Have you ever wondered how it would be to be trapped in a submarine? No? Well, thanks to these horrifying games, you'll be spending $20 at most to experience what it's like to get lost in the deep while in a potentially fatal metal coffin.
True to the horror submarine experience, all you need is your wireless console controller, a screen, and a sense of adventure to experience what it's like to be stuck at the bottom of the sea. Some of these games are even scarier than simply getting lost in a shabby submarine since they also involve creatures, unlike any others you've seen before.
10 Subnautica
When submarine video games are mentioned, many would say Subnautica without hitching their breath. You probably thought so too, and it's no secret that this game is great for those who yearn to explore different worlds.
But it's also a game that makes you question what kind of creatures truly exist within the deep sea. Some of the creatures in the game do exist in real life, but who knows if the others don't? Maybe they're just out there, waiting to be discovered by some lucky sailors and wanton divers.
9 Titanic VR
Similar to the real-life event of the billionaire's submarine exploring the wreckage of the Titanic, you can try a virtual experience inside the submarine in Titanic VR. There is a macabre and unsettling feeling in knowing that you're visiting a mass grave at the bottom of the ocean, of people who were pulled into a vortex without being given a chance to fight.
No monsters chase after you, and you won't find deep sea creatures that probably inspired most of Lovecraft's literature. Instead, you'll get to see the wreck of the once-great liner and a flashback of how it sunk in real-time.
8 Sinking Iron
Sinking Iron was launched in 2023, and though the timing of its launch was divine, it remains to be criminally underrated. You're not just stuck in a submarine, but you're also being attacked externally by a sea monster that you could only hope to be fictional.
What makes everything worse is that the submarine, and later on, the boat, is breaking apart because of the monster's attacks. You're probably not going to survive this ride, but your curiosity is an itch that needs to be scratched.
7 Deep Fear
Launched in 1998 in Japan, this game is the oldest submarine horror game on the list — if you consider an underwater research base as an immobile submarine. As to how the base isn't collapsing under the water's pressure, we'll never know how that's possible.
All you should know is that you'll have a fun time shooting mutants that spawned due to research. It's completely impractical to have mutants stuck with you, let alone in an underwater base, but a survival game is made more interesting under strange and unique circumstances.
6 First Winter
The only thing scarier than being stuck in a shoddily made submarine is being stuck in a nuclear submarine from a bygone era. It's a situation only made worse when you realize that you're playing this game so that you can retrace what really happened to this old submarine.
First Winter has multiple endings, and there are a lot of terrifying things to be seen in this Soviet Nuclear Submarine. If you like retro-style games and eat history and horror for breakfast, then this experience is your best bet.
5 Barotrauma
Barotrauma has The Coffin, a submarine that looks eerily sinkable and appears to be intentionally terribly designed — if the name isn't enough of an indicator that it's indeed, a bad submarine. In fact, playing with this submarine alone will make you experience all sorts of hazardous horrors.
But even without playing The Coffin submarine, a lot of terrible accidents happen in Barotrauma that looks all too gruesome to take in. You don't need to be a submarine expert to learn how scary it is to live with other humans under pressure.
4 Narcosis
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What's it like if a diver could travel the depths of a submarine without the sub itself? Your experience with Narcosis is probably the answer, and it's both a wondrous and horrifying experience. You'll see deep sea horrors, as well as figures you wouldn't expect to see at the floor of the Pacific Ocean.
We're not sure how you're surviving this experience as a diver without exploding from the pressure, but there are scarier things to be concerned with. Overall, this game would make you want to steer clear from the sea and subs in fear of what creatures and mysteries you might discover.
3 The Trench
The Pandora Sub is by no means a bad submarine, it just so happens that a lot of things could go wrong when you go deep into the ocean. You've gone into the depths in this submersible to retrieve data from the Neptune wreckage, another submarine that perished in the depths.
This game proves that curiosity can indeed kill, and some wreckages aren't worth going to for self-preservation. Will you survive the ocean and complete your mission, or will you become prey for what lurks beneath? Maybe if you play things right, you wouldn't end up like the Neptune's passengers.
2 Soma
Think of Amnesia: Dark Descent, but set in the shadowy depths of the ocean. This game from 2015 has horror fans and non-horror games alike loving it, even if it doesn't hold any punches with the psychological horror it intends to inflict. Soma isn't for the weak, and it could make you realize fears you didn't know you have.
You're surviving in an underwater facility, with scarce resources, humans, and monsters running amok. But it's more than just another horror game set in the deep sea, and it will give you existential dread you didn't ask for if all you've wanted was some cheap scares.
1 Iron Lung
Iron Lung is the best representative of submarine horror, and all for very based reasons. If you're already scared of dark blue waters, what more if you're exploring a sea that's blood-red with a claustrophobia-inducing submersible? Your fear probably multiplied a hundredfold after realizing that you won't be exploring any normal waters.
The game capitalizes on the human fear of the unknown, with its incomplete map, grainy graphics, and unknown monsters lurking within the bloody waters. It's worse when you realize that you're practically locked in this submarine, but you just can't resist the pull of a deadly adventure into a red sea.