of survival, just as snow clings to your outer coat. In The Long Dark, your task is simple: survive a vast, endless winter, in a world where there's nothing left after a geo-magnetic storm.

So while it may not seem like a horror game, try and convince yourself otherwise when you're rummaging through a house when an aurora borealis makes an appearance. During an aurora, colorful lights are generated, animals become more aggressive, and electronics are even given a little bit of power, sure to jump scare anyone who has heard only the sounds of nature for the past hour.

With all of this, The Long Dark is a notoriously difficult survival horror genre hybrid, but players don't have to constantly put up with the uber-realistic, harsh difficulty if they don't want to. You can change your game's difficulty in settings, including what spawns, what doesn't, how aggressive the fauna is, and so much more. In fact, before you even launch your game, you're given this list of settings to filter through and select based on the kind of experience you want.

So if you choose, you can tone down enemy aggression, make your protagonist more resilient to cold and hunger, or whatever else to make this game smooth sailing. When you do this, you effectively push away the game's horror elements, turning this into a pure survival experience rather than an anxiety attack waiting to happen.

9 Phasmophobia

Invite Casper to the Friend Hangout

Everything is best enjoyed with friends, and this includes the fears that you're going to face. Phasmophobia is perhaps one of the funniest times you can have with friends in a multiplayer horror setting, especially when you're listening to them crash out from facing these very fears in another room.

In Phasmophobia, you and your friends play as a group of ghost hunters — but these ghosts that you're going to encounter are hostile and will stop at nothing until you're dead, possessed, or somehow both. While it's hilarious to watch your friend get yanked into the void with proximity chat, the sheer quantity of hauntings can make things a little difficult. That is, until you get into the custom difficulty settings.

When you go into Custom Settings, you can't turn off the ghosts entirely, but you can set it to where they're actually Friendly ghosts instead. So, instead of being chased and harrassed, you've made an undead friend. You can even call them Casper if you want to add an official new member to your friend group.

Just because these ghosts are friendly, though, doesn't mean they won't scare the life out of you every time you see them appear from nowhere.

8 Maid of Sker

Let's Take it Down a Notch

We all love a good retelling of classic folktales, and Maid of Sker dips into Welsh folklore for their inspiration here, retelling Wale's most infamous love story of Elisabeth Williams and Thomas Evans. If you don't know the story, you're in for an even bigger treat, since this retelling takes some fun, creative liberties alongside darker, more horrific turns.

In this game, stealth is essential for survival, made all the freakier by blind enemies that listen closely for you — going so far as to hear you breathe in the room. Yet, you don't have to be limited to this if you don't want to be.

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This game offers a Safe Mode that disables enemies entirely, making the game significantly easier to get through, but still just as terrifying. The moodiness of the game is completely unchanged, even when there's not an active threat.

Plus, on the bright side, you can still get all the achievements if you play in Safe Mode, so you don't even have to encounter a single enemy if you don't want to.

7 The Forest

Or Sons of the Forest; Both Offer Safety

If you want to just chill out in a horror game base-building and gathering materials, The Forest offers a Peaceful Mode that gets rid of all cannibals and mutants so that you can do just that. Normally, The Forest is an intense survival game that revolves around you looking for your son after a plane crash, but with Peaceful Mode, little Timmy can wait.

Finally, managing your inventory has never been so stress-free. The only genuine downside to turning on Peaceful Mode is the fact you can't appreciate the incredible enemy A.I., which is a gem in and of itself. This is definitely one of those games where I would encourage you not to play on Peaceful at least on a repeat playthrough so you can get this experience.

The game's sequel, Sons of the Forest, also offers a Peaceful Mode, allowing players to enjoy all the benefits and new mechanics with none of the potential downgrades.

6 Amnesia: Rebirth

Not Just Safe Rooms Anymore

The Amnesia games are some of the most notorious in the horror sphere, breaking away from being a hidden indie gem to front-and-center on YouTube's homepage. When faced with a threat, you have to find a safe room to have a breather, otherwise you're in danger, and even more trouble if you get caught.

However, in Amnesia: Rebirth, you have the option to play in Adventure Mode, which doesn't remove enemies, but removes their hostility — meaning that they won't attack unless they've been provoked. Not to mention, the game actually gets a little lighter and easier to see, making it so that way your sanity stays intact, and it's not as scary overall.

This is an excellent way for players who are easily terrified to still experience a horror game authentically, with a much deeper emphasis on the story rather than scaring the living daylights out of you.

Just remember not to provoke any of the monsters, because all calmness is immediately thrown out the window, and an immediate target is placed on you.

5 Layers of Fear

The Remake, Specifically

The original Layers of Fear was just a pure walking simulator, without any threat that could kill the protagonist and have the player lose progress. However, in the 2023 remake, that was actually changed to include a few circumstances, such as The Ghost, but it isn't set in stone if players don't want it to be.

In fact, if players want to just keep it as a walking simulator, they can easily do so by turning on Safe Mode in settings, eliminating The Ghost and any threat that she may pose to you while playing.

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In Layers of Fear, you play as an artist trying to create his Magnum Opus, but since this is a psychological horror game, he's haunted by his inner demons that he has yet to properly face. The Ghost is even one of them, but her exact identity is a spoiler, one that should best be revealed in-game.

Of course, Safe Mode isn't an option in the original, because you're already perfectly safe in that game ... or are you?

4 DREDGE

Just Keep Swimming ... Away From Me

DREDGE is an incredibly fun time, regardless of how you feel about horror and spooky things — seriously, it takes 20 hours to platinum the game, but I easily sunk in over 80 hours — since it's a cozy horror game, the stakes aren't as high and the tension doesn't cut as deep. That said, there are still threats that lurk beneath the dark waters.

DREDGE is a maritime horror game that has you playing as a fisherman coming into a coastal town for work, only to learn that something is very wrong here, and with the fish that you reel up onto your boat. It's not until you build up some speed and explore the rest of the map that you understand the full extent.

That being said, you don't have to worry about Lovecraftian abominations in the ocean if you toggle on Passive Mode at any point in time in your playthrough. This disables enemy hostility, and prevents some from even appearing in the first place. You'll still have to manage your sanity, but it would be significantly easier when you're not rowing away from a monster fish.

Just keep in mind that you won't be able to get a couple trophies with enemies disabled, but you can easily turn them back on in settings, cheese the achievement, and then go back to passive mode.

3 Crow Country

An Amusement Park All to Yourself

There are all kinds of modern horror games that are directly inspired by the classic survival horror titles of yore, with Crow Country being a recent example that players immediately adored. So much so, in fact, that it easily cemented itself as one of the best horror games of 2024, especially with how it handled tank controls in a more modern, forgiving way.

Crow Country is the titular amusement park that you're tasked with exploring, uncovering the secrets of the park's founder, but you end up biting off way more than you can chew. However, some players don't want to deal with the monsters that wander around the park, and it would be a challenge if not for the inclusion of Exploration Mode.

Exploration Mode allows players to fully explore without any threat to deal with, so you can just walk around, solve puzzles, and soak in the story in its entirely. The only thing to keep in mind is your ranking at the end of the game; similarly to Resident Evil 4, if you want to score an S or S+ rank, you can't be playing on the easiest difficulty.

It's all the staples of survival horror tied with a neat little bow, and now you have the added benefit of not needing to stress about any monsters walking around.

2 Still Wakes the Deep

Just Get Sad Instead

Christmastime is supposed to be something wonderful, something magical and exciting. However, for Caz McCleary on the Beira D. Oil Rig in Still Wakes the Deep, it's everything but.

Even worse, when the oil rig ends up drilling into a Lovecraftian monstrosity called The Shape, it's literal hell on earth for the rig and everyone aboard it. The game becomes a desperate fight for survival, for a chance at the dramas of the real world that seem so small in comparison — but everyone was doomed from the start.

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There are a few points later in the game where you run into former co-workers, turned into eldritch abominations after The Shape got a hold of them, ruthlessly chasing you down and stopping at nothing until you're dead. The rig, however, being in complete disarray, makes this very difficult at times — so if you set the game to Story Mode, you don't have to worry about it.

With Story Mode, you can essentially avoid every enemy so long as you don't actively go towards them; basically, you have to work for any true difficulty. They'll be present, depressing, and terrifying, but unless you're right up on them or in their patrol pathway, they won't see you or cause any trouble.

1 SOMA

Experience One of the Greatest, Stress-Free

SOMA is an absolute masterpiece of a horror game, and it's one that players will almost always suggest when someone asks for good horror game recommendations. It's incredibly rich in story, filled to the brim with additional details and worldbuilding that further solidify the lore, but also will have you feeling a pit deep in your stomach.

SOMA tackles many existential concepts, but most prominently: what makes a human soul? The answers, and the journey for those answers, still remain some of the most unforgettable in horror gaming history. I've never truly played anything like it before, nor have I ever since.

Even nicer, SOMA has a Safe Mode (one of the pioneers in the horror gaming sphere to do so) that disables enemy hostility. They'll still be present, but they won't actively hunt you down — this allows you to still be freaked out by their presence, but you don't have to worry about anything else other than soaking in the story.

I am so, so excited for what the developers have in store next, and if it's anything like their Magnum Opus, it's going to be a fantastic time (and, most likely, with the ability to experience it through Safe Mode).