15 Thriller Webtoon Story Ideas: Suspenseful Stories for Vertical Scroll

Looking for thriller webtoon ideas? Here are 15 suspenseful concepts featuring psychological games, conspiracies, and high-stakes tension.

Thrillers create tension through stakes, pacing, and the fear of what comes next. The vertical scroll format enhances suspense naturally—readers control the reveal. These 15 ideas leverage that power.

Psychological Thrillers

1. The Test Subject

She signed up for a psychology study for quick cash. The study is supposed to take a week. It’s been three weeks, and the researchers won’t let her leave until the study “concludes naturally.”

2. The Perfect Family

A true crime writer moves next door to research a notorious unsolved case. Her new neighbors are helpful, welcoming, and eerily similar to the missing family from thirty years ago.

3. The Recommendation Algorithm

A streaming service’s algorithm knows her too well—recommending shows before she knows she wants them. Then it starts recommending videos that haven’t been released yet. Videos of her.

4. The Therapy Session

A therapist realizes one client is lying about everything—but the lies reveal knowledge of crimes that haven’t been reported yet. Breaking confidentiality could save lives. Or it could be a trap.

Conspiracy Thrillers

5. The Pattern Finder

A data analyst notices statistical anomalies in public records—death rates, weather patterns, economic indicators—all pointing to something impossible. Her queries trigger attention from people who want the pattern hidden.

6. The Replacement Program

After a car accident, she recovers perfectly—too perfectly. Memories don’t quite fit. Family photos look slightly wrong. She suspects she’s not who she thinks she is, and someone is watching to see if she notices.

7. The Underground Network

A journalist infiltrates a secret network helping people disappear. The deeper she goes, the more she questions: are they saving people from danger, or creating the danger people need saving from?

8. The Company Town

A tech company builds a utopian employee community. Everything is provided. Everything is monitored. An auditor sent to investigate employee disappearances finds people who can’t remember wanting to leave.

Survival Thrillers

9. The Last Stop

A bus breakdown strands passengers at a roadside diner. The locals are too friendly. The roads out are blocked. One by one, passengers start disappearing, and the remaining few must figure out who to trust.

10. The Contest

A reality show where contestants compete for life-changing money. The challenges are dangerous but legal. Then the eliminated contestants stop appearing in exit interviews—and no one outside seems to notice.

11. The Quarantine

An outbreak quarantines an apartment building. Supplies dwindle, tensions rise, and someone is moving through the building at night. The infection might be less dangerous than the neighbors.

12. The Hunt

Wealthy clients pay to hunt humans for sport. A former victim returns as staff—supposedly reformed, supposedly grateful. She’s been waiting years for the clients to become prey.

High-Stakes Thrillers

13. The Countdown

A bomb threat at a children’s hospital. The bomber demands a single secret from a specific doctor—a secret worth killing to protect. Negotiation becomes confession becomes revelation.

14. The Witness

The only witness to a powerful person’s crime. No evidence, just her word—and an approaching trial date. Every accident seems less accidental. Every stranger might be hostile. Survival means reaching the stand.

15. The Escape Room

An exclusive escape room for the wealthy promises authentic fear. When a corporate retreat goes wrong, the puzzles turn lethal. But one player seems unsurprised—and is playing a different game entirely.

Thrillers in Vertical Format

Thriller webtoons excel through:

Controlled reveals: Readers scroll into danger, building anticipation
Claustrophobic framing: Tight panels create visual tension
The scroll cliff: End panels on moments of maximum uncertainty
Environmental dread: Use negative space and shadows effectively

The best thrillers keep readers desperate to know what happens next while dreading the answer. Choose a premise that unsettles you.

Ready to build suspense? Multic offers collaborative tools for visual storytelling—perfect for pacing tension and dramatic reveals.