It’s yet again time to celebrate the holiday built for cosplayers and bulk-candy enthusiasts alike! Sadly, things are a bit different this time around with the pandemic putting a dent in trick-or-treating and other social celebrations. While we put our usual spooky rituals aside this year, it’s a good time to look through some of the Halloween-infused games that have leaned into the scariness or silliness of the season throughout the years. Here are five Halloween-themed games you can pick up to celebrate the reason for the season, or help back off the brutally early emphasis on Christmas (I’m looking at you, Hallmark Channel).
The game to reenact your trick-or-treating years
Costume Quest 1 (or 2)
Platforms Available: PC, Mac, Linux, PS3, iPhone, iPad,
Initial Release: 2010
Imagine if going door-to-door on Halloween included candy power-ups or transforming into a large-scale Statue of Liberty to fend off monsters, and you pretty much have Costume Quest. The game’s lighter RPG stylings make it pretty easy to pick up, and its charm and colorful aesthetics make it worthy of a repeat each Halloween season. If you’re a big fan of Double Fine (Psychonauts, Brutal Legend), then you’ll find yourself at home with this imaginative, quirky, and fun series.
The game that’ll scratch your haunting itch
Haunt the House: Terrortown
Platforms Available: PC, Mac, Vita
Initial Release: 2013
There’s going to be a deficiency in haunting unsuspecting victims this Halloween, but hopefully Haunt the House: Terrortown can make up for some of that! Play as a ghost that’s forced to haunt local mortals to restore ghostly order and peace. It’s an approachable action puzzler that gets by on its charm and ability to explore the cute objects at your disposal. This is not a long game, and serves as a quick, cutesy diversion to take you away from polishing off that bowl of mini Kit-Kats.
The game with some superhero Halloween vibes
Batman: Arkham Knight
Platforms Available: PC, Xbox One, Playstation 4
Initial Release: 2015
Set on the night of October 31, Batman: Arkham Knight starts with Deathstroke and Scarecrow hatching a plan to drown Arkham City in this Halloween-tinged conclusion to the well-received Arkham series. A little more supernatural than its predecessors, Arkham Knight does an excellent job of pairing this with a dark and brooding setting with neon-noir highlights. If you’re looking for a bit of a psychological trip this Halloween, then a run-through of Arkham Knight should be in short order.
There’s also a cool Halloween Easter egg where on October 31st, you can get a bit of a jump scare after meeting Man-Bat in Gotham PD. Break this out if you’re a Batman fan looking for a fun, action-filled treat (sans candy) this Halloween.
The game for a “legally distinct” spooky holiday
Porky Pig’s Haunted Holiday
Platforms Available: SNES
Initial Release: 1995
Look, sometimes it’s best to just move past the ball-and-chains of the mainstream holiday and get down to the bare bones of spookiness. Porky Pig’s Haunted Holiday is a prototypical platformer with spooky-tinged levels such as “haunted woods” and “haunted alps.” The animation is surprisingly decent for a licensed SNES game and, for the most part, the game is a pretty easy pickup-and-play platformer. If you’re looking for something a bit creepy without being too Halloween focused, it’s hard to go wrong with this “legally distinct” spooky platformer.
The game that’ll get us through all this
Kylie Jenner Halloween Face Art!
Platforms Available: Your imagination.
Initial Release: 2018
We can all acknowledge that this year has been a particularly hard one. Now with Keeping Up With the Kardashians finally ending, we’ve come to the grim realization that we are, in fact, mortal. Thankfully, we have Kylie Jenner Halloween Face Art to curb our candy-coated cravings in this homage to paint-by-numbers coloring games. Help Kylie turn Halloween upside down with this sexy and spooky exploration of modern-day face painting. Don’t let a socially-distanced Halloween keep you down when you could have the jack-o-lantern grin of Kylie Jenner to keep you company!
