While sometimeshorror gamesare best played alone, in the darkness of your own room, and with your headphones turned all the way up to receive every loud jumpscare and sound cue, there are also times when you might want to share in the experience with your partner. If you both enjoy the horror genre, don’t worry; there are plenty of games that let you shred your nerves together.
While rarer to find, there are select games in the genre that include couch co-op, so you can play with your partner without any interruptions from someone else online, and even a few single-player options that can still work for two people. Here are all the best horror games for your next date night outing!
10Perennial Order
If you have someone in your life who’s obsessed with Bloodborne or is just really skilled at Soulslikes, then this one might be fun to try out as a pair. Perennial Order is a self-proclaimed ‘2D plant horror boss rush’ title, where the bosses and enemies you face are nightmarish fungal and insectoid-type creatures. To make things even more intense and scary, getting hit only once automatically spells death.
It might prove incredibly challenging to take it all on alone, but luckily, the two of you can push through together with the game’s local and online co-op features. The lighting, art style, and environment design in Perennial Order are like Hollow Knight and Salt and Sanctuary crossbred with Lovecraft and The Last of Us' Cordyceps.
Tim Burton-inspired horroris what you and your partner would be in for with Don’t Starve Together, the multiplayer edition of the original 2013 survival game. While it won’t be as scary as some of the other titles you’ll encounter below, the overall vibe is chilling, creepy, and cartoony, with some truly unique and dangerous creatures you’ll have to deal with.
The game has all the mechanical bells and whistles of your standard survival craft game. In fact, you can even think of Don’t Starve as: What if Tim Burton was handed full creative control of a survival game? But what makes it even more perfect for couples is that, even though it does allow up to six players, couples can play it privately together offline with a spit-screen.
It may not seem like it at first, but Diablo 4 is absolutely a certified horror game, and one that offers two-player local co-op,so you may play together with your partner via split-screen. There are plenty of dark environments and even darker and more disturbing story elements in store; just look at some of the enemy designs in the game.
This isometric dungeon crawler and loot-based RPG takes you to the Gothic landscape of Sanctuary, where the forces of Hell are invading it by orders of the demon queen Lilith. The satisfying horror atmosphere, voice acting, visuals, and combat in Diablo 4 will have you immersed. You and your partner can also choose how you want to customize your desired classfrom a detailed character creator.
Although a single-player game, The Last of Us Part 2 still has a lot of qualities going for it to be considered a great option for couples. There is romance in the storyline, as it revolves around the main protagonist, Ellie, and her girlfriend, Dina,who are one of horror gaming’s best couples. And the way the gameplay is split up into chapters structured by ‘Days,’ you and your partner can take turns with each one.
The Last of Us Part 2 is also so cinematic that it will feel like you’re watching a post-apocalyptic horror movie together while waiting for your turn at the gameplay. The 2024 remastered version also comes with the No Return roguelike mode, where you face all the scary Cordyceps enemies and bosses with permadeath activated, so you’re able to make it a little competition as to who can survive more runs.
Alan Wake 2 is a survival horror game masterpiece and likewise a cinematic, chapter-based, and romance-oriented adventure like The Last of Us Part 2 that’s perfect for you and your significant other. The gameplay is split up between FBI Agent Saga Anderson’s investigation in Bright Falls and Alan Wake’s journey in the Dark Place, where you’ll eventually get to switch between them.
You’re in for an extremely terrifying and unsettling experience, especially the way this game sets up its atmosphere and jumpscares, but Alan Wake 2 has one of the most amazing and mind-bending stories in all of horror gaming that’s even better when discovered together. If you get the Night Springs DLC, you can also trade off the controller with each new exciting and well-crafted episode.
Obscure is a survival horror game from the 2000sthat supports local two-player co-op with no split-screen! If you and your partner are into supernatural shows or movies that involve teens, like Riverdale, The Faculty, Stranger Things, or even Goosebumps, Obscure is definitely the game for you to enjoy together.
You’ll be playing students locked inside Leafmore High School, which is now overrun with weird, seemingly infected monstrosities that you’ll need to survive in classic Resident Evil and Silent Hill 2 fashion. There’s a greater mystery to uncover within Leafmore, and Obscure is one of the most original andhighly underrated horror titles in existence. The 2008 sequel is set two years after the original and takes place at Fallcreek University.
If you’re a couple who are both into Outlast, developer Red Barrels has now given you the option to play it together via the multiplayer prequel – The Outlast Trials. The Outlast Trials allows two to four players, or test subjects, to survive together in brutal and suspenseful matches with the Murkoff Corporation’sterrifying ‘Prime Assets’ and other enemies.
If you can handle an intense amount of gore and enjoy the more twisted and depraved horror film series like Saw, Terrifier, and Hostel, then The Outlast Trials should be a match made in heaven. Another cool feature specific to this Outlast title is that you can both create and customize your own test subject characters.
There are plenty of Resident Evil games that are co-op, but the trio with the best story, gameplay, and two-player couch co-op are Resident Evil 5, Resident Evil 6, and Revelations 2. Resident Evil 5 will see you and your partner playing Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar on an assignment to Africa, where villain Albert Wesker has unleashed a new strain of the Las Plagas parasite from the previous game.
Resident Evil 6 is made up of multiple character campaignsthat have you traveling around the world to prevent the C-Virus while encountering new bosses and enemies, and it proves an even better cooperative time than Resident Evil 5.
Revelations 2 is known for its local co-op ‘Raid mode’ that features additional levels and content that you can play after the main story. Like the previous two titles, Revelations 2’s campaign offers split-screen co-op, where you and your partner can become Claire Redfield, Moira Burton, Barry Burton, or Natalia Korda in their respective scenarios.
Dead by Daylight is a fun asymmetrical multiplayer horror game in which there are four Survivors and one Killer hunting everyone down around the map.Maybe your partner wants to be the villain in the match, who’s trying to get you and your friends on hooks to be served up to The Entity, or maybe you two just want to survive together and help each other out to grow your bond.
In Dead by Daylight, you’ll be building out your Survivor’s perks, fixing up generators, and passing Skill Checks, all in an effort to escape the clutches of the Killer. With so many licensed DLC expansions, including Alien, Alan Wake, Stranger Things, Silent Hill,and even Tomb Raider, part of the fun is also you and your partner deciding which Survivors you want to be and which map to play on.
The horror game offerings from Supermassive are among the best in this genre to get into as a couple. The gameplay isn’t survival horror-based, so combat, puzzles, and resource management aren’t the main focus here. Therefore, if your partner isn’t a big fan of that and wants something easier and more enjoyable, these titles would be the best.
Supermassive’s formula is choice-based, narrative-driven horror stories featuring multiple protagonists in new settings, like an anthology. The Quarry is a summer camp horror, The Casting of Frank Stone is more Lovecraftian and incorporates the Dead by Daylight universe, and The Dark Pictures Anthology gives you games akin to Ghost Ship, Silent Hill with witchcraft trials, space vampires, and an H.H. Holmes-inspired story; and these are all couch co-op.
While Until Dawn (the first entry in this line of games that launched in 2015) does not support local co-op, you’re able to make it couch co-op by giving the controller to your partner whenever a new character is being played in the story.
