Summary
When gamers play a horror game likeDead By Daylight, it’s not impossible for horror fans to miss some other scary games referenced or outright lifted to participate in the terrifying death game. After all, games likeDead By Daylightwant to show players that, sometimes, the most terrifying killers out there can’t be killed, only outran. However, more hardcore horror fans might realize that the last statement isn’t necessarily the case, especially for extremely specific games.
In fact, there are actually somehorror games with surprisingly happy endingsout there for gamers to check out. This can catch players off-guard, especially when dealing with games that have an extremely unsettling or scary premise.
Updated Jul 03, 2025, by Robbie Mitchell:With Halloween just around the corner, there isn’t a better time to take a look back at some of the best horror games out there. All this horror can get a bit depressing, though, so some fans of the genre may be looking for something a little more wholesome. For said gamers, thesehorror games end on a happy note. After all, just because a game is scary doesn’t mean it has to be all doom and gloom.
Koudelkais a pretty weird game, evenby 90s JRPG standards. Set in late 19th-century Wales, it follows several heroes as they explore a mansion filled to the brim with horrors. Despite featuring many JRPG elements in its tone and storytelling,Koudelkais very much a horror game. That means it’s a pretty gloomy experience, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Unfortunately, one hero, James, doesn’t make it to the end. However, his act of self-sacrifice is at least heroic and gives him an honorable ending. Edward and Koudelka, on the other hand, both survive. While they ultimately split up, they do so in a way that suggests there is hope of a reunion down the line. It is the Nemeton mansion itself that gets the happiest ending. The angry dead that stalked it have been calmed, and its spirits put to rest. Many horrors end with a final reveal that sets up future entries, butKoudelka’sending is very final and hopeful.
It’s a good job thatThe Evil Within 2gave fans a proper ending considering it seems unlikely that it’ll ever get a sequel, which is a pity. Both entries in the franchise were more than a little dark, butthe sequel wrapped everything up with a nice little bow. Considering the psychological aspect of the game’s story, the writers could have relied on the “it was all a dream/hilarious” trope to ruin the story’s happy ending, but thankfully, they didn’t.
For a start, Sebastian succeeds in his primary mission of reuniting with his daughter, Lily, and saving her from the STEM system. He also reconciles with his ex-wife, Myra. She does end up sacrificing herself to destroy Mobius (the franchise’s big bad), but Sebastian at least gets some much-needed closure. The final scene shows Sebastian and Lily happily driving off into the sunset, suggesting that, after all the horrors they’ve witnessed, they can still start afresh. Most importantly, the game’s ending sees Sebastian finally facing and overcoming the “evil within” himself, a major theme of both games. Sebastian doesn’t just get to save the day; he comes out of the game’s events a better person.The only fly in the ointment is a post-creditsscene that hints that STEM might be reactivated, but that shouldn’t spoil an otherwise happy ending.
Resident Evil Villagegets off to a pretty dark start. Poor old Ethan not only loses his wife, but his baby is stolen, too. He’s then transported to an isolated village in Eastern Europe and ambushed by monsters. It’s there that he sets out on a mission to collect the body parts of his dismembered baby girl so he can try and bring her back. While doing so, he must take on werewolves, zombies, and vampires who delight in inflicting terrible bodily harm upon him.
Yet the game has a surprisingly happy, if bittersweet, ending. Ultimately, Ethan wins, even if he has to sacrifice himself in the process. He gets to reunite with both his wife Mia and daughter Rose while also managing to defeat Mother Miranda and destroy the Megamycete. Ethan was a rather bland protagonist inResident Evil 7, butVillage’s ending did an excellent job of bringing his journey full circle. Ethan started as an average Joe but died a hero. The cycle of suffering has ended, Ethan can finally rest (it turns out he’s been dead for a while), and there’s hope for the future in the form of a super-powered Rose. All said, it’s one ofthe best endings in the series.
WhileThe Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Maskis certainly an adventure game, some fans would argue it’s one of the darkest among theZeldatitles, with even hints of horror. Its story will haveLink end up in Terminus, a dimension parallel to Hyrule, as he uses magical masks to stop the Moon from falling into the world and destroying it. Link only has three days to do this and will have to repeat the same three-day cycle whenever he fails on this quest.
Although bleak in terms of having Link on an eternal purgatorial loop, he manages to save the day by lifting four dark curses that plagued the land. It’s revealed that the fabled Majora’s Mask itself is the source of all evil in Termina, with Link finally waking up in what seems to be a dream in a forest.
Haunting Groundisconsidered the spiritual successor of theClock Towerseries, with protagonist Fiona Belli finding herself trapped in a castle in an undisclosed location after a car accident with her parents. As she starts finding her way out, she befriends a dog named Hewie that becomes an integral part of the game. Throughout the story, Fiona discovers that she carries the alchemical element Azoth, which the game’s antagonist Riccardo aspires to acquire for immortality.
She faces multiple castle officers throughout the game, such as groundskeeper Debilitas, who becomes a rival of sorts in the story. Despite her struggles, Fiona and Hewie’s friendship would help them finally leave the castle in peace as the game’s true ending - quite unlike other survival horror titles that often leave survivors alive with some price. Moreover, letting Debilitas live would have allowed him to allow the pair to escape - with a second playthrough even allowing Debilitas to help them escape much earlier.
The running gag that “the Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” becomes a part of the terrifying reality inParasite Eve, as the game involvesNYPD rookie Aya Breain her quest to stop a being known only as Mitochondria Eve, an entity capable of controlling Neo-Mitochondrial Creatures or lifeforms spawned out of evolved mitochondria. She aims to create a “perfect world” with herself as its ruler, something Aya and her newly-found Parasite Energy want to stop.
At the end of the game, Aya manages to defeat Eve in her transformation as the “Ultimate Being,” retaining her mitochondrial powers that she uses to save the world two more times in the game’s sequels. In New Game Plus, Aya manages to have a tearful reunion with her twin sister, Maya, who died two decades prior to the game. Now “the Original Eve,” Aya would eventually have to fight this version of Maya, only for Maya’s consciousness to fight back and purge the Eve persona at the cost of their own lives. This will have Aya lose her powers - a worthy cost, considering how this encounter helped her finally come to terms with the death of her sister.
Despite the rather primitive graphics ofSweet Home, its story remains horrifying and its gameplay captivating enough for fans to state that this game laid the groundwork for survival horror. It begins whenfive documentarists go to an abandoned mansionto uncover the paintings of famous artist Ichiro Mamiya. They soon learn that they’re in for a fight for survival as the ghost of a woman traps them inside along with monsters out to kill them.
Throughout the game, the team realizes that the ghost is none other than Lady Mamiya, the wife of Ichiro Mamiya, who remains in grief after the death of their son. After a lengthy final battle, the team manages to appease her soul and help her pass to the afterlife just moments before rescuers arrive to save the team from the crumbling mansion.
A Lovecraftian game through and through, some hailAmnesia: The Dark Descentas one of the most horrifying games of all time, especially when tiredness and being ‘scared” is a mechanic, with protagonist Daniel (and the player) suffering more delusions the more he gets scared. This all happens when Daniel wakes up in an abandoned castle with no memory of who he truly was or what’s happened.
As the story reveals, this all began after Daniel discovers a strange orb that summoned a guardian known only as the Shadow, which started killing everyone else who came in contact with it. Consumed by guilt due to the extent of what he’s done to “protect” himself, Daniel forces himself to forget his memories, prompting the game to start. And while all seems lost for a happy ending, Daniel manages to redeem himself from eternal darkness, all while demonstrating awillingness to sacrifice a part of himself.
TheSilent Hillfranchise proves that one’s mind can be one’s worst enemy, especially in the face of a vengeful spirit, a cult aiming to raise its twisted version of a god, and a town capable of bringing horrors to life. The story begins when Harry Mason has to search for his adopted daughter Cheryl, who was separated from him after a car crash en route to the resort town Silent Hill. This journey periodically brings him toa horrifying alternate dimension called the Otherworld, all the while meeting unlikely allies such as police officer Cybil Bennett.
The first game meets its climax deep in the Otherworld, where the malevolent Order has begun preparations for sacrificing Cheryl to call forth an evil god. Despite this dark premise,Silent Hill 3proves there is still light amid true darkness, as Heather Mason was shown to be Cheryl reborn, makingSilent Hill’s good ending canonical. Moreover, its Good+ ending will have both Harry and Cybil survive, providing Heather with a mother figure to look up to.
Of allgames within theAlienfranchise, it’s probablyAlien: Isolationthat captured the sheer terror the films carried with them. Starring Ellen Ripley’s estranged daughter Amanda Ripley, players would have to help Amanda recover the black box of Ellen’s ship, the Nostromo, inside the abandoned Sevastopol Station to help uncover her whereabouts. Unfortunately for Ellen, this hulking space station is the only thing keeping her alive from a Xenomorph that has killed everyone inside the ship.
With the game not allowing players to truly kill the Xenomorph, Ellen had no choice but to simply try to escape its clutches. In order to avoid the Xenomorph infecting the rest of humanity, she made the ultimate sacrifice of not just bringing the spaceship to the atmosphere to be burnt, but also killing the Xenomorph in the vacuum of space. Just when Ellen thought she would be left alone in space to die, a searchlight is seen pointing at her face, indicating rescue.
