The best cozy horror games | Cozy After Dark Show

If you like celebrating Halloween with a blanket, a hot chocolate and a game with a dark atmosphere (without going overboard), this list is for you. On 12 October the Cozy After Dark Showcase aired, a stream by Dames 4 Games, CONTINUE and Draknek & Friends dedicated to cozy horror games, the kind with quiet towns hiding secrets and strange creatures in the woods. It came with a Steam event full of demos and discounts, which I’m going to sum up for you below. I hope you find your perfect cozy and spooky game for these autumn nights.

In case you’re interested: HORROR MADE IN sPAIN, the Steam event with 15 Spanish horror games

The Road of Dust and Sorrow

• Title: The Road of Dust and Sorrow
• Developer: Painted Black Games
• Publisher: Silver Lining Interactive
• Genre: Pixel art survival horror
• Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch 1|2, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S
• Release date: 3 December 2026
• Demo: Available, with the full first act

We’re starting with the scariest one on the list. It’s a pixel art survival horror inspired by the Resident Evil and Silent Hill games of the nineties. A miracle crop meant to end famine turned people into creatures called Dusters. You play as Katherine, a mother crossing what’s left of the world with her daughter Ava. Its creators call it cozy horror because of the bond between mother and daughter, which makes total sense. The Steam demo includes the whole first act for free, so you’ll have plenty to play.

Mutter

• Title: Mutter
• Developer: DeadlyCrow Games
• Publisher: DeadlyCrow Games
• Genre: Narrative horror adventure
• Platforms: PC
• Release date: No date yet
• Demo: Available

England, 1940. Maddox is nine years old, his father is at the front and his mother is slowly turning into a monster. That’s how harsh the start of Mutter is, a horror adventure with a stop-motion look that is beautiful and sad at the same time. You solve puzzles, ride your bike through the countryside, tend the garden and craft what you need to get by while trying not to lose the mother you knew. It has no release date yet, but you can already play the demo.

Catechesis

• Title: Catechesis
• Developer: Baroque Decay
• Publisher: Baroque Decay
• Genre: Horror RPG
• Platforms: PC, Mac and Linux
• Release date: Q3 2027
• Demo: Available

This one has one of the wildest premises of the whole event. You are Daniel, an altar boy possessed by a demon. Every good deed you do opens a gateway to hell. During the day you go to school and to work trying to behave. At night you go down to the dungeon to fight demons. All to save your grandpa without dooming the whole world to eternal hellfire. It has anime-style cutscenes and a Steam demo out since June, although the full game won’t arrive until 2027.

Night Errand

• Title: Night Errand
• Developer: Lost Lantern Studio
• Publisher: Lost Lantern Studio
• Genre: Detective adventure
• Platforms: PC
• Release date: No date yet
• Demo: Available
• Languages: English (no Spanish yet)

If you like Coffee Talk and Night in the Woods, add this one to your list. The sun never shines in Morrow Pines. That’s where Sage and Nur work, a detective duo where one is human and the other is a monster. Sage has lost faith in everything while Nur still believes in people. You switch between the two to gather clues, question suspects and go over each case with a coffee in their café, because every cup brings you closer to the truth. It isn’t available in Spanish yet. The demo is a good way to see if it hooks you.

I recommend: Haunted Paws now has a demo on Steam, the spooky co-op where you are a puppy

The Whisker Watch

• Title: The Whisker Watch
• Developer: Catch the Void
• Publisher: Catch the Void
• Genre: Co-op action roguelite
• Platforms: PC
• Players: 2 in co-op, local or online
• Release date: No date yet

Here the main characters are cats. That’s all it took to win me over. Your human is asleep and the mansion fills up with monsters from the Void that only cats can see, so it’s up to you and another player to keep watch all night. It’s a two-player co-op action roguelite, on the same screen or online, where you fight with slaps, barfs and even tactical poops (that’s what its Steam page says, not me). During the day you upgrade and decorate the mansion room by room. They showed its playtest trailer during the stream and it still has no release date.

Waltz and Jam

• Title: Waltz and Jam
• Developer: Flyway Games
• Publisher: Flyway Games and KRAFTON
• Genre: Platformer and adventure
• Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch 2 and PlayStation 5
• Release date: 3 December 2026
• Demo: Available, with the first hour of the game

Waltz is a pure-hearted soul. Jam is a lovable dog who can shape-shift into whatever the moment needs. Together they travel through an afterlife split into seven worlds, one for each deadly sin, with the look of a hand-painted storybook and shadows that stretch a little too long. It’s an action-adventure platformer where you combine the toys Waltz finds with Jam’s transformations to solve puzzles and take down bosses. It comes out on 3 December and the demo with the first hour of the game is already on Steam.

Grave Seasons

• Title: Grave Seasons
• Developer: Perfect Garbage
• Publisher: Blumhouse Games
• Genre: Farming sim with a murder mystery
• Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S
• Release date: 9 March 2027

A farm, a mountain town and a supernatural serial killer. You play as an escaped convict who just wants to live in peace in Ashenridge, until the neighbours start turning up dead. You have one year to farm, forage and investigate how to keep the monsters away and save whoever you can, or let things take their course. Every death unlocks new stories. It’s published by Blumhouse Games and has been delayed to 9 March 2027, with Game Pass from day one.

Adopt Me Please

• Title: Adopt Me Please
• Developer: Joyever Studio
• Publisher: Joyever Studio
• Genre: Horror shelter sim
• Platforms: PC
• Release date: No date yet

From the outside it looks like a Tamagotchi-style pet game, but it’s survival horror. You finally land a job at an animal shelter, where you look after the strays, check their records and read the adoption requests. The catch is the Mimics, creatures that perfectly copy the look of the animals. If you let the wrong one in, at night it might come for everyone. It still has no release date, but you can sign up for its playtest on Discord.

Don’t miss: Top indie games of October 2026

SPRKLS.exe

• Title: SPRKLS.exe
• Developer: PesiiDom
• Publisher: PesiiDom
• Genre: Narrative psychological horror adventure
• Platforms: PC
• Release date: 2027

The weirdest one on the list (I say that with love). SPRKLS.exe is a psychological horror adventure that takes place entirely on your desktop, inside Mirrors OS, a haunted system full of ghosts, skeletons and other creatures of the night. That’s where Rin lives, a twenty-something dropout who takes refuge in this digital world, until a glitch starts corrupting everything and a girl from her dreams asks for help. It’s equal parts cute and melancholic, a story about friendship and the end of the world. It comes out in 2027. Its demo already has a Steam page, although you can’t download it yet.

Welcome to Elderfield

• Title: Welcome to Elderfield
• Developer: Chris Cote
• Publisher: Kwalee
• Genre: Cozy horror farming RPG
• Platforms: PC
• Release date: 10 September 2026
• Price: €17.99

And we finish with the only one you can already buy. It came out on 10 September and it’s a cozy horror farming RPG, hand-drawn in the style of horror manga with dark lofi music by Dated. You grow corn, pumpkins, teeth and eyeballs, raise otherworldly livestock, cut tentacles, fish, go mining and can even marry someone from town. Mind you, in Elderfield you can die in your sleep. On Steam, 96% of reviewers recommend it.

More cozy horror games for Halloween

The Cozy After Dark event on Steam ran from 12 to 19 October, so the discounts are over. The demos are still there. On the event page you can see the rest of the games from the stream, more than fifty of them. If you play any of them over the next few weeks, tell me in the comments which one you liked best.