The Best Horror Games That Break The Fourth Wall

Horror games are able to elicit fear in a multitude of ways. Some horror games bring out a more “physical” kind of fear; adrenaline rushes, jump scares, that kind of thing. Other games are about a slower, more quiet sense of dread that gradually builds up. And then some are just really hard.

No matter how frightening a horror game is, however, the player can usually take some comfort in the fact that whatever entities are running them down can’t escape beyond the screen. It’s easy for players to convince themselves that it’s just a game, and nothing more. For gamers who don’t think this goes far enough, however, there are some games that go the extra mile, breaking the fourth wall to confront the player directly.

5 Inscryption

An Unnerving Card-Based Roguelike Horror Game

Inscryption is a phenomenal card game that manages to be experimental while maintaining so many engaging, addictive gameplay loops. From the get-go, this game’s uneasy, dreary atmosphere manages to make players feel unsettled, and that feeling never subsides throughout the game. This is an incredible deck builder that allows for a lot of experimentation and customization, and when players finally feel like they’ve gotten a handle on the game, it changes in a way that makes them rethink everything they thought they knew.

This game is immediately tongue-and-cheek with its meta references, such as the only opponent in the opening stretches of the game being the same old guy wearing a bunch of different masks, but as the story continues, proper fourth wall breaks become an integral part of the plot, as the developer himself starts sharing his unnerving experience making the game.

4 Imscared

A Cult Classic Indie Horror Title

This is an iconic title that doesn’t let its simplistic graphics stop it from being utterly nerve-wracking. Quite the opposite. “White Face” has become a bit of an icon since this game’s debut as a well-recognized and utterly frightening entity, establishing that same kind of cult veneration that something like Slenderman or any of the FNAF animatronics have achieved. With a minimalist story and minimalist graphics to follow suit, the ways that Imscared uses techniques to trick the player into thinking their computer is being manipulated is incredibly novel.

This game’s supposed alteration of computer files is the main way it breaks the fourth wall, convincing players their computer itself is under attack from these unnerving entities.

3 Pony Island

A Meta Title That Isn’t Nearly As Cute As It Sounds

Before he was challenging and frightening players with Inscryption, Daniel Mullins had put work into a different horror title based around a meta narrative and the breaking of the fourth wall. Pony Island is a game within a game, a broken and janky arcade title that must be hacked in order to find the true game within, which is some sort of vessel for souls that the Devil has taken over; and he is trying to use to capture the player’s soul next.

This game acknowledges that it is, in fact, a game, and much of the player’s efforts to win will involve “hacking” the software and changing the code to bypass the broken bits of the game that simply aren’t navigable otherwise.

2 Doki Doki Literature Club

A Terrifying Critique Of The Visual Novel Genre

Doki Doki Literature Club made a phenomenal impact upon its release by being an incredibly subversive visual novel and, as much as one can in the age of the internet, keeping the secret of its true horrific nature pretty well under wraps for the first few months that players had their hands on it. There’s an incredibly insidious nature to the fourth wall breaking here, where the somewhat generic main character slowly bleeds away over time and the ‘love interests’ come to see the player themselves as the focal point of their world.

This is a terrifying visual novel that doesn’t shy away from issues of mental health, and the game only gets more frightening as the characters struggle to reconcile with their true nature as virtual entities.

1 CALENDULA

A Horror Title Where The Game Itself Works Against The Player

While some horror games will attempt to lure players in with cutesy art styles and graphics, CALENDULA, while remaining subversive and fourth-wall breaking, takes on no such pretense. This is a game that, in simplest terms, does not want to be played, and will do everything in its power to keep its secrets hidden away. A puzzle horror game, CALENDULA doesn’t give the player too many tools to work with, but this makes experimentation and finding the right path very rewarding given the limited options available.

The sound design is what really pulls this title together, from the unnerving sounds the game makes as it glitches and encounters “fatal errors” to the general droning ambiance, this game just feels alive. That makes it appear all the more hostile towards the player, as it uses settings and command screens to be as unpleasant as possible.