Best Jump Scare Games on Steam
Horror games using sudden shocks, loud stings, and surprise appearances.
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1Five Nights at Freddy's - Welcome to your new summer job at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, where kids and parents alike come for entertainment and food! The main attraction is Freddy Fazbear, of course; and his two friends. They are animatronic robots, programmed to please the crowds!
Aug 19, 2014
In this game, you can…
- crank each animatronic's AI level up to 20 on Custom Night and build brutal combinations like 20/20/20/20.
- keep checking Pirate Cove to stall Foxy, or he can sprint straight down the hallway at you.
- waste too much power and lose access to your tools, leaving you staring into a dark office while Freddy approaches.
- balance your power use between camera checks, hallway lights, and two electric doors.
- watch animatronics vanish from the stage and reappear in hallways or blind spots on your cameras.
- catch a threat at the door, open up, and realize another one is already coming because you mistimed your checks.
- hear tiny off-screen cues like shuffles and childlike sounds that warn something is in the room before you can see it.
2Five Nights at Freddy's 2 - Welcome back to the new and improved Freddy Fazbear's Pizza! As always, Fazbear Entertainment is not responsible for death or dismemberment.
Nov 10, 2014
In this game, you can…
- get sudden retro minigames where you control Freddy to give gifts, then give life, and end up stuffing kids into animatronic suits.
- sit in one office chair with no doors, swapping between cameras, a flashlight, and a Freddy mask to keep animatronics from walking in.
- watch Balloon Boy slip in and disable your lights and flashlight, cutting off your main defenses at the worst possible time.
- juggle flashing the hallway, winding a music box, checking vents, and masking up the instant something appears in your face.
- keep a tiny music box rewound all night or the Puppet comes for you when the warning hits and the melody dies.
- stun Foxy by repeatedly flashing him down the hallway because the mask does nothing, and a dead flashlight means he rushes you.
- trigger rare dark-screen encounters on startup where shadowy versions of characters can appear before you even start a night.
3F.E.A.R. - Experience the original F.E.A.R. along with F.E.A.R. Extraction Point and F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate.
May 21, 2010
In this game, you can…
- watch soldiers drag a couch or vending machine into place as cover, then detour through cleared rooms to ambush you from behind.
- have the last surviving soldier go silent, stop using his radio, and hide to ambush you from a spot you already cleared.
- fire a Penetrator and pin enemies to walls with nails, or blast them point-blank with a shotgun while time is slowed.
- trigger slow motion, lean around cubicles, pop out, and shred a squad while the whole office explodes into debris.
- get hunted by squads that call out your flashlight and position, coordinate on radio, flank, suppress, and sometimes fall back to regroup.
- enter a quiet office under an "unknown signal," then watch the comm display flicker as the game pivots from gunfight to paranormal dread.
- kick enemies with flying and bicycle kicks that launch them across rooms into paper stacks and props.
- walk back through a firefight location and see the room permanently recorded in bullet holes, shattered glass, scorch marks, and wrecked furniture.
4Five Nights at Freddy's 4 - In this last chapter of the Five Nights at Freddy's original story, you must once again defend yourself against Freddy Fazbear, Chica, Bonnie, Foxy, and even worse things that lurk in the shadows.
Jul 23, 2015
In this game, you can…
- run to each door, press your ear to it, and decide whether to shut it or flash your light based on breathing
- dash to the closet to manage Foxy's stages with the flashlight until he turns into a plush and vanishes
- have the closet, both doors, and the bed all demand attention at once, forcing you to sprint, listen, flash, and spin around in a single escalating loop
- hold a door shut in silence, then wait for footsteps to confirm the thing outside finally backed away
- keep the bed in check by flashing away Freddles before they pile up and summon Nightmare Freddy behind you
- get yanked into a side minigame where you freeze Plushtrap with timed flashlight bursts in a pitch-dark hallway
- reach Night 6 and hit a 4 a.m. moment where the attackers suddenly disappear, shifting the whole rhythm mid-night
- use Nightmare Fredbear's laughter as a location clue, even though the audio itself can fake you out
5Five Nights at Freddy's 3 - Thirty years after Freddy Fazbear's Pizza closed it's doors, the events that took place there have become nothing more than a rumor and a childhood memory, but the owners of "Fazbear's Fright: The Horror Attraction" are determined to revive the legend and make the experience as authentic as possible for patrons, going to great l
Mar 2, 2015
In this game, you can…
- use recorded "hello" and "haha" sounds on cameras to lure the animatronic into different rooms
- hear thumping in the vents, seal the one he's in, and keep switching seals as he reroutes toward your office
- get hit by phantom hallucinations that kick you off cameras, trigger system failures, or freeze you in place until they vanish
- run a fake horror attraction that accidentally ends up housing a real animatronic killer
- overwork your tools until they fail, then reboot audio, cameras, and ventilation while the killer keeps moving closer
- scan grainy camera feeds where he can hide in a corner, then suddenly spot him running between rooms in real time
- stare at him through the office window near 6 AM, resetting systems while he watches, and try to outlast the clock
6Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted 2 - Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted 2 is the sequel to the terrifying VR experience that brought new life to the iconic horror franchise. As a brand new Fazbear employee you’ll have to prove you have what it takes to excel in all aspects of Pizzeria management and maintenance.
Dec 14, 2023
In this game, you can…
- do glam makeup on Roxanne Wolf backstage, then watch her character model rise out of the floor right in front of you.
- pull off your mask and instantly reveal a hard-mode version of the same scenario.
- make music with Music Man like a weird little DJ set, where messing up can get you attacked.
- crawl across the floor by grabbing and pulling yourself forward, like you're dragging your body toward the door.
- fight to get a carousel or log-ride attraction running while something keeps harassing you mid-ride.
- work chaotic fast-food prep jobs serving hungry bots while an animatronic manager yells at you to go faster.
- beat up plush enemies with whatever's handy, like smacking them with a whacker or crushing them with a bowling ball.
- launch tiny enemies as projectiles and blast animatronics in the eyes with lasers during frantic tool-based tasks.
7Scanner Sombre - Scanner Sombre is a 3d horror cave exploration game where darkness is your greatest foe. Illuminate the unseen with your LIDAR scanner, revealing the eerie beauty and peril of the abyss. From the creators of Prison Architect, this immersive adventure uses light and shadow for a haunting experience.
Apr 26, 2017
In this game, you can…
- reach the end and look back at a single persistent map that remembers millions of scanned points, preserving your entire journey as a glowing cloud.
- cross an underground lake in VR while the headset glitches, using only your dot-map and sound as the water turns terrifying.
- see ghost-like, T-posing figures snap into existence from scattered scan dots, including a bridge jumpscare in the dark.
- paint pitch-black caves into view with a handheld scanner, revealing the world as glowing dots instead of light.
- choose between wide, messy sprays to survive or a tight beam to trace ledges, stalagmites, and ceilings in detail.
- scan just enough to realize how deep a drop is or how vast a cavern roof is, then watch everything outside your beam vanish back into black.
- watch the scanner leave a human-shaped void of unscanned darkness right in front of you.
8IMSCARED - "I need a Heart in order to open it"
Feb 3, 2016
In this game, you can…
- get messages from a folder the game creates on your desktop, then open and edit its .txt/.htm/.config files to solve puzzles.
- have the game open browser tabs and videos, create files, and fake blue-screen-like events as part of progression.
- lose the shift key mid-chase, forcing you to keep running while the game removes a basic control option.
- hunt for a literal "Heart" to open the EXIT door, then get dragged through surreal apartments, halls, mansions, and mazes while White Face stalks you.
- be chased by White Face in parking lots and hallways, scrambling for an exit after catching it staring at you through a window.
- find required clues hidden inside fake achievement popups, so the answer is in the Steam UI instead of the game world.
- follow instructions in a "heart.txt" that make you write a line at the bottom, then treat that file ritual as a real story step.
- use the internet and even your system clock as part of unlocking what happens next.
9Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion: HD Renovation - Can you survive 1000 rooms of cute terror? Or will you break once the cuteness starts to fade off and you're running for your life from the unspeakable hideous beings that shake and writhe in bowels of this house? They wait for you, they wait and hunger for meeting you.
Mar 1, 2017
In this game, you can…
- jump into Endless Mode where up to five specimens can chase you at once, including multiple copies of the same one.
- walk into a Dollhouse DLC room where a caged clown changes the room every time you look away, then vanishes without ever attacking.
- read a monster's tells to survive chases, like watching the Puppet's animations to predict when it will teleport.
- push through 1000 randomly picked rooms with save rooms and special specimen rooms breaking up the run.
- get lulled by cute hallways for about 100 rooms, then suddenly start getting hunted by dangerous specimens.
- get chased through layouts that force turns, backtracking, and line-of-sight traps while monsters that phase through walls keep closing in.
- wade through slime and water that slows you down while a specimen keeps pace and corners you.
- use an on-screen door prompt to know when you're in range, even if you're panicking or the door is hard to see.
- find rare rooms like an arcade or a giant brain room that suddenly interrupts the usual hallway crawl.
10Year Walk - Venture out into the dark woods where strange creatures roam, on a vision quest set in 19th century Sweden. Solve and decipher cryptic puzzles, listen for clues, and learn about mysterious folklore creatures in the built-in encyclopedia as you seek to foresee your future.
Mar 6, 2014
In this game, you can…
- reach an ending, then start walking again and realize the game only truly opens up on a second playthrough.
- open a journal after your first walk and find new entries that become the only way to solve later puzzles and reach the true ending.
- solve puzzles by listening for subtle audio cues, where keeping your sound on is part of getting past a locked moment.
- fast, stay in solitude, then step into the snowy woods at midnight to try to glimpse your future.
- treat the game's interface as a puzzle tool, memorizing patterns and writing down runes and symbols so you can backtrack and reconnect clues later.
- read an encyclopedia entry about a folklore creature, then run into that exact being deeper in the woods with new context.
- move through snowy paths in a side-scrolling view, then suddenly rush forward or backward between depth layers as the map re-wires how the forest connects.
- walk deeper into the forest and encounter Swedish folklore beings on the way to a church that shows you your fate.
