The 12 scariest villains in horror games to haunt your nightmares

Looking to creep yourself out this Halloween with some spooky games? Here are the 12 scariest villains in all of gaming, and why they still creep us out.

As TerrorTober is here, and as we’ve already brought you the scariest movie villains, we thought it would be fun to list the various enemies in games who’ve chilled us to the bone over the years. A truly scary gaming villain isn’t someone who just made us jump once or twice, each of the below entries is a character we found to be genuinely disturbing.

So here are the 12 scariest gaming villains who still haunt our nightmares to this day:

GLaDOS

Game: Portal

Standing for Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, GLaDOS is the unstable AI robot that oversees and tortures the protagonist of Portal. Created by Aperture Science to monitor their “Enrichment Center” subjects, GLaDOS creates a series of obstacles for the player to overcome, promising that there will be cake at the end of these trials. But as we all know by now; the Cake Is A Lie.

As the story of Portal plays out, it becomes clear to the player that there is nobody else at Aperture Science and that GLaDOS is operating independently – and is becoming more and more psychotic. Knowing you’re at the mercy of this murder-bot is a frightening realization that adds a sense of desperation to the game. It also poses some very real questions about the future of AI.

The Umbrella Corporation

Game: Resident Evil

Imagine living in the Resident Evil universe for a moment, just think about how scary that would be. At any moment, an incident of bioterror could occur resulting in the city you live in being wiped off the map. In Resident Evil, this has happened to at least two cities in the United States, and countless others across the world – and it’s all because of Umbrella.

While the Umbrella Corporation isn’t responsible for many of the naturally occurring phenomena that led to the creation of their viruses, they weaponized these things in the pursuit of profit. Not to mention their founder’s selfish desire to live forever. They represent the pinnacle of corporate greed, negligence, and hubris and are potentially responsible for the deaths of millions of people across the Resident Evil timeline.

While the company was destroyed in Resident Evil 4, with its founder being killed off in RE5, their legacy lives on in the games today, as do many of their employees who’ve still not learned their lesson.

The Xenomorph

Game: Alien Isolation

Alien Isolation made the Alien scary again. For years, xenomorphs have been seen as nothing but cannon fodder in games, resulting in them losing any sense of threat. However, Alien Isolation proved just how dangerous and terrifying a single Alien could be, with the game also serving as a love letter to Ridley Scott’s original classic.

Alien Isolation puts players in the shoes of Ellen Ripley’s daughter, Amanda, who experiences her own frightening encounter with “The Perfect Organism”. Isolation is a first-person survival horror game where players need to run and hide from the Alien as they have no hope of fighting it directly. Sure, firearms can stun, and injure the beast – but it will always come back angrier.

Hiding in a locker while this AI-controlled monster hunts you down, listening for your breathing is nail-bitingly tense and set the standard for horror games when it was released. A sequel has been announced and we can’t wait to see where they take this concept.

Pyramid Head

Game: Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill: Homecoming

Pyramid Head is a humanoid monster that stalks James Sunderland throughout most of Silent Hill 2, dragging his enormous butcher’s knife behind him. This means Pyramid Head can often be heard approaching before he’s seen, adding to the dread.

The creature seems benign at first, only interested in abusing some of the other monsters that haunt Silent Hill, but as the story plays out Pyramid Head becomes more interested in James. This eventually culminates in some frantic boss battles against the villain, but Pyramid Head is much more than a mindless zombie.

The character is eventually revealed to be a manifestation of James’ guilt and desire for punishment, but we’ll let you discover why. However, that doesn’t stop Pyramid Head from being a very real and tangible threat to James’ life, and one he must overcome more than once. The character also returns in Silent Hill Homecoming in a similar, yet reduced role.

Lisa

Game: P.T.

Lisa is a ghost that appears in P.T. the “playable teaser” for Silent Hills, a game that never saw the light of day once Hideo Kojima departed Konami. However, that didn’t stop this demo from becoming legendary, as did the monster that lurked within it. Players could spend hours with P.T. and never see Lisa, the game existed in a time-loop, and only by completing certain actions could they begin to alter the environment.

The ghost would appear in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments, but eventually, these spooky instances would become more common and in your face, culminating in Lisa confronting the player directly. This was as pants-wettingly scary as it sounds, and the game saw a wave of imitators, with even Resident Evil getting in on the action.

Not much is known about Lisa as a character. Chances are, Silent Hills would have fleshed out her story, but what we do know is Lisa was murdered by her husband and now stalks the halls of her old home as a vengeful spirit. We’re almost glad we didn’t learn more, and the mystery only adds to her terrifying legend.

The Hivemind

Game: Dead Space

The Hivemind has a complicated backstory involving creepy structures known as “Markers” that humanity started unearthing as they ventured out across the stars. In a nutshell, it’s a predatory alien intelligence that wants to consume all life in the universe. The Hivemind uses what could be considered a virus to infect the brains of those near a Marker, makes them commit suicide, then mutates their dead flesh into its footsoldiers called Necromorphs.

These creatures then go and brutally murder other humans, leading to the creation of more Necromorphs in what’s essentially a combination of zombies and the Tyranids from Warhammer 40K. The Hive Mind’s malevolent intentions become even clearer in Dead Space 3 when it directly targets Earth, and even stares down protagonist Isaac Clarke after being thwarted by the human numerous times.

To make its point, the Hive Mind commandeers an entire moon of dead organic matter for this threatening display. However, what’s most scary about this entity is that it uses the memories of its victims against the living, and as its influence makes people hallucinate, this is often a deadly and tragic combination.

Andrew Ryan

Game: Bioshock

Andrew Ryan is an industrialist and “free-thinker” who uses his vast wealth to build a city called Rapture under the sea. Rapture is said to be free from “Gods and Kings”, but in reality, Ryan serves as both of these things and rules with an iron fist. He also oversees the misuse of plasmids, gene-altering biotechnology that can turn humans into monsters.

Of course, all hell breaks loose in the city and Ryan’s subjects revolt against him as plasmids turn the population of Rapture into drug-addled psychopaths known as Splicers. Ryan’s own sanity begins to fail, and he becomes even more megalomaniacal. Eventually, in one final display of spite, Ryan uses his own suicide to prove a point to his enemies and serve as a catalyst for their defeat.

Andrew Ryan is a cautionary tale about charismatic leaders creating a cult of personality around themselves, then seeking power for their own aggrandizement at the expense of their follower’s lives and well-being.

Diablo

Game: Diablo

Diablo is scary because he’s the literal embodiment of terror. Known as the Lord of Terror, Diablo is the greatest of the Prime Evils in the Diablo series and seeks to cause as much death, misery, and terror as he can. It’s literally his nature and what he was created to do. What’s worse, is as terror is a fundamental force of the universe that needs to exist, Diablo can never truly be killed, only ever defeated temporarily.

While he’s had his spikey red backside handed to him multiple times in the Diablo games, living in the Diablo universe and waiting for his eventual return must be a bleak existence – and one utterly consumed by fear. Diablo is one of the most powerful beings in all of creation and one day, he’s going to ruin your life somehow.

That’s scary stuff, and what makes it worse, is that Diablo is based on the biblical interpretation of Satan, so for some, Diablo represents evil itself and serves as a reminder that darkness could be inherent and enduring.

Scissorman

Game: Clock Tower

If Clock Tower ever gets remade, Scissorman will be the scariest thing in all of gaming. While numerous characters have held the mantle of Scissorman throughout the Clock Tower games, the original is by far the creepiest. A deformed and diminutive psychopath, Bobby Barrows would wrap his head in cloth, pick up a large pair of scissors, and then stalk and murder the staff of an orphanage.

Scissorman relentlessly chases the Clock Tower protagonist and serves as gaming’s first true survival horror stalker. Players can keep him at bay by solving puzzles and making it to the next area, but Scissorman is never far behind and seems to take a gleeful delight in the chase, as well as the act of killing any other characters who get in his way.

The Baby

Game: Resident Evil Village

The Baby is a monster that hunts Ethan Winters when he enters the Beneviento Mansion in Resident Evil Village. In reality, the Baby is just a figment of Ethan’s imagination, but that doesn’t stop this segment from being one of the scariest moments in gaming history. Not only is the creature’s deformed fetus design absolutely horrific, it’s bloodcurdling screams will stay with you for days after playing through this area.

It also represents a difficulty spike in the game, as the Baby is hard to avoid and results in instant death if it catches Ethan. No guns or boulder punching will help here, you have to face the creature, frantically solve the puzzle, and then outrun it until you reach the safety of the elevator – likely with only seconds to spare.

The Baby represents Ethan’s failure to save Rose, and what his infant daughter could become if he doesn’t rescue her from the game’s villains. This only makes the Baby even scarier, especially for those of us who are new parents or have anxiety about becoming parents.

The Flood

Game: Halo

The original Halo is a colorful sci-fi shooter that never takes itself too seriously, even when it’s dealing with some pretty serious themes. Ultimately, this is a game about shooting cartoonish aliens while they shout “Oh no” in comically high-pitched voices. Sure, games like Halo Reach added a very different tone to the series, but in Halo 1 we thought we knew what we were playing – until the Flood happened.

There’s absolutely nothing else like the introduction of the Flood in all of gaming. It’s a moment where the rug was well and truly pulled from under our feet as players, as for several missions, Halo becomes a survival horror game. This moment is only magnified in the remaster of the game and we’d encourage all horror fans to pick up Halo 1 for this moment alone.

The Flood is an ancient species of alien that was locked away to stop it from achieving its goal of infecting all life. The war between the Covenant and Humanity becomes small-fry once the Flood enters the arena, with both civilizations realizing there’s something far worse than the devil they know.

The Witch

Game: Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead was a horror game that focused more on action than scares. Most situations can be resolved by blasting more zombies with bigger guns. However, as any Left 4 Dead player can attest when that music hits, it’s time to slow down, check all dark corners, and get ready for something horrific. The Witch is a zombie type that sits in the corner crying and mostly minding her own business.

The problem is, as soon as you disturb her, she’ll launch into a deadly attack that is almost impossible to avoid. The Witch can kill an injured player in one hit, so it’s vitally important to try to avoid disturbing her. The problem is, when you’re fighting and running from a zombie horde, it’s rather difficult to be stealthy. Her eerie crying makes it sound like she could be anywhere, and one stray bullet, or if you stumble too close to her can trigger her attack.

If you’re playing multiplayer, the Witch usually attacks whoever disturbed her, but this isn’t guaranteed, adding another layer of terror to this tense exchange. The good news is that the Witch can be defeated by a few shotgun blasts, but by then, the damage is often already done and one player lies brutally mauled.

Looking for more spooky content? Then check out our full Terror-Tober schedule. We’ve also got a list of the 102 best horror movies ever made as well as a guide to the creepiest horror anime you need to watch this Halloween.