The first Resident Evil game on PlayStation 1 kick-started a fan-favorite franchise that is still terrifying players in 2025. However, it’s not the only horror game on the classic Sony console that left players cowering in the corner. In fact, a few of these games might be even scarier than the original Resident Evil. Below are three games that will rattle you to your core, giving RE a run for its money. And no, you won’t simply find Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 on this list. We can be a little more creative than that. Those games are great, and many would agree are scarier than the first Resident Evil, but including them feels like cheating, so I’m leaving them off.
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With that said, here are three PS1 games that are scarier than Resident Evil.
3) Dino Crisis
- US Release Date: September 23rd, 1999
- Developer: Capcom
Dino Crisis was the first game Shinji Mikami directed after making the original Resident Evil. He was a producer on RE2, but Dino Crisis put him back in the director’s chair for the new IP. You can instantly feel the Resident Evil inspiration in Dino Crisis, though Capcom slightly twisted the survival horror genre to make a “panic horror” game.
On top of that, Dino Crisis used a real-time engine with 3D environments instead of the pre-rendered backgrounds of Resident Evil. And of course, Capcom switched out zombies for dinosaurs.
It’s possible I was watching too much Jurassic Park as a child, but the dinos were always spookier than zombies for me. After all, what’s scarier: a shambling corpse you can easily outrun, or a velociraptor with huge claws that can easily get up to 25 mph in a sprint? Add in incredible sound design for the dinos, and you have one of the scarier games of the era.
2) Silent Hill
- US Release Date: February 23rd, 1999
- Developer: Team Silent (Konami)
Like Dino Crisis, Silent Hill took a ton of inspiration from Resident Evil. However, Team Silent built on the formula in important ways, most notably giving players a branching storyline with multiple endings. That made it a blast to replay and let Konami’s team develop a more intricate story.
Silent Hill has fewer jump scares than Resident Evil, instead focusing more on psychological horror. That makes this a bit of an apples-and-oranges comparison, but Silent Hill‘s oppressive, disturbing atmosphere is one of the most terrifying worlds you’ll walk through on the PlayStation 1.
It also followed in RE‘s footsteps in creating a media franchise. And like Resident Evil, the second game is a huge step up in production, storytelling, and scares. Unfortunately, Silent Hill slowly fell off over the next several entries, though it has started to get back on the right track in recent years. Still, you can’t take away how spooky this first game is, and new fans will get to learn that for themselves with the upcoming remake.
1) Clock Tower
- US Release Date: October 10th, 1997
- Developer: Human Entertainment
Clock Tower is a weird game. Technically, it’s the second game in the series, but the first Clock Tower didn’t come to the US until much later. It’s also a point-and-click survival horror game, which helps build tension due to the somewhat sluggish control system, but it quickly felt outdated.
However, that tension is the perfect complement to Scissorman. Look, tyrants and zombie dogs were scary, but they don’t hold a candle to a creepy, little man wielding scissors that are bigger than his body.
Any time that creep’s music hit, you knew it was about to hit the fan. And with those point-and-click controls slowing you down, every second felt like it might be your last. Look, it might be hard to go back to given how far we’ve come, but not many games can match that feeling of impending doom when Scissorman shows up.
Resident Evil might have more scares per minute than Clock Tower, but that weirdly makes it less scary. Human Entertainment knows how to build to its horrors as well as anyone, but masterfully uses that tension to make each scare hit harder than the last, making it one of the most terrifying games on PlayStation 1.
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