Night Terrors, Death Road to Canada, and other spooky Halloween apps
What better way to get ready for Halloween than with playing through some of the App Store’s spookiest game titles? With that in mind, here are our picks for the best horror (or, a the very least, creepy) titles available for your gaming pleasure on iPhone or iPad.
Check out our picks below. If you dare.
Night Terrors: The Beginning
Pre-dating Apple’s ARKit platform, this augmented reality horror game (really more of a spooky tech demo in some ways) asks you to turn the lights off in your home, put on some headphones, and then wander around with your iPhone torch activated.
What it does quite successfully is to turn your own home into a haunted house. Books fall from book cases, balls bounce across the floor, and dark shapes lurch from the shadows. It won’t end up being the definitive AR horror title, but you’d have to be made of pretty stern stuff not to be slightly spooked by the experience.
And more than a little excited about what the next wave of AR horror titles will offer, too!
Available for: iPhone, iPad
Cost: Free
Get it from: App Store
Death Road to Canada
Not just one of my favorite horror-themed games in ages, but one of my favorite iOS games overall, Death Road to Canada is a crazy mash-up of randomly-generated zombie survival RPG, pixel art actioner, and text-based interactive fiction game.
If that sounds a bit weird, it most certainly is. If that sounds like a lot of fun, that is most assuredly true as well.
Since launching earlier this year, the game has received one massive update already — adding new music, weapons, characters, atmospheric lighting, new locations, and more. One of my most enjoyable App Store gaming experiences of 2017.
Available for: iPhone, iPad
Cost: $9.99
Get it from: App Store
Stranger Things: The Game
Ahead of the release of the excellent Stranger Things 2 hit series, Netflix released a free tie-in game to promote the show.
The game is essentially a retro RPG that lets you play as Hopper, Nancy and Lucas — each with his or her own unique abilities — to relive the events of the show’s first season. You explore different locations in the town Hawkins, battle with enemies, investigate a shadowy government conspiracy, and more.
Just like the show, the game is divided into chapters, and there’s a surprising amount to explore in each of them. A much better game than it has any right to be.
Available for: iPhone, iPad
Cost: Free
Get it from: App Store
Cold Blood Go
Find yourself wishing that Pokémon Go had a few more undead brain eaters among the Pikachus and Charizards? If so, there’s a good chance that you’ll dig the (somewhat) similarly titled Cold Blood Go, a mission-oriented title, where you have to go hunting zombies on a real world map.
Each mission requires you to walk at least a quarter-mile, so you’ll get some exercise playing. Instead of catching the zombies a la Pokémon, however, your job is to eviscerate them, which you can do with an impressive range of upgradable weapons. Kill 9 zombies on different points, and you’ll get to fight a boss battle. Sound fun? It is.
Available for: iPhone, iPad
Cost: Free
Get it from: App Store
Five Nights at Freddy’s
My fifth and final pick for a great Halloween game is the brilliant Five Nights at Freddy’s. A survival horror game with a great hook, the game puts you in the role of night watchman at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a kid’s theme restaurant, in which giant animatronic toys are the central attraction.
Like Westworld, however, these don’t work quite as well as planned — and, at night, they start acting far less cutely. It’s your job to watch the security cameras to locate the robots. Oh, and you have limited power to do so. When you run out, there’s no more light or security doors!
Available for: iPhone, iPad
Cost: $2.99
Get it from: App Store