I hate jumpscares, so I never got interested in horror games at all, but I guess that there are games that have no or little jumpscares and I can work with that. I am interested in something where you walk around in first person, like you do in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, something that has a more or less realistic looking world (neighborhoods, houses,etc.) and it would be great if there is something with large monsters, wolves and things like that.
There’s the new monster hunting game, but from the videos I’ve seen it seems like a upbeat and less scary version of Witcher 3, although I may be wrong.
I know you said no jump-scare games and I too am not a fan of those either.
So this recommendation is exactly what you don’t want BUT, I have to say, as a horror game Alien: Isolation is the best I have ever played (in terms of being scary).
You always know the monster is lurking in the area and you can usually hear it coming but the game can get really tense as you try to move about the space station trying to avoid an encounter. The scares and not exactly “jump-scares” in that they are not scripted, open the door and BOO but there are a lot of "oh shit!"moments to be had. Looks great too.
SOMA is one of my favorite games to come out in the last few years. It’s not reliant on jump scares, most of the horror elements are from atmosphere, and I think perfectly captures the feeling of steadily descending into the abyss, both literally and figuratively, and even explores the concept of consciousness much better than most film/movies.
It doesn’t meet your criteria of “realistic world”, though, as most of it takes place in an abandoned undersea base complex, long after an apocalyptic event on the surface.
Go to the “Steam” website and download L4D2 (Left for Dead 2). You play different campaigns on line with up to 3 other humans (team of four total). If you don’t have enough humans, the rest of the team is comprised of Bots. You basically start out from a “safe house” and go from one safe place to another but, of course, to do so you have to fight your way through a pretty hellish environment. It’s a lot of fun. When you reach the last “safe house”, you’ve completed that particular campaign.
A neat thing about L4D2 is that it is a living and dynamic game. In addition to the Original Campaigns, there are a plethora of campaigns written by very skilled members of the Steam community and are challenging, different and fun. I’d start with the original campaigns until you get experience and then move on to the custom made campaigns because, for example, “Military and Industrial Complex” and “Back to School” are brutal.
Have you tried Metro 2033 & Metro: Last Light? They’re basically more plot driven and linear versions of Stalker. Both are regularly very cheap.
There’s also Metro Exodus due out Q1 2019 which sounds like it’ll be more Stalker-ish open world (“Open zone” then you unlock the next region)
Prey (the recent version) takes place on a space station with 1960s office decor and has you largely alone, exploring as you fight/avoid monsters and try to unlock what happened. It has definite horror elements without being super “BOO!” in your face about it.
I love and hate that game. The hotel escape sequence was pretty intense and satisfying. Unfortunately, everything went downhill from there.
SOMA was pretty good. The game-y parts were a little weak, but the story was good and the ending was spot on.
If you’re okay with sci-fi settings, System Shock and it’s spiritual successors can be very good. My personal ranking is System Shock 2, Bioshock, Bioshock 2, Prey, Bioshock Infinite. If you accept STALKER as horror, I think they could be considered horror as well.
Thief 1 and 2 are similarly borderline horror. Some missions are more straight forward burglary, while others are zombie filled tombs where stepping on a metal grate will bring down the horde. Thief 3 is not as good as the earlier games in the series, but has one of the best horror levels ever in Robbing the Cradle.