The Scariest Horror Games For The Nintendo Switch

Amnesia: The Dark Descent was first released back in 2010 for the PC and Mac. It later found life on the consoles but took a bit before coming to the Nintendo Switch in 2018. By the time that happened, it was packaged into a collection containing Amnesia: The Dark Descent, that game's expansion, Amnesia: Justine, and the game's sequel, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.

In the game, players take control of Daniel, as he explored a large, dark, and foreboding castle. While this is happening, Daniel is trying to retain the tenuous grasp he has on his sanity while trying to keep from ending up inside the jaws of monsters. This is one of those games that truly messes with your head while delivering a great storyline and environments, which work as well as any fleshed-out character, as they truly take the prize as some of the most frightening places to wind up in a video game.

The first Outlast game came out nearly a decade ago, and since then, a sequel was released with another on the way. The first two are combined in the Outlast: Bundle Of Terror for the Switch, and they look amazing on the portable system. As players take control of an investigative journalist, they're tasked with investigating a run down and macabre psychiatric hospital in small-town Colorado. Naturally, the hospital is overrun by monsters, and what seemed like another day on the job quickly turns into a fight to survive.

Unlike traditional horror games, Outlast doesn't feature a standard health bar; in fact, the game doesn't really focus all that much on combat. Instead of just blasting your way out, you need to hide and sleuth your way to safety, which makes for a more tense gameplay experience. The added content of the DLC Whistleblower only adds to the terror, making this one of the most adventurous and exciting horror titles available on the Switch.

Don't be fooled by this game's cartoonish nature; it's downright disturbing. Little Nightmares definitely looks at home on the Switch, but this chilling game is all about building tension, no matter how adorable some of the characters may look. At its heart, it's a platforming puzzle game, but below the surface, it definitely gives us some great scary vibes.

The game does a great job of immersing players into a nightmarishly interactive gameplay experience. And while jump scares are few and far between, it's the game's overall theme and style that really grabs your attention. Little Nightmares is a perfect addition to the Switch library, and while it isn't a traditional horror game like some of the others on this list, it's guaranteed to get your heart racing soon after you start playing.

Set within the same universe as the first movie, Alien: Isolation is simultaneously nostalgic and new. (It's also really, really scary.) The game centers on Amanda, Ellen Ripley's daughter, who boards the Sevastopol space station 15 years after the events of the first movie only to come face to face with a huge Xenomorph that's been squatting aboard the station.

A survival horror game at heart, you're constantly trying to stay one step ahead (literally) of your foe. It's an extremely tense affair that's elevated to even higher levels with impeccable gameplay mechanics and stunning graphics. Fortunately, it looks every bit as great on the Switch as it does on other consoles.

Unlike most games on this list, Detention isn't a third-person. Instead, it relies on a side-scrolling mechanic to tell its story. While you might not consider a side-scroller to be frightening, that's how the makers of Detention manage to lull players into a false sense of security. This game is truly scary, and it has its roots from real-life events in Taiwan, which was ruled by martial law in the 1960s.

That was a chaotic time period, and the developers manage to intertwine a real-world feeling of wariness with Taiwanese culture and mythology. The game is set around two students trapped in a school as a typhoon bears down on the nation, but being trapped in school isn't as fun as they made it look in The Breakfast Club. The game builds its tension slowly, and that only serves to engrain a sense of dread in the player from beginning to end.