Most iconic horror game monsters

A horror game lives or dies based on its monster designs. There are some examples where games can get away with hiding or obscuring their creatures to let your imagination do the heavy lifting, but those are few and far between. The biggest and most legendary horror games all have at least one premier monster that acts as the face of the franchise. The mere mention of their names can be enough to send a cold chill down your spine if you ever crossed their path in the past.

Just like animation, video games are in the best position to craft monsters scientifically designed to trigger your deepest fear responses. Nothing is impossible, meaning you can never be fully prepared for what’s in store for you. That was how we felt coming across these legendary figures in horror history. Even though a bit of their edge is lost due to familiarity, they still hold a special place in our hearts for how close we came to stopping them on our first encounter. These are the most horrifying monsters in gaming that I hope we never have to meet in real life.

1 Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2

If only this was his only appearance

Pyramid Head is arguably the most iconic horror monster in gaming — period. It’s such a simple yet effective design of a shirtless man dragging a massive blade with an unsettlingly large metal pyramid on his head. What makes him even scarier is how you first encounter him in Silent Hill 2. James enters a room and finds Pyramid Head doing… something… to two other monsters in a kitchen. He hides in a closet and readies his gun. When Pyramid Head approaches and stops just on the other side of the louvered door, James panics and unloads his gun and Pyramid Head just…walks away completely unfazed.

It’s the quiet, dreading presence and what Pyramid Head represents specifically to James that drives the terror deep. Sadly, he has been watered down by appearing in multiple future entries where he doesn’t make sense because of his popularity. If you just play Silent Hill 2 (or the remake) then you’ll get the pure experience.

2 Mr. X from Resident Evil 2 Remake

He’s always hunting you down

So much was changed in the Resident Evil 2 Remake, but one tweak Capcom kept under wraps was Mr. X. This giant, fashionable zombie was in the original but held for very scripted sequences. In the Remake, once this towering hulk appears, he’s hunting you down for almost the entirety of the game.

Suddenly, all those hallways you emptied out and felt safe in became deadly again if you heard his plodding footsteps approach. Puzzle rooms became a ticking time bomb because you knew you only had so long to solve it before Mr. X would track you down and corner you. There’s no killing him through normal means, either — only slowing him down at the cost of very precious ammo.

3 Necromorphs from Dead Space

Sci-fi body horror

Necromorphs take a few different forms in the first Dead Space, but they all represent different interpretations of body horror. These creatures are twisted humans who have been corrupted by a malevolent alien artifact with the only goal of killing and “infecting” everything around them. Most still have a humanoid shape, only with elongated limbs, protruding bone spikes, or bloated stomachs filled with parasites.

As disturbing as they are to encounter, it’s how they kill your main character, Isaac, that’s truly chilling. The worst (or best, depending on how you look at it) is one where Isaac’s head is ripped off by a scuttling Necromorph head, which then inserts itself onto Isaac’s body and pilots it around. There’s also the disturbing detail that they can’t actually die, so the reason you need to cut off their limbs is to stop them from being able to chase and attack you.

4 Alma Wade from FEAR

Simple but effective Japanese horror

The Ring and The Grudge were some of the first films to introduce Western audiences to Japanese horror in a major way. What made this flavor of horror so deliciously spooky was transforming one of the most cheerful and innocent concepts — a little girl — into the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.

FEAR pulls the exact same trick with Alma Wade, the psychic ghost haunting your silent protagonist throughout the entire game. She mostly appears in the shadows or just out of reach, staring at you behind her long black hair. Once you get to the end of the game and see her in her “real” form, though… well, I won’t spoil it here, but just make sure your little sister isn’t sneaking up on you any time soon afterward.

5 The Mimics from Prey

You’ll never look at a mug the same way

We have plenty of examples in horror games and movies where the monster is hidden among the cast. These are particularly great for building up suspense and paranoia, but Prey takes things in a different direction by giving its monsters the ability to disguise themselves not as other humans, but as everyday objects.

In the game, walking into a brightly lit office becomes a nightmare. Any cup, lamp, plant, or random knickknack could be a possible threat. The moment you get careless and stop paying attention is exactly when they strike. The worst feeling is when you hear one moving around and know it’s in there somewhere, but you just can’t pin down where. That’s when you break out your wrench and start smashing every coffee cup in sight just to be sure.