Horror games

Horror games are a team sport — fear is simply more entertaining when someone else has to hear you scream. This shelf is the spooky corner of the catalog: two-hero zombie rescues where one player covers the other across a haunted arena, wave defenses where the parade of the undead gets braver every night, and western ghost towns where the quickdraw opponent might already be dead. The scares lean comic-book rather than nightmare fuel: groaning hordes, creaking graveyards and bosses with more health than sense.

Cooperation is the headliner. In the mission games, two heroes with separate key maps rescue hostages, collect gems and argue about who opens which door — the zombies are almost a scheduling issue. In the defense games, one or two gunners hold a barricade against waves that escalate from shambles to sprint, upgrading weapons between rounds and learning the hard way that reloading is a strategic decision. For players who prefer atmosphere over teamwork, there is a graveyard pixel-shooter and more moody picks coming; and if you want your scares on two wheels, the racing shelf has a haunted dirt track with your name on it.

Every game runs in the browser, no download, and every page is honest about what it is: co-op, versus, or a solo creep through someone else's nightmare. Play with the lights on the first time. After that, you will not bother.

Controls stay arcade-simple across the shelf, and every page lists its key map for both heroes before you start, so the only surprise waiting in the dark is the one the developers put there on purpose.

If your group is bigger than two, several of these holdouts scale up to three or four gunners without losing the plot; the zombies, unlike your friends, will never complain about screen sharing.