Horror Special 2025 – Dying Light: The Beast and Cronos: The New Dawn lead our dive into the genre's future, past, and present

Dying Light: The Beast hands-on preview: After four hours with the third game in the series, we come away seriously impressed. Combining survival horror bite with the ability to fight back just as hard with beastly power, Techland is leaning into the bloody joy of surviving on the edge.

Dying Light: The Beast devs asked playtesters to score every single quest, and the last one is so "close to perfect" that its director is desperate for you to finish the game: As part of our exclusive interview, Tymon Smektala details how the team have closely dialled in each and every mission.

"For us, this is Dying Light 3": Speaking with Techland, we discuss Kyle Crane's return, the titular 'Beast Mode', and just how in-depth this follow-up really is. Make no mistake, this isn't something small to expand the first game's ending, but a real evolution of the entire series that feels like a true third game.

Dying Light: The Beast's open world is "a secret mystery box" where "very f*cked up things" happen, but I'm most intrigued by the Stranger Things vibes: Also inspired by Twin Peaks, we pick apart all of the unusual and paranormal threads that are bubbling to the surface of this open world.

I live and breathe survival horror, so here's my ultimate Dying Light beginner's guide if you're starting with The Beast: Each game in the series is so big and detailed that even three games in there's a lot to consider. So worry not, we've got everything you need to know about getting started with Dying Light here.

"Our fans would kill us": Dying Light: The Beast director Tymon Smektala outlines Techland's "areas of perfection" that "we cannot mess up to any extent". There's a reason fans stick with the series' huge, infested open worlds for so long, and it's thanks to the studio's craftsmanship-level attention to detail.

Dying Light: The Beast will have guns that feel "on par with melee combat," as Techland struggles to solve the series' "complicated" relationship with firearms: Continuing our exclusive interviews, we get into how this entry balances its iconic, intense melee with getting trigger happy – "I'm really, really proud".

Dying Light: The Beast – Everything we know so far: From specifics about how Beast Mode works and the rest of combat, through to how the story picks up from its predecessors and how long it is, we've got it all here! As one of the most exciting upcoming releases of 2025, we get into all the details we know so far.

I've been playing Resident Evil games for 25 years – Resident Evil Requiem doesn't need Leon Kennedy: We love the well-shampooed horror stud, but he's already starred in multiple games with escalating action. If Resident Evil 9 wants to live up to the promise of returning to its horror roots, he's gotta stay away.

Setting Silent Hill f in Japan is the smartest move Konami has made for the survival horror series since The Room moved out in 2004: Across its long history, Silent Hill has never been just about one thing, always trying fresh new ideas. Here, moving the action to Japan in the past is testing that theory with plenty of atmosphere.

The 15 best Japanese horror games: The horror genre can be personal depending on what gets under your skin, and games push that even further by being so immersive. Here, we unpack our favorite Japanese horror games to celebrate some of the genre's most iconic franchises, from Silent Hill to Haunting Ground!

Upcoming horror games for 2025 and beyond: What else is on the horizon when it comes to horror? It's a great time to be into the genre, with so many great original titles and huge releases from big franchises in the works. Across them all, boundaries are being pushed to scare us silly like never before. Get the cushion!

After 2 hours with the Silent Hill 2 dev's slimy sci-fi beast, Cronos, I'm thrilled it has Dead Space DNA and the soul of Resident Evil: Bloober Team tell us "this is more like a love letter to survival horror than to Poland" in how it draws from all sources to create a gloriously nasty blend we love playing.

Bloober's Cronos: The New Dawn is like Dead Space in Hell, but it has a cool female protagonist because the devs say that's simply "more interesting": But make no mistake, the mysterious Traveler with her thick, tanky, bizarre suit is someone you'll only come to know through many hours together.

Bloober devs say Cronos: The New Dawn is a "strange combination" of horror greats like Silent Hill, Dead Space, and Bloodborne, but they wanted a sci-fi story "deeper" than a typical Resident Evil: "Not to offend, of course," they clarify. The studio's full of ideas after Silent Hill 2 Remake.

Grossest game of the year doubles as the most kitty friendly, as you can pet real-life cats amid alien gore: "There was like a casting for cats": It's not all doom and gloom. Cronos' post-apocalypse is populated by cats, who you can discover as "collectibles". That's one way to keep us pushing through!

Silent Hill: Downpour devs reflect 12 years on: "Stop trying to be Japanese scary, and just be Czech scary": For over a decade, this was been the last new full-size entry in Silent Hill. Divisive, but with great ideas, the devs talk putting it together all this time later.

Indie devs discuss why low-poly works so well for horror: "I actually think those limitations encourage weird, unique compromises," Crow Country dev Adam Vian tells us. We speak to multiple indie devs about the approach to emulating crunchy goodness.

Until Dawn is the ultimate playable horror movie, but its success is all down to a killer, real-life plot-twist: If you thought the game itself was full of twists and turns, just wait until you hear about its making of history from the developers themselves. It began development on PS3!

Resident Evil 2 still deserves its high praise 27 years on, but how did it turn a one-off PS1 success into an unstoppable horror franchise juggernaut? Retro Gamer returns to the iconic sequel to unpack what makes this follow-up so special after all this time.