Halloween is not all about jumpscares and getting scared or chased by monsters that are out to eat you up or just murder you for sport. If you’re keeping indoors this Halloween but would like to be reminded that it’s Halloween without being spooked for no reason, then we’ve got the right games for you.
Let’s hang out with some skeletons and ghosts, shall we?
Luigi’s Mansion 3
Playing as Mario’s number 2 feels like an interesting experience, and to be honest any of the Luigi’s Mansion games would be a good selection to play during the Halloween season. Plus, who can resist Polterpup? The adorable little ghost dog companion is all it takes for me to want to put on the game right now!
If you don’t want to play it alone, there’s an online multiplayer mode that holds up to 8 people so grab your friends and families to play it with you!
Death and Taxes
We’ve all imagined what it would be like to be the Grim Reaper before right? Just me? Well, in Death and Taxes, you’ll take up his job and decide whether people should live or die. Perhaps the scariest thing about this game is the existential crisis you’re definitely going to have while playing it.
Maybe don’t play it at night, or else you won’t be able to sleep with all the questions lingering in your head. Your actions have consequences, and you can either defy Fate (your boss) or follow whatever they say to a tee to be rewarded while the world goes to hell (hehe).
Monster Prom
You’re a monster looking for a date to prom and it’s the last few weeks of high school so there’s not much time left! Spooky factors: you’re back in high school AND you have to find a prom date? Ahhh, the pain.
You’ll navigate through high school life and social events in order to find a date and build relationships with the other monsters. It’s a pretty fun dating sim vibe and if you don’t want to go through it alone, you can pull in up to four friends to play it with you!
Castlevania: Symphony of The Night
Vampires have always been an alluring and important part of Halloween, so what better way to celebrate than to play one of the best vampire video games released! The best part is that you’ll be hunting down Dracula as his half son, through an environment filled with all sorts of monsters in Dracula’s castle itself.
Castlevania holds a lot of haunted spaces and scenes but none of them is truly scary enough to haunt your dreams, it’s just enough to give you an adrenaline rush as you play through. As the forefather of Metroidvania games, Castlevania is one you probably shouldn’t miss out on either.
It’s even ported over to the PS4 and remade for mobile devices, so you don’t have an excuse, really.
Hades
A rogue-lite filled with skeletons, ghouls and Greek gods is as Halloween as it gets. Plus you’ll also be dying a lot so that’s a good spooky Halloween special right there. Overall Hades is a great game to play whether you’re celebrating the spooky season or not.
The art style and cool characters along with some spooky elements are enough to dub it a great game to play during the spookiest time of the year. No jumpscares or creatures to haunt you at night, just the idea of dying and repeating the game over and over… to finally escape hell.
Undertale
If you’re looking for some spooky elements, Undertale has definitely got it covered – monsters underground, skeletons and emo ghosts, dogs in armour; they’ve got all the weird and whimsical things you’d catch on Halloween. The storyline, graphics and background music of this game really brings out some spooky vibes that shouldn’t be missed.
The hardcore gameplay doesn’t beat you up, and the characters will leave you with a wholesome feeling inside. Definitely, a change when it comes to the spooky vibes of the season. They’ve got comedic relief and silly puns to draw you in so you’ll definitely be entertained.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York
A visual novel on vampires that reflects on your decisions. If you can’t dress up as a vampire for Halloween, nothing’s stopping you from playing a game as one! Doesn’t have many scary elements to it either, in fact, we would place this in a rather conservative side of vampire games.
There’s no outright gore and any death is done off-screen. The story is less about murdering and slaughtering people but more about identity and inequality which is always an important lesson to learn. Treat it like a movie and you’ll be fine!
Mysterium
If you’re looking for a not so scary but spooky game to play with a larger group of people, Mysterium is the way to go. It’s a digital board game where one of you is a ghost. You’re sending visions to other players who are psychic mediums in order to solve a murder.
Visions serve as clues and the players have to work together to figure out the culprit, location and items related to the crime. It’s a fun time similar to the board game Cluedo or Dixit, except that it’s online. What better way to spend your Halloween than solving a murder, right?
Hollow Knight
You play as a bug in Hollow Knight, a Metroidvania 2D platformer styled game fighting monsters/bugs you meet along the way to uncover the hidden secrets of the underground world. The game is not scary at all, there are no jump scares or anything. However, the vibe, environment and visuals have an eerie, haunting and dark look to them.
Some have even commented that this is what a Tim Burton video game would look like. And honestly, they’re not wrong at all. As a Metroidvania though, this game features some hard-hitting bosses, so it’s no child’s play to get through.
There you go! Some not so scary games to get you into the Halloween spirit while saving you from some nightmares. Do let us know what spooky or not so spooky games you’re looking forward to this month in the comments below!
