Since its early days, horror games have spread across many disciplines and are no longer just an adult genre. With appropriate kid-friendly options, it’s easy to tackle horror games like Little Nightmares and Five Nights at Freddy’s that you’ll check out later as you grow up.
As you can imagine, getting an E rating for content and story elements in a horror game is extremely rare. However, while most of these are labeled her E10+ which is meant for everyone over the age of 10, they are usually fine for children under the stated age. Below are the perfect scares for your little horror fan.
Ten Hotel Transylvania: A Scary Adventure
While more mature horror games like Vampyr and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow let you play as a vampire, this is the perfect kid-friendly option to play as Dracula in Hotel Transylvania. Despite Adam Sandler not returning to voice acting, Dracula’s personality and humor remain largely unchanged from Sony’s animated films.
Despite the “Scary-Tale Adventures” in the name, it’s the least scary of all the titles here, exploring fantasy adventures rather than horror. As Dracula reads stories to little ones around a fire, you are taken into a story where solving puzzles, collecting, and building platforms are key goals.
You’ll also play as his daughter Mavis, along with several other brutal Hotel Transylvania characters.
9 Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed
The classic PG movie Ghostbusters isn’t so scary, it’s packed with comedic actors and an iconic soundtrack. Ghostbusters: Video Game Remastered is rated T, but there is his online multiplayer Ghostbusters game that is more kid-friendly called Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed.
It’s an asymmetrical multiplayer style similar to Dead by Daylight, where four players assume the role of a squad of Ghostbusters armed with proton packs to capture another player who is a ghost haunting the location. The overall visual effects are pretty cool, and Spirits has kept its classic design.
You’ll also meet Ray Stants (played by Dan Aykroyd) and Winston Zedemoor (played by Ernie Hudson).
8 Subnautica and Subnautica: Below Zero
Subnautica is an otherworldly underwater exploration survival and base building game. And it’s far more welcoming undersea horror than BioShock or Soma.
In fact, the core horror aspect of the game relies mostly on darkness and the hostile giant alien marine creatures chasing you.
If your child has an interest in marine life and dreams of becoming an oceanographer or marine biologist, this is a fun sci-fi horror way to explore that interest. There’s also a follow-up now called Subnautica: Below Zero, which will let you navigate Earth’s new Arctic biome.
7 Resurrection of ghosts and goblins
Started as an arcade title in 1985, the Ghosts ‘N Goblin series is arguably the most kid-friendly horror offering from developer Capcom. And now, the latest entry has landed on the latest consoles, including his Nintendo Switch.
As the bearded and armored knight Sir Arthur, you battle supernatural forces in 2D side-scrolling levels.
As the name suggests, this fantasy world is full of brutal enemies that showcase incredible designs without being too scary for younger viewers. There are zombies, pigmen with weapons, dragons, cyclops, and Satan himself.
As Sir Arthur, you have a variety of weapons and unique magic to defeat your enemies.
6 Zombies ate neighbors and ghoul patrols
This is a double feature remaster of two classic horror adventures from the LucasArts SNES and Sega Genesis eras. Zeke and Julie, the star characters of Zombies Ate My Neighbors and its sequel Ghoul Patrol, are normal teenagers fighting monsters that seem to be straight out of their creature traits.
Mummies, werewolves, UFOs, zombies (of course), and even some play on Black Lagoon creatures are all here to terrorize the neighborhood. The sequel has the same design, and has a story reminiscent of the setting of Evil Dead.
Zeke and Julie find an ancient spirit book buried in the local library. There he is full of 16-bit supernatural horrors.
Five goosebumps dead of night
RL Stein’s Goosebumps is one of the most popular horror media for young audiences, including classic books, TV shows and Jack Black movies. And there have been quite a few Goosebumps his games inspired by iconic horror characters such as Slappy the Dummy and his Werewolf of Fever Swamp over the years.
Goosebumps Dead of Night is an FPS stealth horror, possibly one of the scariest, but it still clings to the E rating. Just like in the movies, a plethora of literary monsters are aiming at you while you try your best to avoid Slappy in your quest to defeat Slappy.
Jack Black will also return as author R.L. Stein in the film.
Four hello neighbor series
Hello Neighbor is like a PG version of the home invasion thrillers of Flight Night and Fede Alvarez’s Don’t Breathe. This is a first-person stealth his-based horror his game about spying around his house to find secrets while trying not to get caught by his nefarious neighbor Mr. Peterson.
And the neighbor’s movements are as scary as any other horror game creature chasing you.
You play as Nicky Ross in the first game and as a journalist named Quentin in the sequel who must sneak around, run and hide. There is no defense other than to stun the menacing Mr. Peterson. As the player progresses his AI gets smarter and sets traps.
There is also a multiplayer spin-off called Secret Neighbor, but this one is more aimed at teenage audiences.
3 in us
The sci-fi horror of Dead Space and The Thing are combined in this cute multiplayer game where astronauts in colorful spacesuits are murdered across the map by secret alien imposters. Once the body is found, everyone can convene a meeting to find the culprit and get him off the ship.
Among Us will be familiar to many children who are familiar with social reasoning games like Mafia. As a Crewmate, you can take on a variety of roles and help maintain your ship through mini-games, while Imposter Crewmates can sabotage installations.
There is also a character creator that adds fun accessories to your character.
2 monster house
Monster House is an excellent animated film released in 2006 that shows a group of children sneaking into a neighbor’s house that is not only haunted, but alive and ready to eat. I am drawing. And it was also made into a video game at the same time as the movie.
The game is a third-person survival horror that follows the main characters Jenny, DJ and Chowder.
There are jumping scares and spooky sound design, with parts of the house moving around and pipes blocking your path, but it’s still more appropriate for kids than spending time at Baker House or Spencer’s House. It’s an experience. To protect themselves, each person has a water gun to fight enemies with, and the home’s bathroom acts as a save point.
1 Luigi’s Mansion 3
In the Super Mario Bros. series, Luigi has always been the one to handle eerie and gruesome scenarios. And in Luigi’s Mansion 3, Mario’s sidekick’s little brother goes on a ghost-hunting adventure inside his haunted Luigi resort hotel. There he has a canine sidekick named Polterpup and a similar Ghostbusters device called the Poltergest G-00 that sucks up and throws ghosts.
Your mission is to clear each floor of ghosts and solve the puzzles in your path, until you reach Mario and the rest of your friends. The ghosts are very cartoonish while still maintaining a rather spooky vibe, with the spooky King Boo waiting as the final boss.
If you’re scared of going it alone, there’s an additional co-op mode and multiplayer map called ScareScraper.