From the time I started watching Pewdiepie's videos on Amnesia: The Dark Descent, I've known for a fact that horror games become less scary and more fun with friends — whether they're watching through a screen or playing right alongside you. There's something inherently hilarious about getting hunted by unspeakable monsters while you and your friends are yelling and running in all directions, or when your squad is crouched in silence but someone sneezes and gets everyone killed.

The magic of co-op horror isn't just in the screams — it's in the botched plans, the laughter that follows, and the absolute mess you always find yourselves while trying to survive together.

8 GTFO's tension never lets up, but neither does its fun

The perfect blend of action, tension, and cooperation

When GTFO was announced at the 2017 Game Awards, I was probably one of the first few people on the hype-train. A co-op horror adventure that would actually require coordinated efforts to reach the finish line with friends? Sign me right up. Sadly, it was going to be PC-only. Coming out in 2021, GTFO was one of the two big games I built a makeshift gaming PC for, along with Cyberpunk 2077. Suffice to say, only one of those games actually ended up being a good experience in 2021.

10 Chambers has created a masterpiece in GTFO — one I've sunk hundreds of hours into. GTFO sends your squad underground into different underground systems and complexes, where you complete tasks like carrying fuel cells and collecting alien-life samples while navigating hordes of flesh-eating monsters. Oh, and the entire time, you have to make sure that everybody in the squad crouches and moves at the same time, organizes their loadout as one unit, and heck, even keeps their flashlight off.

The tension never lets up, but the game remains incredibly fun and humorous when you're the last man alive trying desperately to revive your mates while a hundred-odd monsters are running after you.

7 Escape the Backrooms is the most popular game in its genre

The copypasta is at its interactive best in this game

This one's a bit of a no-brainer, isn't it? The Backrooms' copypasta took the internet by storm years ago, and since then, we've got an upcoming movie and countless games on Steam that try to instill the fear of liminal spaces in players through the Backrooms lore. Of course, not all of them succeed, but inarguably the biggest, most popular Backrooms game is Escape the Backrooms. Made on the Unreal 4 engine, Escape the Backrooms is a co-op horror experience where you and your friends go through procedurally-generated maps.

There may or me not be a monster hunting you, but the fear quotient in this game comes from the beautifully realized liminal spaces — office basements, endless seas, empty amusement parks, underwater coves, and electrical stations are just some of the terrifying environments in the game. Of course, it's impossible to truly enjoy these games without a friend, where the experience becomes ten times funnier because of the shenanigans you can get up to, like baiting monsters to chase you, or sacrificing a friend to figure out the way.

6 Phasmophobia is far scarier than it's funny

Phasmophobia delivers genuine chills down the players' spines

A friend of mine who I strong-armed into buying The Outlast Trials, returned the favor by making me buy and play Phasmophobia. One of the most popular co-op horror games out there, Phasmophobia resulted in a blur of screams, mad door dashes, and sheer pants-wetting terror. This game is legitimately scary, and while I spent plenty of hours on the wiki and YouTube, memorizing ghost types, tools, and phases, all of it went out the windows every time the EMF reader went haywire, doors started slamming shut, and necks started snapping like twigs.

The feature to talk to the ghost using voice chat is equal parts genius and hilarious. One moment I was saying "give us a sign", and the other moment I was trying to overtake my friend, dashing to the outside of the house. Despite all the fear, Phasmophobia is wildly funny with friends, and half the fun (or almost all of it) is in failing spectacularly while trying to be a "professional" ghost hunter. I hate it, and I love it. I'll probably play it again tonight.

5 Sons of the Forest is hilariously terrifying

Kevin the NPC is in the companion hall of fame

I played The Forest briefly back in the day, but Sons of the Forest is where I really strapped in — mostly because I had a friend to suffer with, and also because of the real MVP of the game — Kevin, the AI companion the game sticks you with. No horror co-op experience prepares you for the emotional roller-coaster of surviving mutant cannibals while you try to stop Kevin from walking straight into a bonfire for the third time in a row, yelling curses at the poor fellow while reminding him that you love him.

Gameplay-wise, Sons of the Forest balances genuine dread with moments of sheer hilarity better than most games in the genre, or even on this list. One second, you're exploring a creepy, claustrophobic cave that looks like it's threatening to close in on you, and the other, you're picking up logs in the game's beautiful open-world map while Kevin is helping you by tripping over them. The horror in the game is raw, the atmosphere is thick, but the laughs are constant and often unintentional. The game is your very own cursed show on the Discovery Channel, and it never stops being fun.

4 Lethal Company turns your squad into scrap collectors

The insanity and the laughs never stop when you have company

I only started playing Lethal Company a few months ago, and I haven't been able to stop since. I grabbed it for myself and the entire squad got the game as freebies (since I bought it for them) so that we could all become scrap-metal collectors on abandoned alien moons for a few evenings. Cut to today, and I still hear the shop's cursed little ice-cream truck jingle echoing in my dreams once or twice a week.

Lethal Company sends your squad to an alien moon of your choosing, where you explore abandoned facilities to collect scrap metal so you can sell it to earn enough profit to meet your quota, all within three days. Between the collecting and the selling, lies the hilarity and the fun, where you're chased by indescribable entities through dark hallways, hopelessly trying to find the exit you were sure was behind you.

Sure, there's a learning curve here, and the game ramps up difficulty with every new moon, but the real fun lies in bumbling through the lower levels with a friend who is as clueless and incompetent as you are. In those moments, Lethal Company is at its best — chaotic, hilarious, and surprisingly wholesome... until the autopilot on your ship chooses to leave you behind.

If you're new to the game, make sure you ring the bell at the Company's selling counter multiple times — it doubles your profit.

3 Backrooms: Escape Together is the most realistic Backrooms experience

One of the few Backrooms games that are truly terrifying

Another Backrooms game that truly deserves a place on this list is Backrooms: Escape Together. What started off as a solo developer building a Backrooms game in Unreal Engine 5 soon became a small team working remotely. Now, this does mean that updates are few and far between, but the experience available right now is one of the best horror co-op games you can play today. Escape Together boasts a fantastic visual presentation, great optimization, and nine full levels that will have you solving puzzles, cooperating with teammates, and outrunning all kinds of monsters to stay alive.

Inventory management is key in Backrooms: Escape Together, and you'll often need all your teammates around you to organize resources. Where this title truly trumps the more popular Escape the Backrooms is in its atmosphere — this is undoubtedly the most realistic Backrooms experience out there, and it manages to remain terrifying, funny, and enjoyable, all at the same time.

2 Dying Light is a co-op horror adventure like none other

There's just nothing like a coordinated dropkick attack on a volatile

Now look, Dying Light is probably not the first — or tenth — game that comes to mind when we talk about co-op horror games, but I think it deserves a place on this list. First, because it's one of my favorite games of all time, and I've finished it seven times over. More importantly, however, is the fact that the entire campaign is playable in co-op, which makes this a AAA horror adventure you can run through with a friend.

Believe me, when the sun goes down in the original Dying Light, there's nothing scarier than stepping foot outside your safe house. And if you've got a friend goading you into baiting a volatile, or chasing after an air drop well past midnight, the game becomes all the more challenging and intense. Hey — it's co-op, it's terrifying, and it's also one of the best zombie games ever made. If you haven't already played Dying Light, do it tonight. And if you have, take a page out of my book and play it again, preferably with a friend.

1 The Outlast Trials is the definitive co-op horror experience

You won't stop screaming, and you won't stop laughing

The Outlast Trials is — and always will be — my favorite co-op horror game. Having bought it and convinced the entire squad to also purchase it during early access, I had the time of my life playing the game. Sure, a solo run or two doesn't hurt, but this game is truly built for multiplayer exploration and cooperation, and it shows in every single level. The first game in the franchise to feature multiplayer, The Outlast Trials puts you and your friends in some beautifully-crafted, horrific locations — a police station, an orphanage, a terrifying amusement park, and so many more locations, each more unique than the last.

You complete a set of challenges while a stalker-type boss constantly chases you and your friends, and you have nothing but a few tools at your disposal, which makes the whole game of cat-and-mouse infinitely enjoyable and rewarding. In fact, this is also probably the funniest game on the list — sometimes, you'll mess up to yield horrific but funny results, and sometimes, the AI will be so easy to exploit that the tension gives way to endless shrieks of laughter. It's a shame that the game never got the love it deserved, since it only featured four levels for the longest time before the devs decided to kick back into gear and give us more levels.

Company doesn't make the game less scary — it makes the fear hysterical

Co-op horror games are about finding the most creative ways to fail together.

Single-player horror adventures and co-op horror games and single-player horror games are worlds apart. While the former delivers a carefully-tailored, terrifying experience for players, the latter is far more realistic because, let's face it — none of us are making it out alive if a chainsaw-killer is chasing us, and we're busy hurling expletives at each other.

These games are never about surviving the horror — they're about making memories as you find the most creative ways to fail together.