We are now well into October 2026, so it’s officially spooky season for most. And while many spend their evenings hanging Halloween decorations or carving pumpkins, some of us gamers like to spend our evenings playing horror titles. There’s nothing quite like spending a fall evening unlocking new fears you never knew you had and self inflicting some psychological trauma in the process. The horror genre in gaming is quite crowded, but Steam is offering a game you can try for free and keep forever. So all you have to lose is your time and perhaps your mind!
Made by a small Indie developer, better known for the award-winning Inscryption, this horror title is where it all started for Daniel Mullins Games. What starts as a cheerful side scroller soon descends into chaos with you battling the devil himself in Pony Island. Similar to games like Inscryption, Doki-Doki Literature Club and Buckshot Roulette, Pony Island appears to be one type of game on the surface but soon becomes something much darker and malevolent. An arcade platformer that turns into a battle with the devil himself. Sign me up!
Pony Island first hit our screens over 10 years ago. Not relying on jump scares, the game is a slow-burn psychological horror game. If you’ve ever played its successor Inscryption, you’ll know exactly the kind of dark undertones to expect. In fact, Pony Island at its heart is a horror puzzle game. The arcade game has been rigged by the devil, so you must solve puzzles and fix the underlying broken gaming code in order to succeed and ultimately save your soul.
Pony Island goes deeper than most horror titles though. Posing as a cursed game, it will break the fourth wall and leave you wondering if, in fact, your own computer has been infected. Without giving away any spoilers, there are moments during the gameplay where you’ll feel very unsettled throughout the roughly 4-hour experience. As the game so aptly puts it, you need to break the machine, before it breaks you!
Getting Pony Island for free on Steam feels like the perfect treat for Halloween. While most horror titles rely on cheap jump scares or gory on-screen violence, Pony Island strips all that away and makes the player feel unsettled and unsafe. It truly gets under your skin and now that it’s free on Steam, hopefully a new generation of players will get to experience it for the first time. It’s also a timely release, with a sequel set to launch in April 2027. Pony Island 2: Panda Circus looks set to unnerve us all over again next year.
There are quite a number of great games for free on Steam, but there are also a lot of not so great ones. Pony Island firmly sits in the former category and now that it’s free to play, there is no excuse for any lovers of creepy horror games to hit the download button. Games like Grand Theft Auto VI and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake can wait. I’ve got a side-scrolling pony and a battle with the devil to keep me busy this month! Pony Island is free to download on Steam today.
- Released
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January 4, 2016
- Engine
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unity