The closest podcasts like The Magnus Archives are The Magnus Protocol, Rusty Quill’s official follow-on, and Archive 81, which also follows an archivist hired to catalog a collection of strange tapes. For anthology horror that slowly builds a mythology, Old Gods of Appalachia is the next stop, The Silt Verses is a serialized story crowded with gods, and The White Vault suits listeners who loved the found-records framing.
Release dates and status checked as of October 2026.
What makes The Magnus Archives distinctive
The Magnus Archives is a horror fiction anthology podcast from Rusty Quill, written by Jonathan Sims and directed by Alexander J Newall. Sims also plays the lead: the new head archivist of the Magnus Institute, an academic institution devoted to researching the mysterious and paranormal, who sets out to bring a neglected collection of supernatural statements up to date. The first episode, Angler Fish, was released on March 24, 2016, and the 200th and final episode, Last Words, arrived on March 25, 2021, closing out five seasons. The show won Best Audio at the British Fantasy Awards in 2021.
Early episodes work as self-contained stories: a statement from someone who met something they could not explain, read onto tape by the Archivist and followed by his notes. Rusty Quill says Newall encouraged an overarching narrative, and over time the statements interlock into a serialized mythology built around the Fears, which the studio describes as “worldly phobias and fears made manifest.”
The story continues in The Magnus Protocol, which premiered on January 18, 2024. Its second season began on February 27, 2025, and after a planned break it returned on July 16, 2026. As of October 2026 it is ongoing, with new episodes every two weeks. Rusty Quill has also announced a Magnus novel, From the Library of Jurgen Leitner, due on October 27, 2026. Readers who like to start a series in the right place can browse these fantasy series reading orders.
The 12 horror podcasts like The Magnus Archives below are grouped by what each does best, with the creator or network, the start year and, where it can be confirmed, the status of each.
The official follow-up
1. The Magnus Protocol
Rusty Quill. Started 2024. Ongoing as of October 2026. Created by Jonathan Sims and Alexander J Newall, with Newall directing, The Magnus Protocol follows Alice and Sam, a pair of low-level civil servants at the Office of Incident Assessment and Response who find the legacy of the defunct Magnus Institute. Rusty Quill bills it as the official follow-on to The Magnus Archives. Its guest writers include Harlan Guthrie and Muna Hussen, whose own shows appear below.
If you loved the statements and the archive
2. Archive 81
Dead Signals. 2016 to 2019. No new episodes since 2019. Created by Dan Powell and Marc Sollinger, Archive 81 follows an archivist named Dan, hired by the enigmatic Mr. Davenport to catalog a collection of tapes. It is the nearest thing to the Archivist’s desk on this list: one person, a stack of old recordings and a mystery that grows with every tape. Its three seasons and 35 episodes ran from April 2016 to June 2019, and Netflix adapted it as a TV series in January 2022. In 2024 its creators told listeners the show is not over, but no new episodes have followed as of October 2026.
3. The White Vault
Fool and Scholar Productions. Started 2017. Written and created by K.A. Statz and produced by Travis Vengroff, The White Vault is told through “the collected records of a repair team sent to Outpost Fristed” in the white wastes of Svalbard. Like the Magnus statements, the story reaches you as recovered records, and the Arctic isolation does a lot of the work. Five ten-episode seasons ran from 2017 to 2022, and a new chapter, Goshawk, began in October 2023, and its final season ran from October 2025 to March 2026.
4. The Black Tapes
Pacific Northwest Stories. Started 2015. Produced by Paul Bae and Terry Miles, The Black Tapes is a serialized docudrama in which host Alex Reagan meets Dr. Richard Strand, a professional debunker of the paranormal whose “black tapes” are the cases he has not been able to disprove. A skeptic guarding a shelf of unexplained cases will feel familiar. The caveat: the feed ends on an episode billed as a season three midseason finale, and no continuation has followed as of October 2026.
5. Within the Wires
Night Vale Presents. Started 2016. Written by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson, Within the Wires is “an immersive fiction podcast told through found audio from an alternate universe.” Every season tells a separate story in the same world, starting with a season of numbered cassettes, so the framing device does the storytelling much as the statements do. Ten seasons were released between June 2016 and December 2025.
If you want anthology horror
6. Old Gods of Appalachia
DeepNerd Media, distributed by Rusty Quill. Started 2019. Written and produced by Steve Shell and Cam Collins, with Shell narrating, Old Gods of Appalachia is a “horror-anthology podcast set in the shadows of an Alternate Appalachia.” Its tales move between places and eras, but the same hungry things sleep beneath every story. Like Magnus, the anthology adds up to a mythology. Season six ended on October 22, 2026.
7. The NoSleep Podcast
Creative Reason Media. Started 2011. Ongoing. The NoSleep Podcast grew out of Reddit’s r/nosleep community, with David Cummings as host and producer, and its first episode was released on June 13, 2011. It describes itself as an anthology series of original horror stories with atmospheric music, which makes it the closest match for the stand-alone statements without the long-running plot. Season 25 was airing as of October 2026.
If you want cosmic horror
8. Malevolent
Harlan Guthrie. Started 2020. Ongoing. Created, written, performed and scored by Harlan Guthrie, Malevolent follows Arkham private investigator Arthur Lester, who wakes blind, with no memory and only a nameless voice to guide him through the dark. The show leans heavily on Lovecraft’s Mythos, and Patreon supporters vote on choices that shape the story. The first series ran six seasons from July 2020 to January 2026, and Threshold, billed as a direct continuation, began on April 1, 2026.
9. The Silt Verses
Eskew Productions. 2021 to 2024. Finished. Directed by Muna Hussen and written by Jon Ware, The Silt Verses is a horror and fantasy serial about Carpenter and Faulkner, two worshippers of an outlawed river god who travel up its great black river in search of revelation, chased by a police manhunt and running into stranger gods along the way. Listeners who wanted more of the Entities’ theology will find a world crowded with gods. It ran for three seasons, from January 2021 to July 2024, and its makers have since launched a new series, Our Wars Have Ended.
10. The Lovecraft Investigations
BBC Radio 4. Started 2019. Created, written and directed by Julian Simpson, The Lovecraft Investigations follows podcasters Kennedy Fisher and Matthew Heawood as they investigate mysteries drawn from H.P. Lovecraft. Four seasons came out on the BBC between 2019 and 2023, each named for a Lovecraft story: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, The Whisperer in Darkness, The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Haunter of the Dark. Its documentary framing piles up evidence much as the statements do. Simpson has since announced a crowdfunded fifth season, The Call of Cthulhu, with a campaign that was set to open in May 2026.
If you want weird fiction with a dark sense of humor
11. Welcome to Night Vale
Night Vale Presents. Started 2012. Ongoing. Written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor and narrated by Cecil Baldwin, Welcome to Night Vale presents itself as “twice-monthly community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, where every conspiracy theory is true.” The tone is deadpan rather than dread-soaked, but a lone voice at a microphone slowly revealing how strange the world is will feel familiar. The pilot was released in June 2012, and episode 296 arrived in October 2026.
12. Alice Isn’t Dead
Night Vale Presents. Started 2016. Written by Joseph Fink and narrated by Jasika Nicole, Alice Isn’t Dead follows a truck driver crossing the country in search of her wife, whom she had believed was dead. On the road she runs into “not-quite-human serial murderers” and towns “literally lost in time.” It suits listeners who stayed with Magnus for the characters as much as the monsters. The original story ran in three parts from 2016 to 2018, and a new series, Don’t Tell Alice, began on April 13, 2026.
Best Magnus Archives episodes to start with
There is no official ranking, but listeners often point to a handful of statements. In 2018, fans on the show’s subreddit ran a bracket called the Magnus World Cup that pitted the first 100 episodes against each other. The final four were:
- MAG 81, A Guest for Mr. Spider, the winner, unbeaten in every round
- MAG 2, Do Not Open
- MAG 85, Upon the Stair
- MAG 34, Anatomy Class
For scares, the top reply in a 2023 thread on the same subreddit asking for the scariest episodes named MAG 15, Lost John’s Cave; the two-part MAG 19 and MAG 20; MAG 77, The Kind Mother; and MAG 81 again. MAG 86, Tucked In, also came up several times. These are fan picks, not critical consensus, and the larger story builds through the statements, so new listeners are safest starting at MAG 1, Angler Fish.
A note on content
Every show here is horror or weird fiction, and several get graphic. Most flag content in their episode notes: Magnus episodes carry content warnings, Protocol episodes list “incident elements,” and Malevolent’s feed advises listener discretion for bodily horror, violence and death.
Frequently asked questions
Is The Magnus Archives finished?
Yes. The Magnus Archives ran for 200 episodes across five seasons, from March 24, 2016, to March 25, 2021, when MAG 200, Last Words, was released. The universe continues in Rusty Quill’s ongoing follow-on, The Magnus Protocol.
Is The Magnus Protocol a sequel to The Magnus Archives?
Rusty Quill calls it the official follow-on and the next installment in the universe of The Magnus Archives. It has new leads, Alice and Sam, who work at the Office of Incident Assessment and Response. It has been running since January 18, 2024, with new episodes every two weeks as of October 2026.
What is the best Magnus Archives episode?
There is no official answer. In a 2018 fan vote covering the first 100 episodes, MAG 81, A Guest for Mr. Spider, beat Do Not Open in the final. In a 2023 subreddit thread on the scariest episodes, the top reply led with MAG 15, Lost John’s Cave.
What finished horror podcasts are like The Magnus Archives?
The Silt Verses is the closest finished match: it told its complete three-season story between 2021 and 2024, and its makers billed the third season as the final one. The original three parts of Alice Isn’t Dead ran from 2016 to 2018. Archive 81 has released no new episodes since 2019, though its creators said in 2024 that it is not over.
Which audio dramas like The Magnus Archives are still releasing episodes?
As of October 2026, The Magnus Protocol, Malevolent, The NoSleep Podcast and Welcome to Night Vale were still releasing new episodes. Old Gods of Appalachia had just wrapped its sixth season on October 22, 2026.
Lead photo: An Aria M 2408 SD reel-to-reel tape recorder. Photo: Jacek Halicki, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
