Must-Play Horror Games from Gen Con 2025

As a member of the Spooky Sisterhood, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that I am a fan of horror. As a self-proclaimed nerd, I also happen to love gaming. PC games, console games, the crossword section in the newspaper - I crave it all. Horror, being a popular genre, can be found throughout all corners of human culture and media - normally residing in dark crevices and buried in cobwebs. But something special occurs when nerdom meets spooky vibes: they infect each other, morphing and oozing together like some kind of Cronenberg monster straight out of David Lynch’s meditative state. Gimme. Gimme all of it, or I might bite.

This leads us to our blog topic for this week: we’re taking a brief glimpse at horror games debuting and being sold at this year’s Gen Con.

Gen Con: THE BEST FOUR DAYS IN GAMING™

Gen Con boasts as being the largest annual event dedicated to tabletop gaming. In 1968, one of the co-creaters of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) began the convention in Lake Geneva, WI (hence the name) then moved to Indianapolis. Since then, it has grown and expanded to epic proportions, taking over the entire Indianapolis Convention Center, large portions of Lucas Oil Stadium, and practically transforming downtown Indianapolis into a nerdy haven.

Enter me: giddy from the smell of new paper and cardboard products, buzzing from the clackety thuds of thousands of dice rolls, getting knocked near unconscious by giant backpacks that stick two feet off of people’s backs…I was determined to hunt down every horror game I could find. Last weekend I made it my mission to explore as much of Gen Con as I could.

Here are those results.

Camp Grizzly Second Edition

Publisher: Trick-or-Treat Games

Type: semi-cooperative survival horror

# Players: 1-6

Release Date: TBA on Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/trickortreatstudios/camp-grizzly-second-edition

About the game: This is the long anticipated new edition to the popular Camp Grizzly game where you play through a scenario reminiscent of the classic slasher genre. At Camp Grizzly, summer fun turns to terror as the camp counselors are stalked by Otis, the bear mask-wearing homicidal maniac. Survivors must search for items and weapons, survive and escape before it’s too late.

SMACK - Skary Monsters and Cereal Killers

Publisher: Self Published

Type: semi-cooperative survival horror

# Players: 3-6

Release Date: 2025

About the game: After all of the adults with diabetes in town were turned into monsters by a secret society, it’s up to the kids with high tolerances for sugar to save the day! I didn’t get to see too much about this one, but it seemed pretty popular. The artstyle was what caught my attention, having been illustrated by Chicago-artist Angel Onofre. This game looks to be a cartoony hellscape with an emphasis on breakfast cereal and horror movie references. I am obsessed with it.

Kingdom Death: Monster

Publisher: Kingdom Death

Type: Cooperative survival horror

# Players: 1-4

Release Date: 2015

About the game: Go on a “choose your own” adventure style of campaign and embark with friends to survive and rebuild civilization in this world set in a nightmare world infested with monsters. The artists and designers of this entry really deserve recognition. Some creatives are able to find a tightrope balance between horror and beauty, and Kingdom Death: Monster achieves that balance. The amount of time I spent gazing, hypnotized by the game artwork on display will never be revealed. To designer Adam Poots and artists, Zeen Chin, Lokman Lam, and Lorinda Tomko - hats off.

Welcome to Night Vale RPG

Publisher: Renegade Game Studios

Type: Cooperative survival horror

# Players: N/A

Release Date: est. August 2025

About the game: Absurdism and surrealism blend together to form the comedic bizarro world of the mysterious town of Night Vale. Based off of the 2012 podcast of the same name, the Welcome to Night Vale RPG allows you and your friends to explore the wacky and off-putting characters and phenomena from the Welcome to Night Vale universe. All hail The Glow Cloud.

Twisted Fables

Publisher: Dimension Games

Type: 1v1 deck builder

# Players: 2

Release Date: 2021

About the game: Described by the developer as, “a fast and furious fairytale fighting game that is driven by deckbuilding and inspired by classic 2D video games,” this yet to be released game has not only met its Kickstarter goal, but has far exceeded it.

Stifling Dark

Publisher: Sophisticated Cerberus Games

Type: one-vs-many hidden-movement horror board game

# Players: 2-5

Release Date: 2024

About the game: One player (the adversary) must hunt the other players (the investigators) in this thrilling game of cat and mouse, using innovative line-of-sight mechanics. The investigators must sneak their way through the setting to find items and hide from the adversary. There are flashlight mechanics that control your characters’ in-game line of sight. This approach brings freshness to the classic style of survival gameplay.

Pagan - Fate of Roanoke

Publisher: Wyrmgold GmbH

Type: Deduction card game

# Players: 2

Release Date: 2022

About the game: A witch faces off against a witch hunter in this epic duel over the fate of the mythologized Roanoke colony. The witch’s goal is to gather information and resources in order to perform a ritual that returns Roanoke to Mother Nature while the hunter must investigate and figure out which of the colonists is keeping their occult identity hidden. This game caught my attention because it’s often difficult to find great game options for just two people.

Final Thoughts

Now I would be remiss were I not to admit that by no means was I successful in discovering every horror game being displayed at Gen Con. Honestly, with the scale of the convention, it probably would have taken at least another week to have found them all, let alone the time needed to thoroughly research and demo every single one. These are the other games I glimpsed while in Indy, but ran out of time to get a closer look: Halloween, House of 1000 Corpses, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Crooked Moon, Witchy Cakes, Final Girl, Dark Quarter, Cultists & Chtulu, and Zombie World.

Hm? What’s that? You would like MORE recommendations? Well, my personal all-time favorite two horror games are Mysterium and Betrayal at House on the Hill.

Mysterium is a 2-7 player paranormal murder mystery semi-cooperative where one player is the spirit of a murder victim and the other players are psychics who must work together (or not) to discover who the murderer is, what the murder weapon is, and where the crime occurred. Basically, this game is Clue on steroids.

Betrayal is 3-6 player survival horror tabletop where you explore a haunted location as a group, but unbeknownst to you all, one of you will betray the rest of you in order to help the monster residing there prey upon you all. This game has a fun mechanic where the board is separated into different tiles that are drawn at random and placed during game play. You ‘explore’ and reveal the map as you travel through unopened doorways, climb staircases, or fall through holes in the floor. This mechanic helps the game stay fresh and fun, even after multiple play throughs.

What are some of your favorite horror-themed games?

Written by Bri Barger

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Sources:

Gen Con
https://www.gencon.com/

Camp Grizzly 2nd Edition Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/trickortreatstudios/camp-grizzly-second-edition

Trick or Treat Studios
https://trickortreatstudios.com/

SMACK - Scary Monsters and Cereal Killers

https://videogamegeek.com/boardgame/451294/smack-skary-monsters-and-cereal-killers

Angel Onofre
https://www.angelonofre.com/

Kingdom Death
https://kingdomdeath.com/

Welcome to Nightvale RPG