Playing horror games is an extremely popular activity during October in general and Halloween in particular. Aside from watching some classic horror movies, there's no better way for gamers to celebrate the season of fear than to get absorbed into a game where they have to run from the undead, or ghosts, or ax murderers, or whatever other fear they want to face.
But you cannot be on your PC or gaming console all the time. Luckily, there are a number of horror games available for the mobile devices. Best of all, there are a number of spooky games that you can get for nothing! So when you are out and about on Halloween Night and you need a spooky game on your phone or tablet to keep you going, check out these free and easy-to-find games!
Note: Some of these games are free, but have in-app purchases available. Some of them have paid versions that come without ads. There are some completely free games on the market, but they are few and far between. However, unless otherwise noted, the versions here linked are the free ones.
Dungeon Nightmares
This is one of the spookiest and most time-consuming games available for mobile gamers. Dungeon Nightmares is a genuinely unnerving game with atmosphere and jump scares in equal measures (and it would be amazing to play on the Oculus Rift). It is notable for having randomly-generated maps, permadeath, and enemy AI that responds to your gameplay. Dungeon Nightmares has since taken PC gamers by storm, but it began as a mobile game and is still available for phones and tablets.
There is a free version available on the App Store and on Google Play for $.99.
Dark Meadow: The Pact
For a game that is free, there is a surprising amount of detail in Dark Meadow. Every environment is filled with scenery, the enemies have aggressive attack patterns, and even the voice acting is inoffensive at worst. Created by Phosphor Games a few years ago, Dark Meadow has aged well. It actually has proper RPG mechanics, with equippable items. It has first-person melee and ranged combat with far more depth than it has any right to.
Dark Meadow is available from the App Store and Google Play.
Murder Room
Challenges where you have to escape a closed room are a great source of tension in video games. Murder Room is a free version of those challenges. You must escape locked rooms with a young girl while being pursued by a serial killer. It isn’t common to have a great story in a small game (though it isn’t unheard of), but the story of Murder Room is surprisingly intriguing.
Murder Room is available on the App Store and Google Play. There is an additional “DLC” level available for purchase upon completion of the game, but you can play the main body of the game for free
The Abandoned School
The Abandoned School is one of the shorter free games out there, but it has pretty good art and sound design for what it is. The game is done in shades of red, white, and black. The touchscreen controls can be – for lack of a better word – touchy and selective about when they will and won’t work. But for the most part, the game is spooky and atmospheric. The music is also pretty good!
The Abandoned School is available on the App Store and Google Play. It is ad-supported.
Curse Breakers: Horror Mansion
Wow, this title hits all the right notes for a horror game, doesn’t it? Much like the game itself, the title has every horror buzzword thrown in. Horror Mansion is a point-and-click horror game made by MPI games. The story is a short one, and the environments are small and relatively uncomplicated, but almost everything has been thrown at the figurative wall and a respectable amount of it sticks. There’s a haunted house, a curse, a broken family, and even zombies!
CB: HM is free on Google Play, and is ad-supported. It’s apparently part of a larger Curse Breakers series, but this is the only one available on Play at the moment.
Tell Us What You Think!
We've already written about cheap horror games. Have you played any great free mobile horror games that we forgot to mention? Let us know in the comment section below!