For as hard as it may be to create a scary film or book, it’s even harder to make an actually scary game. Unlike other forms of media, no one player’s experience with a game will ever be the same, making it difficult to craft a truly terrifying experience. But it can be done, as the games on this prove. Each entry not only is a great game, but they expertly crafted a horrifying experience that took gamers to the edge of their seat and beyond. If you think you can take it, our list begins with…

The Resident Evil games were scary for their time, but in the current generation of games, they’ve been replaced as the king of action horror by Dead Space. Borrowing from Alien and other Sci-Fi classics, the 2008 release put players in the role of Isaac Clarke, an engineer trapped on a derelict spacecraft. Soon Isaac finds out the ship isn’t as empty as it seems, as a strange alien artifact has transformed everyone on board into hideous, flesh-eating creatures, each more horrific than the last.

Dead Space crafts such a horrifying experience by limiting the player. Isaac is short on ammo, he rarely knows what’s going on in the continually shifting story, and he’s most in danger of what he can’t see. So much of the disturbing atmosphere is built on what you hear, and the amazing sound design uses audio to fashion an entire deadly world around Isaac. Though the sequel pulled back on the scares somewhat in favor of cinematic action, the original remains trapped in our nightmares.

Fish, or cut bait? Fish, or cut bait? That age-old adage was adopted for the third iteration of id’s legendary shooter franchise, which took a hard left turn into survival horror territory. Only here, you had to consistently decide between two unsavory choices: Hold your flashlight up, just to see the gruesome zombie demons running full sprint at you, or brandish a gun to shoot wildly at murderous shadows?

Not every gamer gelled with this kind of painstaking pacing (thought duct-tape mods helped). But for those who surrender themselves to the monster closets hidden in the dark corners of this Martian-space-station-turned-portal-to-Hell-itself, Doom 3 offers some of the greatest jump scares of all time. Eventually, you’ll start to dread every idle med-kit and ammo pack you see, terrified that you’ll spawn scads of demons just for picking it up. Also, Doom 3 totally did grotesque, killer toddlers before Dead Space. Just sayin’.

Picking up on the tropes of Japanese horror and folklore that were made famous in The Ring and Ju-on, the Fatal Frame series has always been unsettling. Characters are frozen in place with fear, their only weapon against soul-stealing ghosts is an ancient camera. This means the only way to fight your enemies is to face them head-on, an increasingly terrifying proposition as the game wears on. The franchise has several great entries, but we choose to single out the second game as the best fit for this list.

Crimson Butterfly updates the graphics a bit from the first game, and it’s the most inviting in its difficulty, making sure there’s an ever-present threat without getting too frustrating. It also has the best story, a personal journey between two sisters dealing with loss and guilt. It’s always nice when the intense experience is backed up by a plot that’s deeper than “survive.”

Some horror games don’t need fantastical enemies or mythical demons to scare players. Titles like Condemned demonstrate that flesh and blood humans can easily be as scary as demons and ghosts, and the ethereal threat of the paranormal with the very real hazard of having your head bashed in with a pipe. The rusty, broken down world of Condemned is all the more terrifying because you know that places like those actually exist.

Condemned’s shadowy environments is made all the more harrowing by how limited protagonist Ethan Thomas in fighting the many crazy people that attack him during his criminal investigations. Guns are hard to find, and he’s more likely to stun an enemy with a taser and then snap their neck in brutal fashion. Aside from a late addition of occult weirdness, Condemned makes for one of the most brutally real horror experiences on consoles; it’s worth it for the mannequin level alone.

After some of the people behind the original Silent Hill games left Konami, they set up shop at Sony’s internal studio to begin work on a new approach to survival horror. That became the episodic franchise Siren, and it was at its best in the PS3 reimagining of the original game. Subtitled Blood Curse, it was originally a PSN title, but eventually the entire harrowing experience was collected on one Blu-ray.

Taking place in multiple timelines, you control different people trying to get to the bottom of an ancient conspiracy involving human sacrifice. Often players are directed to hide and sneak around rather than face an enemy with your limited arsenal of attacks. Filled with disgusting monsters and chilling twists, this one is worth a look if you ignored it when it first hit PSN.

Slender is horror concentrate, the sheer essence of fear boiled down to its purest form. It strips away the illusions of narrative and choice, instead presenting the bare-minimum needed to elicit the most frightening experience possible. It doesn't bother with backstory or… any story at all, really. It just focuses, 100%, on scaring you to death. And by god--it does it.

You're in the woods, it's dark, and you need to collect eerie notes scattered throughout the forest. That's it. What's more, with every step you take towards the goal, Slender comes closer to catching you. Each note plucked increases the odds of finding him around a corner, or waiting inside a room. When he finds you it's all over--the game resets, and you begin anew.

As the name suggests, you will know fear once you’re curled up in the fetal position in front of your monitor, dreading the thought of bumping into the ghastly little girl Alma when you least expect it. If creepy, phase-in-directly-in-your-face dead girls aren’t freaky enough, Paxton Fettel seals the deal as a telepathic cannibal who leaves behind remnants of his feasts for you to find.

This first-person shooter was heavier on the shootout action than most horror games--but the remarkable AI kept things tense, and perfect pacing meant that you’d have all your killing capacity stripped away during key moments, leaving you utterly powerless in the face of supernatural horror. F.E.A.R.’s best scares came about when you were riding the high after clearing out a room full of tough enemies. That’s exactly the moment when you’d notice a strange figure staring at you from the end of a hallway. Then objects would start to move on their own. Then all the lights would turn out one by one. What happens next, well…guess you’ll have to play it to find out.

Silent Hill, as a franchise, is home to some of the most frightening enemies and situations in gaming history, but the developers’ greatest accomplishment in creating horrors that stay with you forever was Silent Hill 2. Home to creatures like the iconic nurses and Pyramid Head, protagonist James Sunderland is far more threatened by his personal demons. And the empty town of Silent Hill brings them all to the surface.

James has returned to Silent Hill answering a letter that seems to come from his dead wife, but all he finds are reminders of his own anguish and guilt over her death. Every corner of the town is inhabited by some new horror, but James has to push past his fears if he ever wants to know what’s going on. But he may not like what he finds.

STALKER breaks a lot of rules about horror games, most of all in its sandbox approach to gameplay. Many horror games try to keep players on a tight path towards scares, but STALKER gives players a chance to find it on their own. Fortunately--or unfortunately for the nerves of players--the bleak landscape of the game is littered with plenty of horrors to find at your own pace.

You may have heard of Amnesia: The Dark Descent. You may have even seen reaction videos of the poor souls who deemed themselves brave enough to step foot into its dark, creepy castle. Attempt it if you dare, but know this: To play Amnesia is to stare your greatest fears straight in the face.

As if being trapped in a monster-infested fortress without knowing who you are or why you're there wasn't scary enough, you'll have to guide protagonist Daniel to salvation while maintaining his sanity. That means staying out of the darkness (in a huge building where light is scarce) and running from monsters, which have a habit of popping up unexpectedly. You have no weapons; you cannot fight them, and each daunting new room is usually host to some unexplainable, spooky event that drains Daniel's sanity further. Of course, the best way to lose your own sanity is to don a pair of headphones and play Amnesia in the dark--and if you manage to get through the infamous "water part" without soiling yourself, know that you've succeeded where countless others have not.

Did we miss any other great games that scared you to death? Share your thoughts on the greatest horror games in the comments!

Need more frights? Check out Resident Evil's most vomit-inducing foes and Silent Hill's 13 creepiest enemies.