2016 Horror Video Game Altered The Genre At Its Core-And It Still Holds Up

Video games get a reputation for not being as narratively rich as TV shows, books, or movies. Some critics will never understand the depth of certain games that have elevated the medium into something truly special. When a game is at its best, it feels like a movie, book, or series that you are controlling, immersed in, and affecting the results of the story on the screen.

Genre also helps make certain games more intense and inspired. The horror game genre evokes emotions and feelings inside of gamers that most others can't, and one of the best games ever in the genre is 10 years old this year.

Inside, released in 2016 for a variety of consoles, including PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, is a rare example of narrative and gameplay melding to create an experience that can't be had in any other form of entertainment.

Players control a mysterious boy who is running away from something, and everything at the same time. Smaller threats like vicious dogs pale in comparison to the existential giants of later in the game (a hive-mind controlled monster), but the environmental storytelling, the controls, and the color scheme used in the game make the micro-horror just as chilling as the macro.

Inside is a demonstration of every component of a video game working in unison to craft an immersion between the console and the gamer on the other side of it. The scariness of what's happening in Inside will affect you long after you're done with it, and it also influences the way you play the game while you're inside its world.

Sam Loveridge of Digital Spy talked about the artistic resonance of the game back when it came out in 2016.

It's rare that a game can be beautiful, gruesome, tense and exhilarating all at the same time, but Inside does just that. Its six years in the making really show. It might be just a sidescroller on paper, but it's so polished and well-put-together that its a showcase of Playdead's mastery. It's captivating and moving, gory and bleak but ultimately, Inside is a piece of art from the first stumbling steps to the closing credits.

Inside is yet another point in the win column for the independent games industry and the needed depth it's brought to so many different types of games throughout the last 15 or so years.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on May 5, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published May 5, 2026 at 11:30 AM.