Dead by Daylight: Special Edition - Xbox One

It's always tempting for developers making horror games to go for that low-hanging fruit, the jump-scare. To the credit of everyone involved Dead by Daylight instead opts to scare you slowly, ratcheting up the tension until your palms are sweating and every on-screen movement leaves you in need of a toilet break. It's even more noteworthy that this has been achieved in an asymmetrical multiplayer action game.

You play as either one of four survivors or a crazed killer. Either way, you're trapped in a compound, and the only exit requires the powering up of multiple generators to activate the gates. As a survivor you desperately want to get those gates open and get out of there, as the killer you want to murder them all and sacrifice them to your gods. Surviving might seem straightforward enough, but those generators are noisy, and if you don't get the accompanying quicktime event just right you'll cause it to backfire and give the killer a visual cue to your location. And if he comes for you... well, he has that ominous slow walk that somehow makes him quicker than you, and your only chance will be to make dangerous moves like jumping through windows and throwing obstacles in his way to survive.

It all adds up to a gripping - and chilling - frightfest. more