10 Best Horror Villains in Gaming in 2024: Scariest Antagonists

Ah, horror villains, the very blood and guts of the horror and horror-survival genres. Where would we be without them? Perhaps having a lovely time with looping memories of playing titles that are all sweetness and light.

But who wants that? Horror game villains are essential in a good fright-off, and if you pay your money for a horror game, you want only the scariest foes.

Good. Now that we know we’re on the same dark and horrendous page as each other, we’ve put together a list of horror villains fit for the most terrifying encounters. Nope, no cute and ‘spooky’ nostalgia to be found here – sorry, Captain LeChuck.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. 10 Best Horror Villains in Gaming in 2024
3. The Bottom Line
4. FAQs
5. References

Show Full Guide

Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. 10 Best Horror Villains in Gaming in 2024
3. The Bottom Line
Show Full Guide
4. FAQs
5. References

10 Best Horror Villains in Gaming in 2024

Before we begin, just know that half of this list isn’t from Resident Evil …although we nearly caved on adding a couple of extra entries. Instead, for the best horror villains we’ve looked at some of the best horror games and kept to one villain per franchise. Let’s get into it.

10. Andrew Ryan

Andrew Ryan often appears on these lists, and he should. Although not your stereotypical horror villain in some respects, he is truly a villain. Not a god or a king, just a man. A megalomaniac man, and his unraveling in Bioshock – like the story’s wider destructive events – is ultimately the culmination of his decisions.

That’s right, Ryan. Use your enormous wealth to build an underwater city you can rule over, dominate, and oversee plasmid use as humans turn themselves into monsters. All good, that.

Ultimately, he falls into madness and falls altogether. That’s unsurprising, given his fervent beliefs. For example, Rapture is a city where ‘the scientist’ would not be bound by “petty morality”. Uhuh, he’s one of the most iconic horror villains for a reason.

9. The Hive Mind

The Dead Space series has to be one of the most cerebrally startling franchises in gaming. From the very first moment you step onto the USC Ishimura as Isaac Clarke, you can expect a higher heart rate. Yes, the place is crawling with Necromorphs, and you’ll need to prepare for jump-scares and fights for your life while potentially being sliced and diced a few times on your way.

But who is behind all of this, alongside the growing delirium, hallucinations, and feelings of psychosis experienced by characters as the game progresses? The Hive Mind.

Yes, not content with being the creator of a range of hellishly quick and horrible creations that are out to chomp you into gnarly bits, The Hive Mind wants more biomass to continue creating. We’d say it certainly deserves its place on this list of horror villains.

8. Laura

If you’ve played The Evil Within, you know who, or what, we’re talking about here. Yes, it is the banshee-wailing Laura monster. She’s absolutely horrifying to listen to with piercing screams and not exactly easy on the eye with her bedraggled hair, elongated and extra limbs, and spider-like gait.

Laura is a female horror villain straight out of a nightmare, given she’s a combination of the memory of Laura Victoriano and the, let’s say, ill-will of Ruben ‘Ruvik’ Victoriano, but Laura is certainly one of the more horrible. Of course, adding to the terror is Laura’s one-shot kill ability and the fact that while essentially ignorant of the effect of bullets, she isn’t a fan of flame.

This is all the more horrible because, firstly, you have to witness more horror when putting an enemy down this way, and, secondly, Laura Victoriano’s death was led to by a barn fire. Gruesome.

7. Pyramid Head

One of the reasons this writer is yet to, and likely never will, complete Silent Hill games (alongside the Grey Children) is Pyramid Head. And let’s be honest, the ominous trudging presence of this character is enough to give many a gamer the ‘Nopes’.

Yet this villain’s horror aesthetic is more than its Pyramid Head; it’s more than its inability to feel the weight of most weapons you attack it with, and it’s more than the huge weapon it wields. This is one of the best horror villains because of where it originates, the darkest depths of Silent Hill 2.

A manifestation of a human desire for punishment, specifically of the protagonist James Sunderland, Pyramid Head speaks to an element of psychological discontinuity integral to the most iconic horror villains. Plus, in writing this list, I didn’t enjoy looking at images of it.

6. Alma Wade

If you name a game franchise F.E.A.R. and decide to include a creepily appearing girl cast from the same mold as the girl from The Ring, you’ve got the fundamentals for a solid horror villain. Naturally, Alma Wade is an incredibly strong psychic, and you will uncover what happened to her and why.

But here’s the thing: Alma appears as a child, ramping up the horror stakes, and when we know she was experimented on against her will, has committed arson, murder, and generally used her psychic abilities for death and destruction, you start to feel more than a little creeped out by her appearances.

Alma Wade persists as a horror villain, even into her adult form as the series progresses. F.E.A.R. may also gain an entry onto lists of top multiplayer horror games, but it’s Alma that we want to, err, celebrate here.

5. Chris Walker

What do we say about Chris? There were a couple of names to pick from Outlast, but Chris’ sheer size and dominating terror, along with his gruesome appearance (check), are the sort of nightmare fuel you’d expect from a game where a remote psychiatric hospital hidden in the mountains sees the visit of an investigative journalist.

With a deep, hoarse voice and fondness for saying “little pig” ‘Strongfat’ is a giant of a variant in the game and provides Leather Face and Jason Voorhees vibes through his sheer size, albeit he does speak.

The fact he has no nose, no lips, and is hugely strong and scary adds to the fact that Chris Walker is a terrifying standout in a terrifying place. That helps him onto this horror villains list, but what keeps him there is the thought of his headless victims (he keeps those as trophies) and the torn bodies he can leave in his wake.

4. Albert Wesker

Albert, Albert, Albert. There was only room for one Resident Evil entry on this list, and humans often make the worst enemies and best horror villains. So, while Nemesis was considered, it’s hard to not go with Wesker for his sheer persistence in being a villainous bad guy.

Let’s be honest here: when a brilliant scientist transforms themselves into an ongoing problem for the clean-up crew of a franchise and ultimately turn themselves into an incredibly powerful, horrendously hard-to-put-down literal monster, they deserve to be on any top list of horror game characters.

Albert Wesker is a persistent menace in Resident Evil and only strives toward his own ambitions as the series protagonists are seeking to, you know, save humanity. The delight in his fate should not be overstated, but the fact that such a monster became of him gives him his rotten flowers. When that franchise is one of the top horror gaming franchises ever, they’re a shoo-in.

3. Lisa

It says something about Lisa that she doesn’t even feature in a full horror game and still makes it on to and so high up this list. Lisa’s back story and her appearance in Playable Teaser (P.T) are the stuff of horror game legend now – and rightly so.

As players repeatedly move around a hallway in P.T., Lisa is haunting it. The same Lisa, who was stabbed in the eye by her partner had her eye gouged out and was then (while pregnant) stabbed in the stomach.

Obviously, this is an extremely cruel fate, and her being cast as a villain may be somewhat unfortunate, but she haunts and creeps the hell out of players; she does very well in this precursor for what was supposed to be the unreleased Silent Hills. There’s not much more to add here other than to say she ‘smiles’ is bloodied, has one eye missing, and is one heck of a scary apparition.

2. SHODAN

The stuff of horror in the technological age is an all-powerful AI going rogue and deciding to mess things up, attack, hunt, and generally intimidate you. These are the things SHODAN (Sentient Hyper-Optimized Data Access Network) decides to do in System Shock.

But it’s not as if SHODAN is doing all of this for some logical gain, knowing it’s ultimately best for the world. Nope, SHODAN is just a malevolent force – and has no intention of doing things logically, other than going off the rails because it can.

Sometimes, the best horror villains are the ones that just have no rationality behind their existence or actions. That’s why SHODAN is here, and that’s why it can’t be reasoned with.

1. The Slender Man

The Slender Man is possibly the creepiest character creation ever, and its (his?) persistence in haunting and ending gamers means they sit squarely at number one on this list.

Listen, I’d love to regale you with stories of playing Slender games and ol’ Slendy creeping up on me, but this happened for half an hour once, and I promptly uninstalled and vowed never to play into his horror trap again.

Seriously though, the unspeaking, unknowable, human-like, face-less horror vibe is strong here; Slender jump-scares hit like few others. Also, he has tentacles, and why is he wearing a suit? You’re often in a forest. He’s often behind or somewhere behind you. How does he move? He’s silent. He teleports? I’m not sure.

Right. I need a warm cup of cocoa just because I’ve had to write about him (it?). If you play a Slender game, enjoy it… I guess.

The Bottom Line

The best horror villains don’t need to be hard to put down, hard to escape, or hard to forget. They just need to create a huge sense of unease when you’re playing any game they are in. If you come across a game that has such a character, that’s a great horror villain. Enjoy the game, then bury it somewhere when you’re done. Or replay at will!

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