To make a horror game less intense, open its accessibility, audio, video, and gameplay settings and adjust the options that match what bothers you: content warnings or filters, scene skips, separate volume sliders, captions, motion controls, brightness, or difficulty. What a game offers varies, and these settings can reduce specific sources of discomfort without making the game feel comfortable for everyone.
Start with the kind of intensity you want to reduce
Horror can feel stressful for different reasons: disturbing imagery, loud sound, rapid camera movement, difficult encounters, or uncertainty about what is coming. A setting that helps with one may not affect another. Start by identifying the specific element you want to change, then look in the game’s accessibility, audio, video, and gameplay menus.
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
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Terrifier: The ARTcade Game Limited Edition - PlayStation 5 | $65.83 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
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Poppy Playtime Triple Pack PS5 | $28.48 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
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Resident Evil Requiem Amazon Exclusive Edition - PlayStation 5 | $69.99 | Buy on Amazon |
| 4 |
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Feardemic: Horror Bundle - Nintendo Switch | $29.97 | Buy on Amazon |
| 5 |
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Project Songbird - PlayStation 5 | $29.99 | Buy on Amazon |
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It also helps to distinguish three kinds of options: a warning tells you what may be ahead; a filter or customization option changes how some content is presented; a skip or bypass lets you avoid a scene or section. These options are not interchangeable. Microsoft’s Xbox Accessibility Guideline 123 recommends informing players about potentially distressing content and offering ways to customize or bypass it where appropriate. The guidance is about supporting player choice, not requiring developers to remove story content.
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Warnings help you decide; they do not change the scene
Look for content advisories in the game’s store listing, official guide, or menus, as well as warnings that appear before a particular scene. A warning can give you information before you encounter material you might prefer to avoid, but it does not hide or remove that material by itself.
#1 Best Overall
- Gorgeous Pixel Art & Animation: The game captures the essence of the Terrifier films with bright, cartoonish pixel art and fluid animations that vividly depict the gruesome action.
- Multiplayer Mayhem: Team up with up to 4 players for a chaotic local co-op experience. Work together—or against each other—in various game modes. Travel through multiple stages, each with different paths to explore and enemies to defeat. Prepare yourself for intense boss battles that will test your skills.
- Bloody Arsenal of Weapons: From chainsaws to cleavers, pick up a variety of weapons to turn your enemies into bloody pulp. Enjoy hilarious and gory attacks that make every fight as entertaining as it is brutal. The finishing moves are guaranteed to leave a gory delight impression! Relive the golden age of gaming with a glorious chiptune soundtrack that perfectly complements the retro aesthetic.
- Multiple Game Modes: With 6 different game modes, whether you're looking for a quick beat 'em up session or an extended challenge, there's a mode that fits your style.
- Languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (LATAM), and Spanish (Spain) in game text.
Filters and concealment options may cover only selected content
Some games let you alter the appearance of a specific creature or obscure certain imagery. The scope matters: an option may affect visuals only, apply to selected scenes, or target one type of content rather than the game’s horror elements as a whole. Microsoft’s example from Grounded is arachnophobia safe mode: it changes how spiders look but does not remove them, and it does not affect gameplay or difficulty.
Find out what a bypass skips and when you can use it
If a game offers a cutscene or mission skip, check whether it preserves progress and whether it can be selected after the scene has started. Microsoft recommends offering skip or bypass choices for relevant content and, ideally, making them available during a mission or cutscene. The game’s own instructions are the best way to confirm what a particular skip does.
Rank #2
- This pack contains the first three chapters in the Poppy Playtime saga
- Each chapter features engaging new toy characters that can be either friend or foe
- Survive and progress by solving challenging puzzles
- Each game reveals to you a newly discovered area of the massive toy factory
- The Poppy Playtime Triple Pack includes a reversible coversheet and a Poppy Playtime sticker sheet
What one horror game’s controls can look like
In its accessibility article for Dead Space, EA describes optional warnings before potentially disturbing scenes and an option to obscure selected visuals while leaving their audio audible. EA says these features are disabled by default. This is an example of scene-specific control, not a feature set to expect in other games. EA also notes that what a player finds disturbing is subjective.
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When sound is the main source of tension, check whether the game separates sound effects, music, dialogue, and cinematic audio. Lowering one category may be more useful than turning everything down, though the effect depends on how that game mixes its sounds. Captions or subtitles can help you follow dialogue at a lower volume or understand speech without relying on audio cues.
Rank #3
- Amazon Exclusive - 2 sided poster included in every game!
- Grace Ashcroft, an FBI intelligence analyst who is introverted and easily scared, representing a new type of character for the Resident Evil series. Grace will experience horror from the same perspective as the player as she learns to overcome her fears throughout the course of the story.
- For the first time ever in Resident Evil history, players will be able to freely switch between both first- and third-person perspectives throughout the game.
- An Anniversary to Remember: With March 2026 marking the Resident Evil series’ 30-year anniversary, Resident Evil Requiem marks its own milestone in the franchise.
- Pre-orders for Resident Evil Requiem are now open, with the bonus of Grace’s costume: Apocalypse. Please note that the picture weapon does not come with the costume, but it can be obtained in-game.
Labels and coverage differ. Bethesda’s Redfall Accessibility Guide, for example, lists separate music, effects, dialogue, and cinematic volume controls, along with subtitles and closed captions. Bethesda notes that captions do not cover every possible sound effect, so captions should not be assumed to describe all audio in every game.
Reduce visual intensity and motion where possible
Brightness and contrast controls can change how clearly you see an environment, but they are not a reliable way to make every horror game less frightening. Adjust them for visibility or comfort rather than assuming that a brighter image will feel less intense.
Rank #4
- Featuring Burnhouse Lane, No Son of Mine, and Dagon: Complete Edition
- 5D Chess - Solve classic adventure-style inventory puzzles.
- Find the Truth Or Die In Shame and Terror - enjoy a hardcore survival horror experience.
- 100% faithful adaptations of Lovecraft's works brought to life through atmospheric voice acting
- Compact stories, each suitable for one gaming session
Look for camera-shake, head-bob, or motion-blur options if movement makes play uncomfortable. Vibration can also often be switched off. These settings change presentation or feedback; they do not necessarily alter what happens in the story. In its Redfall guide, Bethesda lists brightness and contrast controls, camera-shake and head-bob toggles, and a vibration setting. Those are examples, not universal menu options.
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Use gameplay settings to reduce pressure
Difficulty and control options can make encounters or inputs more manageable, but they may leave the frightening content intact. Check for difficulty levels, aim assistance, quick-time-event simplification, button remapping, and toggle controls if those are the parts creating pressure. Choose adjustments based on the challenge you want to change, rather than expecting them to remove scares.
Best Value
- A dark, enthralling 4-5 hour narrative to keep you hooked and guessing until the end. Gorgeous visuals as you traverse numerous and diverse environments, presented with a cinematic, film-like aesthetic. Ranged and melee combat with upgradeable weapons to help you survive your nightmarish journey.
- A stellar voice cast, starring Valerie Rose Lohman (What Remains of Edith Finch, Wolfenstein: Youngblood), Jonah Scott (Dying Light 2: Stay Human, Date Everything), and Aleks Le (Persona 3: Reload, Marvel Rivals, Ghost of Yotei).
- A beautifully dynamic and haunting soundtrack composed and performed by Jacob Noska, and Jonah Henthorne: members of the band Auric Echoes.
- The puzzles you encounter are more than your standard key hunt. Project Songbird rewards those with an eye for detail, making each puzzle a challenge of creativity and wits.
- The combat of Project Songbird offers a variety of approaches inspired by the classics of the survival horror genre. Melee and gunplay is slow and weighty, and ammo is incredibly scarce. However, combat isn't your only option, as you have a multitude of tools at your disposal to aid in sneaking past any creatures that wish to do you harm.
Bethesda’s Redfall guide lists four difficulty levels. It also notes that changing difficulty during a game may not change existing enemies until the game is reloaded. This illustrates why it is worth checking the specific setting’s description and timing: an option may not apply retroactively or immediately.
Make a quick settings pass before playing
- Open the game’s menus. Check Accessibility, Audio, Video or Display, and Gameplay; menu names vary by title and platform.
- Review content choices. Look for advisories, scene warnings, filters, visual concealment, and skip or bypass options. Read what each option affects.
- Set audio for your needs. Try separate levels for effects, music, dialogue, and cinematics, and enable subtitles or captions if useful.
- Adjust movement and visuals. Check camera shake, head bob, motion blur, brightness, contrast, and vibration where available.
- Ease mechanical demands if needed. Review difficulty, aim help, quick-time events, remapping, and toggle controls without assuming these change story content.
- Verify scope and timing. Consult the official manual or accessibility guide for your exact game, platform, and version, especially if you need to know whether an option works mid-scene or preserves progress.
What settings can—and cannot—promise
Options are game-specific, and their labels may not fully explain whether they affect a whole game, a particular scene, visuals alone, or gameplay. An official guide can clarify what is documented, but warnings cannot guarantee comfort, and a filter or lower difficulty cannot guarantee that the remaining game will feel less scary. If a scene or game still feels distressing, pausing, taking a break, or choosing not to continue are valid choices.
Quick Recap
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