Gather your friends, turn out the lights and make sure you’re fully armed as we check out the best Xbox One multiplayer horror games!
There’s such a wide variety of dark, gory horror experiences on Xbox One that can be experienced alongside – or even against – friends and strangers.
From sci-fi team-ups against Xenomorphs and amoral corporations, to fights against urban zombie hordes and onto backwoods hide and seek games against deadly, all powerful killers, it feels like there’s a flavour of multiplayer horror out there for all tastes.
As long as you don’t mind copious amounts of gore or jump scares of course. Then again, if you did – well, you wouldn’t be reading this list, would you?
So if you’re ready to get scared – let’s take a look at the best Xbox One multiplayer horror games!
Table of Contents
10. Aliens: Fireteam Elite (2021)
As I’m a huge, pretty much lifelong fan of the Alien franchise, this title really is one that ticks all the boxes for me.
Though less outright horror than most other games on this list, Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a Left 4 Dead-inspired wave shooter with bags of atmosphere and some genuinely brilliant, deep cut references to Aliens lore.
The game also features a great soundtrack by Austin Wintory that feels authentic without relying on existing Aliens franchise themes.
Players team up in squads of Colonial Marines, making use of different classes to suit their playstyle. Taking down waves of hideous, sometimes mutated, Xenomorphs and other relentless enemies is ridiculously compelling.
Even though the main campaign is a little short, there are numerous modes and challenges – as well as some pretty tough difficulty levels – to blast your way through alongside other players.
9. Dying Light (2015)
With the ever present threat of zombies, the open world parkour action in Dying Light is a thrilling, sometimes terrifying experience.
Helping you to even the odds a bit is that you can play through the campaign with a friend in co-op mode – so you can take on the zombie hordes together!
Not the sociable type? How about trying the game’s ‘Be the Zombie’ mode, in which you can take on the role of a badass ‘Night Hunter’ zombie and attack other players as they try and take down zombie nests?
Whether working with or against other players, Dying Light is a fun, tense and often scary first person experience that’s well worth trying out!
8. The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan (2019)
Supermassive Games created The Dark Pictures Anthology titles as relatively brief, episodic horror experiences – with each game full of agonising decisions, split second quick time events and branching storylines.
Each game is designed to support more than just solo players, with local and online modes available. Players can take charge of a character each in the local multiplayer, Movie Night mode or as multiple characters in the online Shared Story mode.
Man of Medan itself is a ghost story with plenty of jump scares and spooky moments; it’s entirely possible for all of the player characters to die before the end of the story too…so tread carefully!
You’ll also find Man of Medan on our list of the best PS4 horror games.
7. Resident Evil 5 (2016)
Though it originally arrived in 2009, the Xbox One version of Resident Evil 5 wasn’t released until 2016.
Definitely not one of the most popular Resident Evil games, Resident Evil 5 is more action than horror-oriented, but definitely has its scary moments.
The multiplayer options are excellent too. two players able to tackle the entire campaign together in co-op mode or against each other in Versus mode.
Versus mode contains two ways to play too: either competing for the high score against other players and taking on the mindless hordes of enemies, or by hunting each other in the second multiplayer variant!
6. The Blackout Club (2019)
There’s a definite Stranger Things vibe to The Blackout Club – a survival horror game in which players co-operate as teens investigating horrific goings-on in a suburban setting.
Adults are building tunnels under the town in their sleep, completely unaware of what they’re doing during the night.
Teenagers – like yourself – are waking up covered in mud and scratches, with no memory of what’s happened.
Just don’t alert The Shape – a creature who can only be detected by closing your eyes – to your whereabouts when you’re taking on a randomly generated mission with your friends.
If The Shape catches you, you’ll be turned into one of the shambling sleepers too!
One of the best features in The Blackout Club is the Enhanced Horror System – if enabled, the game will record your audible reactions and even breathing, to be shared in game with other players.
Not only that, but enabling the Enhanced Horror System may also see the developers contacting you in-game to chat to you as one of the evil Gods behind the terrifying situation befalling the town.
It’s a very creepy game – and one that’s best experienced with friends!
5. Evil Dead: The Game (2022)
Once considered one of the goriest and most terrifying movies ever made, Sam Raimi’s first Evil Dead movie was even banned for a number of years on home video in the UK!
Yet when the series moved to its second and third instalments – as well as the TV series that followed much more recently – it became more like a slapstick comedy; albeit a slapstick comedy with jump scares and buckets of gore.
It’s not the first time the series has featured on one of our ‘best of’ lists either – check out our best zombie games on PS2 list, which features Evil Dead: Regeneration.
Evil Dead: The Game is an asymmetric multiplayer game, which can see players in the roles of humans trying to survive demonic attacks – or the demons themselves.
When I say demons plural I mean it. As the evil player, you’re in charge of the entire Army of Darkness.
It’s genuinely exciting and has its fair share of scares when you play Evil Dead: The Game as a human – and it really puts you on edge. There’s plenty of demons and traps to encounter, as well as powerful and relentless bosses.
As the Army of Darkness player, all of those threats are under your control – giving the game a very different feel on each side of the good/evil divide!
4. Friday the 13th: The Game (2017)
Another asymmetrical multiplayer game, Friday the 13th either casts players as Counselors at the cursed Camp Crystal Lake (seriously, how does this place stay open?) or the relentless, incredibly powerful, hockey-masked killer: Jason Voorhees.
Like Evil Dead: The Game, being one of the human survivors is a tense and terrifying experience, but if you play as the big bad Jason, it’s a thrilling game of cat and mouse.
While survivors can fight back against Jason, he’s significantly more powerful than the pesky little humans he’s hunting and killing.
Jason’s various skins are impressively recreated from movies in the franchise (most people don’t remember that Jason wasn’t even the killer in the first movie. Nor that he wore a burlap sack as a mask in the second film – only getting hold of the iconic hockey mask in Friday the 13th Part III!) and there are plenty of nods to the somewhat convoluted lore of the films.
Ever wanted to play hide and seek while a terrifying, weapon-wielding killer hunts you down? Here’s your chance!
3. Zombie Army 4: Dead War (2020)
World War 2 and zombies seems to be a very potent combination – who doesn’t want to take out hordes of undead monstrosities who also happen to be Nazis?
If ever there was the perfect video game bad guy to take on and not feel any remorse over mercilessly killing (in often hilariously gory slow motion), Nazi zombies have to be near the top of the list.
Zombie Army 4: Dead War has a few choices for players wanting to take on zombies together. Options include a co-op mode, in which up to four players can take on the entire campaign or a horde mode, with players taking on relentless waves of the undead.
Plenty of gore and sniping of undead Nazi internal organs are the order of the day here. Though that’s fairly gross and strangely satisfying if you’re alone, having friends along to enjoy the campy, B-movie style fun is even better. Naturally, this title also appears on our Best Xbox One zombie games list too!
2. Back 4 Blood (2021)
A spiritual sequel to Xbox 360 classics Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2, the co-op based Back 4 Blood was hugely anticipated and long overdue.
Just like the Left 4 Dead games (also by Turtle Rock Studios), Back 4 Blood pits teams of up to four players against overwhelming waves of zombies.
Again, just like Left 4 Dead, there are special, terrifyingly powerful types of zombie that you’ll encounter too, which have unique special abilities.
Back 4 Blood isn’t just a Left 4 Dead greatest hits package though – it brings plenty of new ideas to the table. One of its biggest new features is the card-based perk system, allowing you to build a deck of power ups and special abilities.
In terms of multiplayer, Back 4 Blood is built around the co-operative campaign.
there’s also a ‘Swarm’ mode, which sees players teaming up as humans to defeat player-controlled zombies, before switching sides and playing as the zombies themselves!
1. Dead by Daylight (2016)
The top choice for our best Xbox multiplayer horror games list is Dead by Daylight, which started life as a pretty basic asymmetrical game along similar lines to Friday the 13th: The Game.
However, in the years since release, it’s been supported by an overwhelming amount of extra content, including an astonishing number of new killers to download – with so many of the very best villains in horror movie (and video game) history represented.
There’s even Silent Hill and Resident Evil packs alongside Leatherface, Freddie Krueger, Halloween, Saw and even original creations. Along with these, there are many other DLC packs to keep the game fresh and exciting – Dead by Daylight really does have an awful lot content to keep players engaged.
Somewhat oddly – given the existence of the aforementioned Evil Dead: The Game – there’s even an Ash vs Evil Dead DLC pack!
Despite the option to populate the game with such a wide variety of characters and backdrops, the action in Dead by Daylight is simple, straightforward and compelling: four players – as survivors – are looking to power up a number of generators and escape the clutches of a deadly killer.
The killer – this being an asymmetrical multiplayer game – is of course another player, with their task being to hunt down and kidnap the survivors.
Activating generators with less players available to do so becomes an incredibly difficult task with the killer out there and in pursuit; the agonising choice is whether or not to risk rescuing your team mates or continue trying to escape. It’s a superb, tense and very scary game of cat and mouse.
Without a doubt, Dead by Daylight is the best multiplayer horror game for Xbox One – and one of the best multiplayer games on Xbox overall.
