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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be trapped in a submarine? NO? Well, thanks to these scary games, you won’t spend more than $20 to experience what it’s like to get lost in a potentially deadly metal coffin in the depths.
Staying 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 just getting lost in a derelict submarine as they also involve creatures unlike any you’ve seen before.
Table of Contents
10 subnautica
When talking about submarine video games, many would spontaneously say Subnautica. 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 wonder what kind of creatures really exist in the deep sea. Some of the creatures in the game actually exist in real life, but who knows if the others don’t exist? Maybe they’re just out there, waiting for some lucky sailors and willing divers to spot them.
9 TitanicVR
Similar to real life where the billionaire’s submarine explores the wreckage of Titanic, Titanic VR lets you try a virtual experience inside the submarine. It is a macabre and unsettling feeling to know that you are visiting a mass grave at the bottom of the sea, of people who have been sucked into a maelstrom without being given a chance to fight.
No monsters will pursue you and you will find no deep-sea creatures, which probably inspired most of Lovecraft’s literature. Instead, you’ll see the wreck of the once-great passenger ship and get a real-time flashback of how it sank.
8th sinking iron
Sinking Iron was launched in 2023, and while the timing of its release was divine, it’s still grossly underrated. Not only are you stuck in a submarine, but you’re also being attacked from the outside by a sea monster that you can only hope is a fiction.
What makes matters worse is that the submarine, and later the boat, break apart from the monster’s attacks. You probably won’t survive this ride, but your curiosity is an itch that needs to be satiated.
7 deep fear
Launched in Japan in 1998, this game is the oldest submarine horror game on the list – considering an underwater research base as a stationary submarine. We’ll never know how the base won’t collapse under the pressure of the water.
All you should know is that you will enjoy shooting down mutants created as a result of research. It’s totally impractical to have mutants around, let alone in an underwater base, but a survival game becomes more interesting under strange and unique circumstances.
6 first winter
The only thing scarier than being stuck in a poorly built submarine is being stuck in a nuclear submarine from a bygone era. The situation only gets worse when you realize you’re playing this game to understand what really happened to that old submarine.
First Winter has multiple endings and there are many terrifying things to see in this Soviet nuclear submarine. If you like retro style games and eat history and horror for breakfast, then this experience is your best choice.
5 barotrauma
In Barotrauma, there’s The Coffin, a submarine that looks eerily sinkable and appears to be designed horribly on purpose – if the name isn’t enough of an indicator that it’s actually a bad submarine. In fact, you will experience all sorts of dangerous horrors just by playing with this submarine.
But even without playing the submarine “The Coffin”, many horrific accidents occur in “Barotrauma” that seem too gruesome to imagine. You don’t have to be a submarine expert to know how scary it is to live with other people under pressure.
4 anesthesia
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What if a diver could travel the depths of a submarine without the submarine itself? Your experience with anesthesia is probably the answer, and it’s both a wondrous and terrifying experience. You’ll see horrors from the deep sea, but also creatures you wouldn’t expect to see at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
We’re not sure how a diver would survive this experience without exploding from the pressure, but there are more scary things to deal with. Overall, this game would make you want to stay away from the sea and submarines for fear of the creatures and secrets you might discover.
3 The ditch
The Pandora Sub is by no means a bad sub, but the simple fact is that a lot of things can go wrong when you dive deep into the sea. They went deep with this submarine to retrieve data from the Neptune wreck, another submarine that perished in the depths.
This game proves that curiosity can actually kill, and that some rubble isn’t worth going to for self-preservation. Will you survive the ocean and complete your mission, or will you fall prey to what lurks beneath? If you do things right, you might not end up like the Neptune’s passengers.
2 soma
Think Amnesia: Dark Descent, but set in the shadowy depths of the ocean. This 2015 game will delight horror fans and non-horror fans alike, even if it falls short of the psychological horror it’s designed to induce. Not for the faint of heart, Soma might make you recognize fears you didn’t know you had.
You survive 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 instill an existential dread in you that you didn’t want when all you wanted was some cheap scary movies.
1 Iron lung
Iron Lung is submarine horror at its finest, and for very valid reasons. If you’re already afraid of dark blue waters, what if you explored a blood-red sea in a claustrophobic submersible? Your fear has probably increased a hundredfold after realizing that you will not be exploring normal waters.
The game capitalizes on the human fear of the unknown, with an incomplete map, grainy graphics, and unknown monsters lurking in the bloody waters. It gets even worse when you realize you’re practically locked inside this submarine, but you just can’t resist the pull of a deadly adventure in the Red Sea.