8 Horror Games With The Best Character Customization

Highlights

• Horror games often limit player input, but titles like
  Vampire: The Masquerade
  allow for character customization and choice in gameplay.
• Resident Evil 4’s
  customization options go beyond typical horror games, offering players the ability to dress up characters and change outfits.
• Dead by Daylight
  sets itself apart with a vast array of cosmetics and crossovers, allowing for unmatched character customization in the horror genre.

Horror games normally follow a more linear structure than other genres. A pre-written, pre-designed protagonist will follow the plot, with perhaps a few branching paths for collectibles or optional scares, but very little room for player input. This is true both in terms of gameplay and the character that players will play as.

Not all games are made equal though, and there are horror games that give the players a bit of freedom to determine what character they are going to guide through the onslaught of horrors. In most cases, it will just be a matter of playing with the characters’ wardrobe, but there are a very few select titles that go the extra mile.

8 Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines

Players Determine What Kind of Vampire They Want to Be

Based on the TTRPG all about political and personal horror, Vampire: The Masquerade –Bloodlines gave fans the chance to experience the pen and paper RPG in video game format. They start the game as a recently-embraced vampire in the city of Los Angeles, where tensions between the two rival sects, the Camarilla and the Anarchs, are simmering below the surface. In order to prove they were deserving of the clemency the Prince of the city showed them, players have to complete a number of tasks, with most centering around a mysterious sarcophagus.

Just as a TTRPG would do, players choose their gender and clan, which in turn determines what disciplines they have access to. Though they cannot change their character’s appearance, they can change their attire by equipping armor found throughout the game, as well as spending points to increase attributes, skills, and disciplines.

7 Resident Evil 4

The Remake Allows Players To Dress Up Leon And Ashley

Playing as the famed Resident Evil protagonist Leon S. Kennedy on an onerous mission to rescue the President’s daughter from the clutches of a cult, one would think there isn’t any room for customization, what with a protagonist that is already fully designed and an extremely linear plot, but this is where Resident Evil 4 separates itself from other single-player horror games.

Rather than rocking the vanilla Leon and Ashley outfits, players who pre-ordered the game, or who purchase the right DLC, can dress up Leon and Ashley in their casual or romantic outfits, with bonus hero and villain skins for Leon. Other outfits can be unlocked by completing the game with a certain ranking.

6 Fallen London

The Freedom To Choose One Of Many Faces And Fates

One would not think a free-to-play browser game would offer much in terms of customization or horror, but Fallen London might just surprise them. Set in an alternate version of Victorian London, most of the city has sunk beneath the ground into large caverns, all centered around a strange bazaar, with many peculiar occurrences that belay subtle horror with its skillful writing.

Players can choose an avatar for themselves from one of the many on offer, and with enough in-game currency, they can even change their face at their leisure. By playing the game, they can change the course of their character’s story, and change their attributes. For a free game, players can drop just a few minutes in here and there, and it is surprisingly detailed.

5 Content Warning

Players Can Set Themselves Apart By Customizing Their Face

Content Warning is a fun new horror game where a group of friends armed with a camera try to make themselves go viral through recording some scary videos. How do they get the frightening footage? By recording some very real and very frightening creatures that lurk in the dark, cavernous underground place called The Old World. Players can then watch their recordings in-game, as the game itself captures gameplay and audio.

The players themselves play avatars dressed in what looks like old-school diving gear, but they are able to change their faces to tell each other apart. They can customize the colors of their suit, and use letters to spell out words or use symbols to make emojis. There are ways to make an even more unique face via the game files for those who are tech-savvy, opening up even more customization options.

4 Lethal Company

Mods Allow Players To Cosplay As Famous Characters

Another excellent multiplayer horror game, Lethal Company tasks up to four unlucky employees with embarking on dangerous missions to alien planets and recovering as much scrap as they can before dying from the dangerous conditions, hostile monsters, or when the ship engages its autopilot and flies off at midnight, leaving any not onboard stranded.

Working for the company and exploring space, it makes sense that employees would have to wear a uniform, which in this case is an orange hazmat suit. This can cause players to confuse each other, especially if they have to go radio-silent to avoid a monster hearing them. Thankfully, players can purchase alternate suits using in-game currency for more unique looks, but for those saving their credits, there are always mods that can deck them out in suits based around Kirby, Mario, Knuckles, or even a Minion.

3 Bloodborne

In Typical Soulsborne Fashion, Players Can Customize Their Hunter

FromSoftware leaned into their ability to craft terrifying monsters and set pieces when developing Bloodborne, a gothic horror masterpiece heavy with Victorian undertones. The city of Yharnam has been gripped by a disease passed on through blood that transforms ordinary people into terrifying creatures, and it is up to the player to find the cause, and put an end to it. Along the way, their courage will be tested as they face beasts that are as horrific as they are deadly.

Before they set off on their onerous quest, though, they will need to create their character, determining their gender, overall appearance (down to details such as hairstyle and eye color), as well as their origin class, which will determine what skills they start off with, and what style of combat they should focus on.

2 The Outlast Trials

Customize Characters’ Gender And Appearance

Starting off its career as a single-player horror experience, Outlast eventually branched out into the world of multiplayer horror, resulting in The Outlast Trials. Murkoff are back at their old tricks, asking for ‘volunteers’ to be their lab rats for brainwashing experiments. They will be subjected to dangerous and terrifying trials that will test the limits of their will and courage. Players are free to brave it alone, or choose to believe in safety in numbers.

Just one more change between the original Outlast is that players aren’t confined to a pre-designed character, and instead will create their own. They can choose their gender, pick between the many face presets, deck their character out in new clothes unlocked as they play, and even purchase decor for their room. They can also customize what skills their character can take into the trials, called Rigs, adding RPG elements to this horror experience.

1 Dead By Daylight

An Unparalleled Amount Of Cosmetics

The most popular asymmetrical horror game currently on the market is Dead by Daylight. Other games have tried to capitalize on its success, such as V/H/S, Friday the 13th, and Killer Klowns from Outer Space, but no game has managed to offer any real competition, even those based on legendary IPs. One of the secrets to its success is the number of crossovers, bringing in characters from famous games and movies such as Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Halloween, Alien, and even Dungeons and Dragons.

Alongside a roster brimming with licensed characters, there are also countless original ones with different appearances, backgrounds, perks, and outfits, BHVR is constantly creating new cosmetics to deck them out with. The amount of clothes available for characters is impressive and unmatched by any other game. Players could easily spend as much time dressing their characters up as hunting or being hunted in the trials.