The best PC games this week include daylight horror and dark dating-sims

We continue this month’s spooky month with a new batch PC titles that will get your pulse racing. Horror can take many forms, and gaming allows for interconnections with other genres, creating truly unique experiences.

This week’s PC game picks are filled with dating sims that offer wild twists and turns, managing eldritch abominations for a mega-corporation, tearing up your environments as you explore a dark cave, or navigating through a world filled with abnormal sights and foes.

There’s plenty to choose from and explore within these atypical options, so be sure to check out at least one of them this weekend and have a blast. These games can all be completed in less than ten minutes so you can fit in several gaming sessions.

Hatoful Boyfriend

A dating sim with pigeon lovers could be so much fun, heartwarming and emotionally satisfying. Yes, that’s right. Hatoful Boyfriend lets you play as a human girl who enters an all-bird highschool. Your job is to love one of the birds to avoid an unfortunate ending.

You will need to navigate through hostile and fascinating environments with your best friend, who may also be your love interest. The story and characters are incredible, and the story writing is so good that it puts most romance dating sim visual novels to shame.

The game is well aware of how ridiculous the premise is but still plays it straight and treats every character with due respect, fleshing out their arcs and backgrounds to the point that you genuinely forget they’re birds. And it’s not afraid to delve into dark and mature subject matter either, handling those topics with as much sharp wit and deftness as any other aspects of the game.

Take a look at Hatoful Boyfriend on steam

Sucker for Love

Another dating-sim visual novel with a bizarre premise that somehow works, Sucker for Love sees you as a handsome guy who is the king of monsterf**kers. And this title is earned as he’s literally summoning Cthulhu so he can give them a smooch! He summons essentially a female Cthulhu named Ln’eta, and from there comes a love affair that literally ends the world.

You can then play two more routes with two cosmic horror cuties. These three routes are very charming, with great character development. The visuals and writing both expertly balance the difficult line between black humor or disturbing horror.

Each route also has its own unique gameplay style that compliments the characters and story and separates from the first girl Ln’eta’s spell-casting style game mechanics. It’s a well-paced title with simple yet addictive gameplay and it never overstays its welcome. Even more amazing is the fact that you actually care about each woman you love. This is remarkable considering they can change reality in a split second.

Take a look at Steam: Sucker for Love

Monster Management Simulation| Monster Management Simulation

If you’re a fan of SCP Foundation, Warehouse 13, Cabin in the Woods, and similar media, this monster-management simulation is absolutely the game for you. You are an L corporation manager and you have to keep the evil eldritch beings inside cells.

Each monster requires different energy sources. This energy can then be stored and sold to the public. These monsters will invariably cause contamination and havoc. You need to redirect your subordinates to corral them and re-contain their families, often at the expense of their lives.

The game is addictive and intense. Your subordinates will be able to delegate monsters for you to take care of. This allows you to maximize energy collection while maintaining calm and compliant behavior. The best part is that you are able to access all the information about each one as you care. And that’s not even touching all the drama going on with the protagonist and the other characters in the game.

Take a look at Lobotomy Corporation on Steam

Noita

While plenty of realistic 3D titles offer destructible environments, the same can’t be said for 2D pixel-based games. That is, until Noita. Noita is a roguelite magical action game where “every pixel is physically simulated,” according to the description.

This allows you to affect and destroy every part of your environment with magic spells. The magic can also be combined to create spells that have unique properties and interact with the environment. This procedurally generated world gives you more play options.

The idea of a pixel world that can be broken down and molded as you please is such a fantastic concept that it’s mind-blowing that no one has come up with it before. This is the game for you if you’re looking for a fun, sandbox-style game that you can play as you like.

Take a look at Noita on Steam

Hylics

Hylics is an excellent example of daylight horror, with freakish and weird visuals, and even more bizarre dialogue that’s actually procedurally generated, all tucked away in a world with terrifying environments and enemies.

It also boasts some surprisingly deep RPG mechanics, with the gesture system being one of the most unique and downright imaginative gameplay systems we’ve seen. It’s all complemented by the Claymation style graphics, which are all hand-animated and applied on RPG Maker of all engines.

And unlike nearly any other RPG, Hylics is at most a five-hour game, which means you can beat it and collect all the collectibles/spells/equipment in a single session. It’s a wonderfully bizarre and entertaining ride if you’re in the mood for something very different from your usual horror fare.