One of the cornerstones of video games is being handed a weapon and told to defend yourself against oncoming threats. Yet what happens when you’re provided with only a singular device to protect yourself that isn’t a typical weapon, and perhaps may not even have the capabilities to harm anyone?
Survival horror games that arm you with only a camera often throw you into a worldwhere you have become the prey instead. It’s a challenge most will shy away from, but combining the elements of fear and helplessness helps produce the most compelling stories. On the other hand, there are also cozier games where you’re armed with only a camera.
Updated on June 04, 2025, by Dennis Moiseyev:If you prefer to have only a camera as your main line of defense in a video game, be it horror or non-horror, then you’ve come to the right place. Video games where cameras are featured as the main mechanic always create fun, exciting, and innovative experiences. Below we’ve added some more titles that brilliantly incorporate cameras into their gameplay.
Besides Pokemon Snap, another Nintendo exclusive where snapping photos is part of the gameplay is Endless Ocean Luminous. Here, you’re a diverwith a giant underwater world to explore, either solo or with friends, and there are over 500 species of marine life that you can scan, learn about, and take some photos of to store in your library.
If you enjoy underwater photography, marine biology, and scenic environments under the sea, Endless Ocean Luminous gives you just that – an endless ocean to explore and photograph. The camera also comes with different filters, so you can create the memorable image you desire; plus, there’s a way for you to take some selfies.
The cleverly titled Content Warning is a camera horror gamethat you can enjoy with your friends. The game takes you to the mysterious and terrifying Old World, where you’ll have no other option but to keep recording everything you witness, with the hopes of going viral on the fictional spooky spoof of YouTube called SpöökTube.
Aside from the game’s unique premise and art style, the player avatars can also get very creative and unusual in thatthey can have customizable faceswhere you can switch out the colors and type out your face using letters and symbols. Imagine a group of 3D stick figures in dive suits emoting and using video cameras to record the horrors before them with text over their face, and you arrive at Content Warning.
The Casting of Frank Stone is a collaboration of Supermassive’s cinematic, choice-based horror game designand Behaviour Interactive’s Dead by Daylight lore. While it sticks to the same formula as previous Supermassive games, one major difference is that you do have a supernaturally powered Super 8 camera to defend yourself against the titular killer, Frank Stone.
The game centers around a horror film made by a group of teenagers in 1980 called Murder Mill, filmed inside the abandoned murder site of the Cedar Steel Mill where Frank Stone’s otherworldly presence still lingers. At a certain point, characters can have the camera as a weapon, which they must use to banish Stone’s spirit from a first-person POV, or risk their fates changing.
The concept of horror and Polaroid cameras has been done before, like in the 2019 movie Polaroid, but Madison puts a P.T.-style twist to it. The entire game is set in the confines of a home where the titular grotesque spirit named Madison is there with you. You’ll need to ward her off while solving a disturbing mystery regarding a ritual.
The instant camera becomes the key mechanic of the game, where taking pictures and having them printed can help with solving puzzles and revealing hidden secrets within the environment, not to mention the flash helping illuminate dark environments. It’s an incredibly creepy game full of unnerving jumpscares, even more so if you play Madison in VRand with the lights completely off.
One of the titles that restarted the camera-only genre, Outlast puts you in the shoes of investigative journalist Miles Upshur, who follows an information leak to thedilapidated psychiatric hospital of Mount Massive Asylum.
What he finds there are homicidal patients, a ghost-like entity set on murdering everyone, a dangerous priest, and more trouble than he’s asked for. Armed only with his camera to document the footage and find the truth, Miles’ only line of defense is running and hiding from enemies as he navigates the halls of Mount Massive.
The father of Japanese horror games, Fatal Frame is a survival horror game that follows a young girl called Miku Hinasaki who must enter the haunted Himuro Mansion to search for her older brother after his mysterious disappearance while searching for his mentor.
Inside, she discovers the Camera Obscura, a camera with the supernatural ability to defeat ghosts by snapping their pictures. Armed with both the camera and her uncanny ability to sense ghosts, Miku must uncover what happened to both her brother and his mentor’s entourage, while being stalked by an evil entity called the Malice.
6Pupperazzi
A camera game where you don’t face off against terrifying monsters and otherworldly entities, Pupperazzi is a first-person photography game where you are a humanoid camera who takes pictures of dogs and uploads them to the in-game social media known as dogNET.
As the camera, your goal is to progress your social media and become an influencer-like figure by taking pictures of different dogs and posting them on your social media. You even receive comments and likes, as well as being tasked with fulfilling requests in order to further your goal. Who said all camera-only games needed to be horrifying?
DreadOut is a third-person horror game where you play as Linda Meilinda, a student on a trip with her high school friends toan abandoned town in Indonesia. When they arrive, they discover that something is stalking them, and have to survive long enough to escape the clutches of the sinister forces working against them.
Linda uses her smartphone and a camera to fend off the various ghosts that torment her and her friends. Much like Fatal Frame, DreadOut relies on puzzles and taking pictures of the ghosts to fill up an entry that will allow Linda more information to battle her enemies with more ease.
Five Nights at Freddy’s is a titan in the horror game genre, and for good reason. The plot revolves around Mike Schmidt, a night security guard on his first shift at a family pizzeria called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria.
Yet nothing is as it seems, as it is soon discovered the animatronics come to life at night, with the only goal of murdering Mike. Armed with only a plethora of security cameras to check on the animatronics, Mike must ensure the animatronics do not find him, and keep away from his office at all times.
Based on the film of the same name, Blair Witch is a first-person survival horror game concerning Ellis Lynch, a former police officer, who joins a search party for a missing boy in the Black Hills forest, home of the eponymous Blair Witch.
Although there are other devices in Ellis’ arsenal, particularly a cell phone and a walkie-talkie, the camera is the only item that aids Ellis in overcoming puzzles and defending himself against the strange forces within the forest, with its capacity for time manipulation.
