The horror genre has been ridiculously impressive lately, and there are few hubs or platforms where players can find better horror games nowadays than Steam, which recently saw the launch of indie developer Happy Accident Studios’ Terminal Lucidity. It may only be January, but Terminal Lucidity could already be a contender for one of the best horror games this year, and the cherry on this dessert is that it’s free.
Terminal Lucidity’s Steam store page sells it as a puzzle-based game, and that might not be everyone’s cup of tea, especially with how unapologetically unforgiving and challenging it can be. That said, there is also a surprising amount of interesting lore baked into Terminal Lucidity, and the game can’t afford to be overlooked in 2026.
Terminal Lucidity has the same sort of surreal psychological horror flavor as Mouthwashing and is roughly the same length, give or take. Still, as a free horror game on Steam with an emphasis on cipher-decoding and puzzle-solving, Terminal Lucidity may have the edge for anyone who prefers this style of gameplay to a mild ‘walking simulator’ horror game with light, sparse puzzles.
Both games’ stories are fantastic, and yet it is Terminal...
