Updated at: 29-05-2022 - By: Leo Hall

Monsters in video games have come a long way from the 2D pixel art images of horrible beasts and strange creatures depicted in the early days of gaming.

In today’s horror games, you’ll find anything from scary animals to eldritch horrors and everything else in between.

We’ve compiled a rating of the scariest video game monsters, from the least frightful to the most distressing.

Make sure to keep an eye out for new contenders in the future, and let us know if we’ve overlooked any of your favorite video game monsters!

Headcrabs

In Half-Life, he makes an appearance.

The Headcrab, one of Half-earliest Life’s foes and a frequent source of the game’s jumpscares, is a fitting place to begin.

These omnivorous, parasitic extraterrestrial organisms are known as headcrabs, and they have appeared in the Half-Life series as well as other games.

This is where they like to hide before jumping on your face and filling the entire screen as they try to transform you into a mindless zombie.

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ReDeads

This character is featured in “The Legend of Zelda”

In The Legend of Zelda, you’ll encounter the eerie ReDeads, who resemble zombies until you approach too near to one.

Link is temporarily immobilized by the ReDead when he gets too close, but that only lasts long enough for it to grab onto his back and do a lot of damage quickly.

ReDeads originally debut in Ocarina of Time, but they can be seen in various forms in other games as well, including Majora’s Mask, The Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess, to name just a few examples.

Jenova

Final Fantasy VII: The Awakening

Among Final Fantasy’s notable villains, Jenova stands head and shoulders above the rest. It is an extraterrestrial life form with a unique genetic structure that can absorb the qualities of victims and inject its own to create monsters.

Jenova, the “calamity from the skies,” is a mythical creature who goes from planet to planet erasing all life by absorbing the memories of its prey and transforming them into mindless corpses.

Using Jenova’s cells to create Sephiroth has already resulted in the creation of several other villains in the series.

The Matriarch

In Evil Within 2, he appears.

The creature designs in the Evil Within games are heavily influenced by Silent Hill, thus it makes sense that they would contain some of the most horrifying bosses on this list.

Evil Within 2’s last boss, the Matriarch, features a monstrous creature covered in boils as the final enemy.

Fighting the Matriarch’s deadly melee strikes and avoiding vomiting at its disgustingly malformed visage is the bulk of the battle.

The Wendigos

Until Dawn: The Final Chapter

Until Dawn’s Wendigo stalks your group throughout the game, making it far scarier than the Native American traditional tales it is based on.

Bony and shrill Wendigo are relentless in their pursuit of their prey and can outrun even the most agile humans.

Wendigos can be evaded through stealth and distraction techniques, but they will eventually catch up to you.

Hedge Broodmother

in the book Grounded

It’s understandable that many gamers are afraid of spiders, given how much video games represent them as terrible beasts.

This may be seen in the survival crafting game Grounded, which takes set in a backyard where the player is shrunk down to the size of an ant and must battle numerous insects and arthropods.

Eight-legged nightmares like the Orb Weaver and Wolf Spider, as well as the Hedge Broodmother, a boss that imprisons the player in its cave until the battle is done, are all part of this.

Big Daddy

in the game BioShock

When it comes to BioShock’s Big Daddies, they’re not much of a menace unless you mess with one of their Little Sisters.

Once this happens, they’ll follow your whereabouts and use a quite unfriendly-looking drill to administer their own brand of mechanical justice.

With their eerie screams, metal bodies, and relentless pursuit of players, the ghouls are an excellent addition to an already unnerving game.

The Witch

Appearances in: Left 4 Dead 3

Left 4 Dead and its sequel feature unique infected opponent varieties that present new difficulties for teams of players to vanquish.

There’s the Witch, a seemingly nonchalant female zombie who, when disturbed, unleashes a swarm of undead on the surrounding area.

To be safe, make sure no one on your team makes any noise or attacks her, although in a game like Left 4 Dead, this isn’t always easy to accomplish.

Pyramid Head

Appearances in the following films:

Pyramid Head’s design is both visually and narratively disturbing, as we demonstrated in our ranking of the most nasty video game villains.

Pyramid Head is a grotesque nightmare creature who carries a gigantic blade that is so heavy he needs to pull it around with him.

In Silent Hill 2, he stalks players through the game’s eerie corridors until they are forced to combat him in one of the game’s most terrifying boss battles.

The Brainsucker

Featured in: Bloodborne

There are a lot of unsettling enemies in From Software’s games, but this one can be found just by exploring Bloodborne’s environment.

When the Brainsucker attacks, it grabs onto the player’s head with a special grab and drives a giant tentacle into their skull, eating their brain matter.

When you consider that they can also cast spells if you come across a hooded ‘elite version,’ as well as being exceedingly fast and draining players’ Insight stats, their inclusion on our list is a no-brainer.

Dagon

In Call of Cthulhu, he appears.

H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction is full with terrifying monsters, a fact that has been extensively explored in survival horror games throughout history.

The Dagon in Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is a wonderful example of this, which is the final fight after countless hours of studying scary sculptures and defeating its minions.

With a thunderous roar, the Dagon emerges from the depths and unleashes its wrath on the player, as you would anticipate.

Nemesis

Resident Evil 3 features the character.

With terrifyingly powerful monsters like the Nemesis, Resident Evil is another survival horror franchise.

Described as a sentient bioweapon, the Nemesis spends most of Resident Evil 3 chasing the player and other S.T.A.R.S members, doing the dirty work for the Umbrella Corporation.

Because it attacks without warning and cannot be killed with ordinary weapons, this monster makes for a very unnerving opponent, even though its malformed appearance doesn’t help much.

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E.M.M.I.

The Metroid Dreadnought

E.M.M.I. (Extraplanetary Multiform Mobile Identifier) are formidable robots programmed to catch Samus at all means, one of the newer foes in Metroid Dread.

Upon being informed, Samus will be pursued by these ominous creatures, which can be seen roaming the floors on all fours and using their sharp claws to scale walls and ceilings.

By virtue of their unpredictable movements and full invulnerability to Samus’ conventional weaponry, the E.M.M.I. make any confrontation with Samus seem uneasy.

Museum of Witchcraft Deathclaw

It’s a cameo in Fallout 4

You can imagine how terrifying it is to stumble into a Deathclaw in the open world of Fallout.

Witches can be terrifying when they’re in an enclosed space, like the Museum of Witchcraft in Fallout 4.

It’s possible for players to locate a hidden mission that takes them to an apparently abandoned museum where they’ll meet the Savage Deathclaw and a slew of its human prey.

Lisa

appears in the film

When you’re exploring a looping house that is plagued by a demonic Lisa, it’s a shame that you never get to see the end product.

Being murdered while still pregnant has left Lisa with little choice except to terrorize any visitors that come into her residence.

The combination of her eerie appearance, erratic motions, and proclivity for enslaving her victims makes her one of the most terrifying video game creatures ever.

Necromorph

in the film Dead Space

As Dead Space’s Necromorphs can take on a variety of shapes, putting them all together may look a little like cheating.

However, they all have one purpose in common: collecting as many bodies as possible and bringing them back to life in order to keep the infection afoot.

Just knowing that Necromorphs used to be your crewmates adds an added element of terror to every encounter in the game.

Lady Dimitrescu

Resident Evil Village is where this character appears.

Countess Alcina Dimitrescu, a.k.a. Lady Dimitrescu, is one of Resident Evil’s most recent additions to the series’ long line of scary villains.

She was dreaded for her purported acts of mass murder and cannibalism, both of which were eventually revealed to be genuine. She governed the peasantry near Castle Dimitrescu for nearly sixty years and was born into aristocracy.

Lady Dimitrescu is a towering figure with razor-sharp claws, hinting at her real form as she stalks the castle’s interior.

Xenomorph

Alien Isolation features this character.

What could be scarier than being confined in a decaying space station as the vents above you are filled with the saliva of an unstoppable Xenomorph?

Alien: Isolation makes an excellent job of adapting this legendary monster to an interactive platform while increasing the suspense with anxiety-inducing chases and stealths.

Using flares, noisemakers, and a flamethrower, you can temporarily evade the Xenomorph, but its survival is simply too high to have any prospect of completely eliminating the menace.

The Gaping Dragon

Appearances in the following games:

With a wide variety of weapons and quick reflexes, gamers in the Dark Souls franchise must take out a variety of hideous foes.

It’s very uncommon for foes in video games, though, to trick players into thinking they’re safe, only to strike fear into their hearts in a matter of seconds.

While initially appearing to be only a small reptile, the Gaping Dragon soon reveals itself to be an enormous mouth full of sharp and unpleasant fangs.

Reaper Leviathan

in the video game Subnautica

Reaper is one of the various leviathan-class creatures that can be encountered in Subnautica’s alien waters.

Despite the fact that the Sea Dragon Leviathan is the game’s largest monster, they are by far the most terrifying encounter in a game already rife with sea terrors.

In the dark waters along the seabed, reapers tend to lurk, making them difficult to spot from a distance until one manages to come up behind you and let out a blood-curdling, spine-tingling roar.

Granfaloon (Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night)

Granfaloon’s name conjures up a sense of fear in many Castlevania fans. In spite of the fact that Granfaloon isn’t the most challenging enemy to fight, he’s definitely one of the most frightening. At its heart, this battle is waged deep inside inside the inverted castle, where most of the action occurs.

Granfaloon, unlike many other SOTN boss bouts, is terrifying beyond words. This parasitic species shields itself from harm by encasing itself in a swarm of thousands of dead bodies. Screaming bodies fall to the ground as the player slashes their way through Granfaloon’s body. It’s a nerve-wracking battle, to say the least.

The Dragon God (Demon’s Souls)

In Demon’s Souls, there are many powerful opponents, but few are as terrifying as the Dragon God. Massive and terrifying, it dwarfs the player in stature and is more than capable of dealing outright devastation. Environmental cover is needed to avoid being transformed into red paste by the enemy.

Players who aren’t prepared for his fire and melee attacks can die in one strike from them. When put together, his physical look and exhausting combat style make him a terrifying adversary.

Deathclaws (Fallout)

Even without the presence of Deathclaws, Fallout remains dark and frightening enough. Despite their appearance, these monsters are essentially genetically designed killing machines that roam the desolate landscape.

Deathclaws ascended to the position of top predator in the food chain after the nuclear holocaust, with no other predators to contend with. If you don’t have Power Armor and a heavy weapon at your disposal, you’re going to have a difficult time dealing with them.

The Human Reaper (Mass Effect 2)

A horror element was introduced in Mass Effect 2 in the form of the Collectors, a race enslaved to the terrible Reapers and entrusted with the task of stealing humans from various planets across the galaxy for their own personal gain. When Shepard and the squad are attacked by the deadly Human Reaper in the final act, the goal becomes crystal apparent.

This is one of the most terrifying monsters in video games in terms of its physical appearance. Its enormous size and scary aspect combine to make it a terrifying sight to see. Due to its lack of difficulty in combat, this monster lost much of its original ferocity.

Frostbite Spiders (Skyrim)

There are many factors that make Skyrim one of Bethesda’s best games, and one of them is immersion. When arachnophobes first encountered a frostbite spider in Skyrim’s dungeons, they broke out in freezing sweats, and for good reason. As frightening as they are, Bethesda did little to mitigate their dreadful presence in Oblivion.

It’s not simply the size of these spiders that scares people; it’s also their viciousness. If the player gets too close to them, they’ll spit poison at them to incapacitate them. The majority of frostbite spiders aren’t dangerous, but there are a few that are so huge that they’re guaranteed to scare people.

Xenomorph – Alien Isolation

Alien Isolation was able to ratchet up the anxiety in many people by a massive metric ton from the Alien film franchises. Making your way around the ship as the Xenomorph is mercilessly hunting you down is an unforgettable experience. But that’s not all; the 8-foot monster can also appear out of nowhere to finish you off, which is stunning and terrifying all at the same time.

Licker – Resident Evil

When I first saw it, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The first time my mum saw my friends and I playing Resident Evil 2 she screamed. The first time I see them, they still scare the crap out of me. When I see the filthy brain atop it, the skin peeled away leaving nothing but muscle, I get the creeps. That’s not even the worst part. Unless you get away quickly, their range for re-enticing you back into their grasp is far too wide. Also, if you don’t detect them immediately away, they might merely relax on the roof, making you an even more vulnerable target.

The scariest video game monsters

Variants – Outlast

Outlast takes place at the mental institution known as Mount Massive Asylum. While some of these monsters aren’t as outwardly frightening as others, their erratic and unpredictable behavior is what really scares us. Sometimes they’re just chilling in front of the TV, listening to white noise, and other times they’re chasing you down the halls, threatening to rip your flesh to shreds. It’s not like you can fight back against most of the species on this list, so you’ll simply have to hope you can outrun these guys.

Valtiel – Silent Hill

Valtiel, despite being a bit more passive than Pyramid Head, is nevertheless terrifying. Players are spooked by the intermittent motions of his head, which obscures his leathery face as he crawls towards them. It’s also hard to watch him play about with the nurses.

FAQS:

What is siren head?

Siren Head is a large fleshy creature with two speakers attached to its head, created by artist Trevor Henderson. Disturbing noises can be heard coming from its hiding places in the woods. There are instances when they are distorted radio broadcasts, or strangely mangled pieces of music. People in distress may be heard pleading for assistance.

What game is scarier than Outlast?

The utilization of claustrophobia and the fear of being trapped in small areas in Outlast 2 only serves to heighten the tension. In spite of this, REZ 7 has a well-developed plot and the entire atmosphere of the film is a great source of terror. However, rez 7 is scarier, however outlast 2 has one cunning technique, which is to leave the player with no weapons at their disposal

Is Silent Hill the scariest game?

Silent Hill games aren’t known for their jump scares, but when they do, no one does it better than Silent Hill. After only two hours of playtime, P.T. had established itself as one of the scariest experiences ever, even though the Silent Hill game never saw the light of day.