Hospitals are not always the most enjoyable place to be, but hospitals in horror games, well, those are genuinely harrowing. Whether they be a psychiatric hospital, an asylum, or just a standard hospital, these settings are sure to set you on edge.
However, hospitals can be overused in horror games. If done right, a hospital setting can be a complete game-changer for a terrifying horror game. From macabre set dressings to creepy denizens hunting you down to a decaying and derelict building, the following games showcase hospitals in the scariest of ways.
Updated on October 6, 2024, by Dennis Moiseyev: Horror games don’t get any more atmospheric than putting you inside an eerie abandoned hospital where dangers lurk, and these can often also be some of the darkest games in the genre. So, if you’re looking for your next stay in a horror game hospital, look no further than the ones below!
16 The Town Of Light
Ospedale Psichiatrico Di Volterra
LKA is an Italian studio focused on exploring mental health and psychological horror, as games like The Town of Light and Martha is Dead have shown. Although the latter game also features a mental hospital, The Town of Light uses it as its main setting.
Set in the 1940s and based on a real-life asylum in Tuscany, Italy, The Town of Light follows female protagonist Renée, who was admitted to the psychiatric hospital for shocking and heartbreaking reasons when she was 16, only to deal with the horrors of the abuses by doctors and nurses inside. The story documents her return to the now-defunct asylum and is incredibly tough and emotional to play through.
Trigger warning for sexual assault, suicide, and other difficult themes related to mental health.
15 Fran Bow
Oswald Asylum
While a seemingly cute 2D game about a little girl and her cat, Fran Bow packs a lot of disturbing psychological horror content in its gameplay. The premise here is that Fran saw her mother and father get brutally murdered, which leaves her orphaned and undergoing psychiatric treatment at Oswald Asylum. However, you quickly realize there may be more sinister agendas at play within the institution.
There will be plenty of twists and turns in Fran’s story that will reveal the truth about her and what happened to her parents. It all starts when Fran receives pills for her condition, which makes her hallucinate terrible things about the murders, and it also turns the asylum into a far creepier place than it already is.
14 Dementium: The Ward
Dementium: The Ward first launched on the Nintendo DS in 2007, but you can now get the game on Switch as well as on PS4 and PS5. If you’re not yet familiar with this horror game, it started as a potential Silent Hill project for the DS that ultimately ended up turning into its own standalone horror experience set inside an abandoned hospital.
In Dementium: The Ward, you’re yet another video game protagonist with amnesia, and getting out of the monster-infested hospital is your goal. The body horror and grotesque design of the enemies are where those Silent Hill inspirations will come through, as well as the environmental storytelling around the hospital.
13 Eyes: The Horror Game
Eyes: The Horror Game is a unique, budget-friendly horror title that asks the players to explore various haunted locations set across different maps. Your goal in each is to avoid the creeping specter while collecting as much money as possible. The premise may sound simple, but the labyrinthian design of the maps makes it harder to stay poised.
One of the game’s more iconic maps is the hospital. This foreboding location features multiple floors with many blocked paths and false exits. The overarching goal as you move through the hospital map is to avoid Charles the hospital warden, whose visage is likened to a phantom or the Grim Reaper.
12 Dead By Daylight
Lery’s Memorial Institute
Although Dead by Daylight’s numerous multiplayer maps are generally pretty scary, it’s Lery’s Memorial Institute that takes the cake when it comes to design, aesthetics, and sense of dread; it’s not a map that you’ll feel comfortable exploring.
This derelict location has served numerous purposes since its inception, each one grimmer than the last. What makes it harrowing is that, despite its abandonment, it looks and feels like plenty of machinations arise around every corner. From bloodied walls to static monitors to lackluster lighting, Lery’s Memorial Institute is a location brimming with nightmares.
11 Alice: Madness Returns
Rutledge Asylum
Rutledge Asylum is a unique hospital location in Alice Madness Returns that serves as one of the essential story locations. Without spoiling the story, let’s just say that Alice ends up at Rutledge much to her behest after some potentially fiery shenanigans.
Alice’s psyche isn’t exactly together, making her enter multiple nightmarish locations. However, it’s at Rutledge where players learn about the misdeeds at the hands of the staff. This location might not be as outwardly terrifying as some others on this list, but it’s the implications regarding Alice’s decade-long stay there that make it a real monster.
10 Silent Hill 2
Brookhaven Hospital
There is likely no survival horror game that is quite as iconic or revered as Silent Hill 2. Even decades after its initial release on the PlayStation 2, it still remains one of the very best survival horror games thanks to impeccable psychological gameplay elements, a tightly-knit story, and some amazing locations for players to explore as James Sunderland.
One such location is Brookhaven Hospital, essentially a mental institution, which has been featured throughout the series. However, it’s the version in Silent Hill 2 that really takes the cake. Apart from its spooky appearance, it’s the encounter with the infamous Nurses that makes this hospital a foreboding place for James to be.
9 Infliction: Extended Cut
Infliction: Extended Cut is a first-person horror game that sees the main character exploring various real-world locations. Infliction feels like a blend of P.T. and Layers of Fear with a story that is deeply disturbing both in terms of its real take on alcoholism, but also in how it deals with demons and possession.
For those willing to explore its creepy world, It’s when it becomes an asylum horror game that really ups the ante when it comes to scares. This ethereal-feeling location is made even scarier because you have to use a camera to scry hidden messages, keys, and doors, with the former often written in blood.
8 Outlast
Mount Massive Asylum
Outlast is a terrifying first-person horror game starring Miles Upshur, an investigative journalist who finds himself at the infamous Mount Massive Asylum. This asylum houses the worst of mankind, from monstrous creatures to killer inhabitants. Miles arrives here to get the inside scoop on the terrible events that took place at the asylum.
Mount Massive is a foreboding structure that greets you as you drive up the eerie mountain road toward it, unsettling in the distance. Unfortunately for Miles, the inside of the asylum isn’t any better. This place is literally rotting from the inside out, and Miles didn’t think to bring a weapon to defend himself against the aberrations within.
7 Call Of Cthulhu
Riverside Institute
In a town where nothing is quite right, and you’re an unwelcome visitor, the worst place to end up is their local psychiatric facility. In his search for the Hawkins family, Investigator Pierce stumbles across occult dangers and secret monsters. After being injury, he is brought to the Riverside Institute, where he is contained under the claims of mental illness.
By the time you escape, you’ve been pumped with drugs and left to stew in your delusional state. This hospital serves as a grim reminder that even in a world with eldritch monsters and bloodletting cultists, the most dangerous thing to your survival can still be bad people in a place of authority.
6 The Evil Within
Beacon Mental Hospital
The Evil Within was created out of the mind of Shinji Mikami, the brains behind the original Resident Evil. It should come as no surprise then that The Evil Within is brimming with scary locations. You only need to look at one of the primary locations that protagonist Sebastian Castellanos finds himself exploring; Beacon Mental Hospital.
Beacon Mental Hospital is a rundown, decrepit, and utterly spooky mental asylum that has been the breeding ground for Ruvik and Leslie Withers, two characters who are intertwined with one another. This asylum has it all, blood, corpses, hauntings, and plenty of tragedy.
5 Claire
Claire is a pixel art indie horror game starring the titular character, Claire, who finds herself in an unknown hospital caring for her comatose mother. Stricken with grief and deep-seated pain, Claire must explore the seemingly abandoned hospital through a sort of dark otherworld.
This hospital is very reminiscent of locations from the Silent Hill series. As Claire explores with her dog Anubis, she stumbles upon creepy monsters that she needs to hide from while also contending with the changing environment. The question that remains throughout is, is this all in her head?
4 Silent Hill: Homecoming
Alchemilla Hospital
The opening area of this divisive Silent Hill series’ entry takes place in Alchemilla Hospital. Alex Shepherd, our resident ‘hero’ lands himself on a gurney, bloodied, confused, and ultimately terrified. It seems as if Alex has returned from war to his hometown of Shepherd’s Glen, however, his time in Alchemilla Hospital shows him something else entirely.
Simply put, Alchemilla Hospital is one of the series’ best locations due to a dark and ominous presence that lurks throughout. Alex does stumble across his brother within the hospital but instead of giving Alex comfort, it creates a new dose of confusion for him. This evil location helps to flesh out why Toluca Lake is an important part of Silent Hill.
3 Until Dawn And The Inpatient
Blackwood Sanatorium
Until Dawn features incredible choice-driven gameplay that lends itself well to the horror genre. Starring a group of teens in a remote cabin, Until Dawn sets itself up for a lot of scares, but one of the game’s best locations is Blackwood Sanatorium, found in the late game.
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Blackwood Sanatorium was built over a geothermal hot spring, and it offered upper-class patients a more luxurious recovery. However, it eventually fell into disrepair and less glamorous individuals took up residence. Eventually, it was shuttered and is now home to true horrors for our protagonists.
The Inpatient
If you want to see more of this location before it closed down, The Inpatient is a prequel to Until Dawn that’s set in the Blackwood Sanatorium during the 1950s. Available only for the PlayStation VR, The Inpatient still sticks to choice-based gameplay and puts you in the shoes of a patient in the Blackwood Sanatorium, who needs to figure out why they’re suddenly there.
There’s also now the 2024 Until Dawn remake that launched on PlayStation 5 and PC!
2 Tormented Souls
Winterlake Hospital
One of the most recent games here, Tormented Souls, a throwback to early survival horror games, prides itself on its spooky mansion-like hospital of Winterlake. Winterlake feels like a blend of the iconic Spencer Mansion from Resident Evil with the eerie atmosphere of Silent Hill 2.
It’s clear from the start of the game that some heinous deeds took place at the seemingly abandoned Winterlake mansion. This derelict building hides many dark secrets and plenty of denizens that seek to impale you around every corner. This labyrinthian location is sure to give you nightmares.
1 The Suffering
Abbot State Penitentiary
One of the most underrated survival horror games from the early 2000s is The Suffering. The Suffering stars Torque, a man who has been sentenced to death row on the charges of brutally murdering his family. Torque finds himself locked up at Abbot State Penitentiary at the start of the game and after some gruesome opening moments, must now escape.
While a penitentiary is certainly not a hospital, this specific location houses many clinic rooms with enough terrible machinations to act as a haunted hospital. The fact that each and every monster is meant to be a physical representation of a death row execution shows how twisted this setting really has become.
