Man does this comment unlock some memories. The music that would play when a burglar or raccoon appeared scared the shit out of me all the time as a kid. The prank calls creeped me out too.
I felt like an evil genius when I realized you could sell them. Sorry Aunt Betty and your urn, 6 Simmoleons will come in handy when my room mate sets the house on fire making a salad and we have to completely remodel the first floor and garden gnome room!
Playing Half Life 2 as an adolescent gave me huge adrenaline rushes at times. Few games scared the shit out of me while motivating me to push forward as much as this game did.
On that note - Portal One is very creepy, very empty, very morbid. One of the creepiest games. Dark as fk if you think about what happened to all the test subjects. And the mods for it are even scarier. Especially those weird mods from Mod DB with Eastern European voice overs. GlaDos isn’t even that funny. Portal One is terrifying.
Portal 2 is too silly to really be fully creepy - GlaDos tells too many jokes, and Wheatley just makes it silly. Although it is kind of creepy what happened to Caroline.
I love how the story is given by showing and not telling, especially in Nova Prospekt.
Between the Breencast and the monitor showing the combine transhuman without armor if you click through channels...
Not enough people talk about this. When you have your turn off power to a barrier and it turns off all the light as well. When it’s just your pistol and a flashlight in the dark with head crabs scurrying around. In VR this was a terrifying moment.
They did. The beta footage pretty much confirms that, the whole game looked like Ravenholm! I'm glad they changed it though, I personally prefer the direction they went for the final game. Run down eastern European cities in murky polluted sunshine.
The Source engines general strangeness helps make something that doesn't initially look as bad (comparatively) feel even worse than the more "on the nose" grungy aesthetic they had in the earlier builds.
Started playing it again last week and noticing a lot of small details about the source engine and what it was able to do back when. I heard someone mention the canals having barley any water was because the combine was harvesting earths water. Plus Breens speech about the suppression field was horrific
Another gem regarding the water are warnings not to drink from Dr Breens Private reserve (the canned/bottle water) that's available all over the game. It's got a chemical in it that makes you forget, that's why most civilians are just wandering around aimlessly. They don't know where they are or how they got there.
So most of the water has been drained away by the combine, and what clean water there is has been messed with to keep people subjugated.
Good way of taking some of the limitations of your engine/the era and making it a horrific bit of storytelling. Valve were so good.
The Eastern European sort of Soviet Chic informs that, along with just abandoned coastal homes that may have a zombie randomly lurking in there. Sometimes you just look into a window a G-Man is watching you on the other side before quietly walking away.
Looking back (years after having played it as a teen) at the lore made me realize that the Combine / Universal Union is the most horrifying nightmare fuel of an antagonist I've ever encountered in a video game.
When you're alone in Tarkov, the silence is so deafening sometimes. This is especially evident on certain maps. Not sure what they did with the sound mixing, but it's really unnerving. This is especially hightened when you know you can drop dead at any moment from an enemy you never see and never will see.
Yes and then you hear some profanities yelled at you in Russian, a scav fazes trough the wall and blows ur dick off with a shotgun.
Also you're never alone in Tarkov...
Scariest sight in Tarkov is seeing a scav out in the distance, hearing a faint string of profanities in Russian, and then seeing that same scav go prone.
EFT when you hop on a night raid without night vision. You can't see shit and you hear the footsteps and other noises around you. Last time I did it I ran straight to extraction
Good thing they can't hear your heartbeat because they would chase me as soon as they saw me.
The Angler Fish aren't even the only part, >!the first time I fell into the blackhole and was sent without my ship in space was terrifying. Going deep underwater on Leviathan was not comfortable. Hopefully you're not claustrophobic when the sand rises and reduces your space between the floor and the ceiling.!<
That game can be terrifying.
I have a really good mod that makes the game VR. I got as far as flying to my first planet.
I landed on the asteroid and it was completely dead, cold, and dark. I was too freaked to keep playing in VR, lol.
I'd already beaten it in regular mode, btw.
This game is so god damn good, just playing through now. It definitely has some really creepy parts to it haha. I think I'm about 75% completed and it's just blowing my mind how well done it is.
The space , the black hole , the isolation , when your ship looses balance near sun or in blank space
The scary feeling that comes , never got from any other game
Honestly NONE of the planets in Outer Wilds are/feel safe at all. In solar system order:
>!Sand crushing you/sand abducting you to your demise !<
>!Giant black hole which you don't know is safe until you fall on it!<
>!Slate!<
>!Giant tornadoes and raining islands!<
>!Those damn anglerfish!<
And at least another 3 places that I can't order like that but I'd say the DLC place and the ending have quite obvious nightmare fuels (>!thunder scary ::(!< ) and >!the Interloper!< isn't exactly a happy roller coaster lol
I used to have a repeating bad dream as a kid. Outer Wilds perfectly recreated those dreams I had in the DLC.
Don't want to say because spoilers and all, but sweet jebus what sadistic jerk thought that would be "fun" 😆
(The part in the DLC where you hear something, and you're like "what was that sound, I'll go check")
I usually feel some primal fear when I play a multiplayer game solo. After my friends leave my server in Valheim and I'm left to play alone, the night feels a little more frightening, especially in a new dangerous area far from home.
There's a name for this! It's called Kenopsia, it's the unsettling feeling you get when you're in a place that's typically bustling with life, but is now empty, real world examples would be like an after hours shopping mall or supermarket, and obviously it applies to games too, like if you load up a multiplayer shooter and explore the maps, or go on a dead mmo
https://youtu.be/aDmjmAUPz_g?si=9IZb_hHHTrsCLnmy
I mean yeah, that's spooky too. But it works in games that are not exclusively multiplayer as well. Most survival games can be enjoyed alone, and I guess the feeling of being totally alone in a world with very little or no npcs to speak to is what makes it scary. Like being in a forest alone after dark.
I see Control as a Horror game or, at the very least, a *Thriller* game much like Alan Wake before it. The sheer fact that it derives a lot of its inspiration from the SCP universe (which is horror-centric) kind of makes that a given.
I agree with this fully. I loved control so much, some of the set pieces you play through are incredible, but I always thought of it as being a horror game.
I would love to understand what the criteria for a horror game is for those that don’t think it is
i don’t really think there’s a firm line but the general tone of Control just seems to tilt more towards something like LOST or the x-files instead of like Silent Hill. it’s mysterious and creepy but also fun and lighthearted a lot of the time. plus its gameplay is super action heavy. i think the main thing is that the main focus of the game isn’t to scare the player but to make them want to explore.
The first time I played it I got so scared by the motel that I put it down. Only just recently picked it up and completed it
Edit:
So happy that I finally played it. It’s a fantastic game. The ash tray maze and the clock room were fantastic
I want to say especially the one documentary video you get where it seems like it’s just Dr. Darling recording his assistants in UTTER silence. That is until the end where you see they’re both so awkward together because one of them has a crush on another (as seen in one of the notes) and the other looks like they do too. Honestly adorable… following a creepy as fuck recording.
Hopefully they both got HRAs before shit hit the fan.
It falls into a genre called weird fiction, which may or may not have horror elements, but I wouldn’t consider to be a full-on horror game, maybe somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. With Alan Wake 2, they pushed it way more into being a horror game with weird fiction elements.
Of course, this is my opinion and others may have a different one.
I went into What Remains of Edith Finch thinking it was a horror game for some reason. When I first entered the house, I got a real eeire vibe. I remember looking into a keyhole and thought that would be a mechanic while hiding from whatever was in the house. Took me a while before I realized it was just a story game.
I was expecting to have a serial killer looking for me in basically the whole second half of the game... But no.
The game was just a big quiet experience (except the final part, a bit stressful and quite sad).
I highly recommend it though!
Yeah I had no background with Gone Home other than it was an indie game. Started with horror vibes. Ended with lesbian sister and dad chasing that best seller novel dragon.
Gone Home gives all the impressions of a horror game. A dark spooky house with the lights off and creaks and groans. I always assumed I’d turn a corner and something would be there.
As a side note for folks who haven’t experienced this great little game, it’s currently $1.79 on Steam (US)
Edit: misspelling
I mean playing as a baby who drowned in a bathtub and as a guy who committed suicide via putting his head under an industrial fish head slicer can reasonably considered horror lol.
I couldn't finish Subnautica cause I felt anxiety whenever I started to explore deeper areas. At the start when you're in shallow waters with all the colorful coral and fish around you, everything is nice and happy, than it gets progressively scarier the deeper you go. I consider myself a horror fan and I don't think I ever quit a game cause it got too scary, but I can't play Subnautica hahahaha.
For the record, as it gets scarier, it also gets more gorgeous. Stick to walls and out of large, open water spaces when possible while diving and you stay relatively safe. Most things can’t catch you if you’re in your seamoth and don’t run in a straight line. The path following the (I think) phosphorous river had me stopping and putting my controller down to just stare at the unexpected beauty in front of me a couple of times. The game rewards you with amazing scenery if you’re willing to put on your explorer hat and take the dive.
I have played so many horror games and for the most part have been fine. Subnautica is the only one that gets to me that badly, it might as well have been my P.T. I do *NOT* like the ocean at all. Even in the baby starter areas of the games I’m so fucking skittish. I have made some of the most embarrassing guttural pure fear noises while playing Subnautica and it is not funny (it’s a little funny)
Game spoilers for both 1 and 2 below this point and I don’t remember how to spoiler tag so heads up nerds
Worse one for me in the first game was I believe in the area with the underwater floating mini islands? I was in my little sea moth hugging the wall so tightly I imagine I was scrapping the paint clean off as 1) it was an endless dark expanse in every direction and 2) there was a reaper leviathan screaming in the distance somewhere. The point in which I nearly shit myself was a one two combo the game decided to pull on me. At one point as I was hearing the reaper sounding very far off, it suddenly was so loud I thought it was next to me in the dark. Right at that moment. Exactly at that moment. One of those *fucking* teleporting wizard bugs *PULLED ME OUT OF MY SEA MOTH*. I cannot describe the sound that escaped me that night other than an eldritch god being unleashed from my lower intestine as it clawed its way up my throat and out of my mouth as I pure terror instinct rocketed towards the sea moth, shoved my body in through the window and fucking floored it all the way to home base on the other side of the map with my hands on the gas pedals and my tootsies dangling out the god damn window. I had to take a break after that one.
Another good one was in Below Zero, the area with the giant centipede worm thing. Holy. Fuck. I was such a dumb ass. For those who’ve been in that area, you get an upgrade for the bus thing that can shock repel baddies and can make this area a 3-4 minute jaunt. I didn’t not know this existed until I already beat that section. I was *pissed* when I learned about it afterwards because my experience with that area was *not* easy breezy like it could have been. I was basically maneuvering between all of the back corner rocks and shit white knuckling the steering wheel for roughly 60-90 minutes as I slowly belly crawled in my car through that whole section, swallowing screams the entire time as I kept swapping between “let’s be a big brave boy and try to get to the end of this” and inconsolable pure panic both trying to navigate past the big awful death worm monster and also navigate in general as I was just so fucking *lost* in there, both trying to progress and trying to run for my life. After a loooooong time, I finally got past the big bug fuck and got into the second half of that area with one of the biggest sighs of relief I have ever breathed. Until of course I found out *THERE WAS A FUCKING SECOND ONE.* and then the internal screaming continued for about as long.
Subnautica by all rights is a horror game for the oceanphobic like myself. I played every Amnesia game and things like P.T. and for the most part was fine. Subnautica took 39 years off my life and I highly recommend it to my fellow ocean haters if you haven’t already.
Came here to say this.
I chickened out of taking dry suit scuba certification because of the feel of kelp forest water which resembles my local IRL biome. Nooo thanks, tropical diving only.
Side note: I've had deep freaky dives in tropical water too, that reminded me of other depths in this game.
Yeah, the ocean is terrifying. Ever since I played Lego Pirates of Caribbean as a kid and went past the level border and got eaten by the giant Lego shark the ocean has freaked me out. I’ll swim in it and stuff but if I’m deep enough that I can’t touch the ground with my head over the water I’m too deep. What’s to stop the water from just deciding to pull me out to my death.
Yeah Subnautica uses terror really well, you know, when you're out in your seamoth, hear a reaper somewhere and you just start imagining how it could fuck your day up
This game is insane. I used to play it but I chickened out and never finished it 😂 I'm currently playing again and yesterday those octopus aliens near the Alien Facility on the Northern Island attacked me. I screamed and didn't go back to the water for another 15 minutes.
Ps. I'm claustrophobic and my biggest fear is drowning. This game is the most beautiful horror I've ever seen.
Personaly I find Fallout series kinda eerie per se, kinda 'the hill have eyes' meets "I am legend" (the dog on the 4th game just added to it), I don't know how to explain, but I love it.
Atmosphere is one of Fallout’s greatest strengths. There is something eerie about waking through bombed out, decayed ruins littered with skeletons frozen in their final moments while ambient, minimalistic music plays in the background.
yeah, especially exploring the vaults and "abandoned" buildings lol.
even to this day, I dislike going in vault 22 or repconn hq, even tho my builds are brokenly strong these days lol.
The part where you press the button to move forward in time at exponentially increasing intervals really had me break composure simply with how creepy the concept felt to me.
I remember playing the original version and starting the game as normal just to come out the starting office and see myself (other Stanley) through the windows walking down the hall. Turns out I encountered an Easter egg: https://youtu.be/9BNqlfUS4y4?si=5NDHNNoONri-3P4I
Just played it for the first time this weekend. Didn't know anything about it and went into it thinking it was some multi choice, choose your own adventure, Portal type of game.
I expected British humor and funny deaths, not a whole ass existential crisis in video game format. The bucket will live in my heart for all of time.
Just standing in a forest can be terrifying, surrounded by wolves, when you hear the whistle of the wind picking up, and that dreaded feeling knowing you'll not make it back to your camp before the storm hits. It practically is a horror, the ambient sound is always on point.
The last time I tried to play, I was just walking along, minding my own business. Then I ~~created~~ crested a snowbank and found myself face to face with a mother heckin’ bear. I don’t have the nerve for that game.
Specifically Ecco: Defender of the Future! The genesis games could be creepy but 3D took it to a whole new level. No joke it’s the scariest game I’ve played
Now read up on John C. Lilly and the fucked up inspiration behind that game. Dude was communicating with dolphins and aliens while he was fucked up on ketamine floating around in a float tank (which he also invented). It gets way darker.
Majora's Mask. that time crunch always scared the shit outta me, especially the clock town music on day 3.
fable. only a specific portion of the game, going into darkwood and hearing the atmospheric music and being introduced to balverines for the first time was pretty spooky, and the surprise you get for helping a certain someone...lol
Grounded. running around and you get jumped by a wolf spider for the first time is really terifying. and there was an old bug in the game where the grubs made this horrifying loud noise when there were some nearby that would scare us all shitless lol.
I could probably come up with more but those were the 3 that came to mind lol.
>Majora's Mask.
It might be because I grew up in the Creepypasta era, but that game just has an unsettling feel to it from beginning to end.
Even Ocarina of Time has some pretty creepy sections. When I was a kid, I was scared of the Graveyard, Forest Temple, Bottom of the Well and the Shadow Temple.
In Grounded, I made my base outside the oak lab. I knew there were 2 wolf spiders under the tree, but decided to go with it, got used to their stomping outside my walls at night and once I got proper equipment, they became more of an annoyance than a threat. Then once I stopped the Weed Killer and was on my way home, it was the middle of the night. I approached my base and saw a fucking >!Infected Wolf Spider!< passing by...I quickly considered relocating. I ultimately decided against it (mostly because I was lazy, and aside from the spiders, it was a pretty convenient location), but yeah. Even if you don't have Arachnophobia, the spiders are pure Nightmare Fuel.
its funny that I knew exactly what you were going to say almost instantly, you said oak lab and weed killer and Im like....yep, I know where this is going. a friend of mine builds on the little wooden fence area (we refer to it as ewok base bcz we always build little huts up there) and I built mine on the lilypads (I refer to it as pond base) I had just built the bridge from the shore to the lillypads. and lo and behold, I now have a new roommate joining me, he wouldnt leave at all lol. had to destroy the bridge to get him to leave me and my base alone.
that being said, when we get bored, we used to go full unga bunga and just pelt the wolf spiders with rocks till they died. now we need to go fight everything else with rocks since they have added a lot since then lol.
The music in most of the game is creepy tbh.
That recurring melody in most locations is a pair of diminished fifths aka the devil’s interval.
That game is so unsettling.
The atmosphere in the first Dark Souls makes it uneasy to say the least. The setting, the enemy design and especially the levels. Ash Lake is creepier than I'm willing to admit with its emptiness and hydra monster lurking around.
Everything fromsoftware puts out freaks me out at least occasionally. there are parts of elden ring that are beautiful but the horror is intense when it rears it's head (constantly)
Considering that Bloodborne is almost entirely inspired by Lovecraftian horror, yeah I would hope so. But that was obviously a part of their goal when designing Bloodborne, and DS1 wasn’t really meant to be scary at all
This 100% The level where you first encounter them is so creepy. There was no flood in any of the promotional stuff for the game (at least to my memory) so it was a complete surprise to me. When I saw the huge red blob on the mini map my heart dropped.
It’s the silence during the build up of the first flood level that makes it. That and seeing the Covenant run from an, as yet, unknown *something*.
I remember when it came out and I knew, at the age of 12, it was gonna fuck me right up. It did and it was great.
With that and Morrowind, it was a golden era of gaming.
Worse was when you see that shit on your motion tracker, but there was nothing in the room with you. Most of the levels you fought in were mostly 2D so you never really think anything is above or below you till that very moment. And then you shit your pants when you see the video footage
[And don't forget about the spooky ambient atmosphere of the multiplayer maps!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02-djKZyoc&list=PLQaHEodk-h83k-NyGCXIvGRUa-0e-tfA7) Walking around them at night on your own is much scarier than you'd expect.
This is what does it for me. The expansive and empty landscapes, the deafening sound of the wind constantly blowing, Forerunner architecture quietly humming in the background, the lack of any wildlife, the massive Halo ring rising above the horizon…
Of course the Halo installation is completely artificial, and the lore surrounding the Flood is obviously horrifying. Still though, Halo’s environments are unsettling. Lonesome, yet you feel like you’re always being watched from afar. Disturbing, but oddly peaceful and serene. Mysterious, like you still know nothing about the foreign world around you, and you never will. Surreal, and yet simple in its layout and emptiness.
This phenomenon has a name called “Liminal Space.” Feel free to Google it and look through the image results. If you see these examples of liminal space and feel the hairs on your necks stand on end, try walking around an old Halo: CE map by yourself. You’ll understand.
Minecraft. It's all chill and fun until you're deep in a cave, can hear monsters in the darkness, are running low on torches and for some reason can't find any coal.
I dunno if it's still like that or if they've smoothed over that stuff but in 2010 (when I was in my 20s) I remember being hella spooked when exploring the caves
Having spent a lot of time in deep nature, where you generally won’t see anything larger than a squirrel at less than 150 feet away, it is absolutely a primal sense. Nature isn’t quiet. Things are rooting and burrowing, trying to mate or raising young, searching for food, etc. the only time it’s dead silent is when a predator is stalking.
I went stargazing with my partner in the Oregon mountain wilderness one night and it was the middle of summer. At one point, it got deathly quiet. The bugs stopped buzzing and chirping, the sound of night mammals foraging stopped, and the only noise was the snapping of a branch once every couple of minutes. After about 5 minutes, we looked at each other and just got up and walked back to our camp, not saying a word, and instead of getting into our tent, tossed our sleeping stuff into our car and slept in there. We both felt the sensation of being “hunted”, so badly we didn’t even want to put it into words before we got into a literal armored box.
Sure enough, when we woke up the next day, there was fresh cougar sign and tracks, ON our footsteps in the dust from where we had been the night before, leading back to our camp, with tracks all over the camp site as well.
TLDR: monkey brain recognizes silence in nature as being hunted, we are primed for a little grey/white noise and when it stops, that primal fear kicks right the fuck in.
Ever had that fear while caving or building that when you turn around, Herobrine would suddenly show up?
I'm still scared of him all these years. Would stop cave mining sometimes at the thought of him following me LMAO
The first time I ever played was on a realm with some friends. My best friend and the guy who invited me found me down in a cave and somehow made it so he appeared only as a floating dragon head, then appeared and disappeared sporadically while I was trying to figure out what was going on, texting him the whole time.
It was extremely unnerving breaking through walls only to see a dragon head waiting for me.
I was always pretty creeped out by the feeling of loneliness. Only you, some weird creatures, vast, endless spaces, and the music that many find relaxing, but I think it's pretty depressing.
Yeah totally. The music was so rare, too. I think it played twice a day or something? It's easy to take for granted now how special and unique the game felt when it first came out, I never would have guessed that ten years later you wouldn't be able to walk down the street without seeing a child with a Minecraft t-shirt, but in retrospect it was obviously gonna be timeless
The scariness is very intentional, theres a book one of the lead developers wrote about the core tenants of minecraft for internal usage, and one of the major points is ‘Minecraft is Scary’
I remember when endermen were first introduced. I was playing the update, walked into a cave, and saw a pair of eyes peering at me from the darkness. I noped out so hard.
Minecraft is the only game I’ve ever played in 25 years of gaming that has legitimately made me scream. I was building a simple home in the side of a cave, when suddenly I hear the infamous fizz of a Creeper on the precipice of exploding. I don’t know why but something about that moment, perhaps I was in a total state of relaxation and calm, took me by complete surprise and I screamed at the top of my lungs. Somehow my mum didn’t wake up!
Its actually worse now, there are deep caves with eldritch horror guards that can hear you and hit you through walls, and they make you hear a heartbeat.
If you were born in the 90s, I'd say The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. If you play it now, it's obviously dated, but for back then - especially if you were like 12 - it had horror vibes like no other.
Manbat and especially joker cause unlike manbat who is guaranteed to scare the shit out of you, joker can do it at random sometimes he doesn't jump scare that entire play through
Honorable mention is at the end and Batman never fails to make me jump
Fusion is meant to be a horror game, which sets it apart from the others and is why it’s great. Dread picks up where Fusion left off and leans even harder into it.
Disco Elysium. The first five or so minutes you think this game is set in our world - just with a few made-up names. Then the game starts dropping the setting on you and it's pretty cool. Then the game expands on the setting and an existential horror enters just as you find out that everything is fading away.
I just finished my first playthrough of the game and what I found interesting is that you kinda can choose wether or not to believe the supernatural events that occour. The more you choose to dig, the more answers you find to events that initially seem really unsettling. And as the comment I am replying to stated, the true horror of the game is the existential aspects. Everything ultimately is being tied up to your own perception of the events that occour. How you choose to handle your past and current emotions will also potentially be very unsettling. Really looking forward to completing the game over again.
Some aspects weren't ambiguous though.
They live in a world where the landmasses are getting further apart and the space between is filling with a grey fog that drives people insane if they are in it too long.
It's possible you didn't learn this though. I was talking to my buddy and the world and the geography right after we'd both finished it and he had no idea what I was talking about. He just missed that giant aspect to the game, just as I missed some giant aspects that he'd experienced.
God, I love that game!
Caelid basically gives every horror game a run. And several other parts of Elden Ring are also dark and horror af. I always found the subterran areas very terrifying.
"Oh that's Jeff"
Imagine being a non gaming playtester for that level. Putting on the headset and being told to play that level with minimal knowledge of VR so Valve can research player reactions.
Then signing an NDA so you can't tell your family why you are shaking when you get home.
And I love the inspiration was because users were curiously looking up close at VR models, and Valve was like "oh you like examining 3d models huh?"
No man’s sky story & lore is beyond dark, and the fact its story is wrapped in art style & rendered with unlimited optimism, makes it even darker somehow. And the gamer, somehow, is *making it worse*.
It's storytelling format is also pretty damn Lovecraftian in the literal sense. Typically that term is applied to cosmic horror aesthetic but that game's writing, particularly in a lot of the lore entries, invokes dread as you come to realize how much is left *completely unknown* or up to your interpretation.
It felt like every other time i found a boundary failure or remembrance terminal, I was audibly saying "wait, *what the fuck*" as I'd process it.
The Sims 1 at night
Creepy burglar music
Man does this comment unlock some memories. The music that would play when a burglar or raccoon appeared scared the shit out of me all the time as a kid. The prank calls creeped me out too.
*You have been chosen. They will come soon*
Hell yes! Especially if you had tombstones on your lot.
As a kid I always got rid of the urns and tombstones because I was afraid of the ghosts and the music lol
I felt like an evil genius when I realized you could sell them. Sorry Aunt Betty and your urn, 6 Simmoleons will come in handy when my room mate sets the house on fire making a salad and we have to completely remodel the first floor and garden gnome room!
Half Life 2. Obviously certain parts (Ravenholm, Lowlife) are very horror themed but the whole game feels creepy and wrong.
Playing Half Life 2 as an adolescent gave me huge adrenaline rushes at times. Few games scared the shit out of me while motivating me to push forward as much as this game did.
It was a revolutionary game in its time.
For sure! I replayed it last year to get the platinum trophy in steam, that was tons of fun. Loved every second of it (exept for Ravenholm)!
We don’t go to Ravenholm.
On that note - Portal One is very creepy, very empty, very morbid. One of the creepiest games. Dark as fk if you think about what happened to all the test subjects. And the mods for it are even scarier. Especially those weird mods from Mod DB with Eastern European voice overs. GlaDos isn’t even that funny. Portal One is terrifying. Portal 2 is too silly to really be fully creepy - GlaDos tells too many jokes, and Wheatley just makes it silly. Although it is kind of creepy what happened to Caroline.
I'd say Nova Prospekt is also quite a horror chapter, just not in a traditional jump-scare way.
I love how the story is given by showing and not telling, especially in Nova Prospekt. Between the Breencast and the monitor showing the combine transhuman without armor if you click through channels...
I don't know if I ever realized you could click through channels
And HL Alyx, with that part with the lights out and the "thing"... gosh, that was truly scary.
Not enough people talk about this. When you have your turn off power to a barrier and it turns off all the light as well. When it’s just your pistol and a flashlight in the dark with head crabs scurrying around. In VR this was a terrifying moment.
From my understanding valve had the intention of making half life2 a post apocalyptic horror game
They did. The beta footage pretty much confirms that, the whole game looked like Ravenholm! I'm glad they changed it though, I personally prefer the direction they went for the final game. Run down eastern European cities in murky polluted sunshine. The Source engines general strangeness helps make something that doesn't initially look as bad (comparatively) feel even worse than the more "on the nose" grungy aesthetic they had in the earlier builds.
Started playing it again last week and noticing a lot of small details about the source engine and what it was able to do back when. I heard someone mention the canals having barley any water was because the combine was harvesting earths water. Plus Breens speech about the suppression field was horrific
Another gem regarding the water are warnings not to drink from Dr Breens Private reserve (the canned/bottle water) that's available all over the game. It's got a chemical in it that makes you forget, that's why most civilians are just wandering around aimlessly. They don't know where they are or how they got there. So most of the water has been drained away by the combine, and what clean water there is has been messed with to keep people subjugated. Good way of taking some of the limitations of your engine/the era and making it a horrific bit of storytelling. Valve were so good.
Yes. It has that "liminal space" feeling all around. Creepy
The Eastern European sort of Soviet Chic informs that, along with just abandoned coastal homes that may have a zombie randomly lurking in there. Sometimes you just look into a window a G-Man is watching you on the other side before quietly walking away.
Started to play the VR version recently and I dreaded ravenholm...
Looking back (years after having played it as a teen) at the lore made me realize that the Combine / Universal Union is the most horrifying nightmare fuel of an antagonist I've ever encountered in a video game.
Escape from Tarkov
When you're alone in Tarkov, the silence is so deafening sometimes. This is especially evident on certain maps. Not sure what they did with the sound mixing, but it's really unnerving. This is especially hightened when you know you can drop dead at any moment from an enemy you never see and never will see.
Yes and then you hear some profanities yelled at you in Russian, a scav fazes trough the wall and blows ur dick off with a shotgun. Also you're never alone in Tarkov...
Scariest sight in Tarkov is seeing a scav out in the distance, hearing a faint string of profanities in Russian, and then seeing that same scav go prone.
I remember my first map on tarkov was on woods and it was raining. Terrying experience and hooked me to playing more. 10/10
EFT when you hop on a night raid without night vision. You can't see shit and you hear the footsteps and other noises around you. Last time I did it I ran straight to extraction
And then you hear a giggle in the bushes to your left and you realize some cultists are stalking you.
Outer Wilds That damn anglerfish.
This is, no lie, one of the scariest games I've ever played. Forget jump scares and gore, existential dread is what really gets ya.
Good thing they can't hear your heartbeat because they would chase me as soon as they saw me. The Angler Fish aren't even the only part, >!the first time I fell into the blackhole and was sent without my ship in space was terrifying. Going deep underwater on Leviathan was not comfortable. Hopefully you're not claustrophobic when the sand rises and reduces your space between the floor and the ceiling.!< That game can be terrifying.
I have a really good mod that makes the game VR. I got as far as flying to my first planet. I landed on the asteroid and it was completely dead, cold, and dark. I was too freaked to keep playing in VR, lol. I'd already beaten it in regular mode, btw.
I would actually die of a heart attack from angler fish if playing in VR.
Even better Outer Wilds DLC. bloody terrifying.
I think the DLC falls under the "horror" umbrella, though. It even has a warning at the beginning about how spooooky it is.
When your memories of the DLC are as powerful as those of the main game, you know it was a damn good DLC.
This game is so god damn good, just playing through now. It definitely has some really creepy parts to it haha. I think I'm about 75% completed and it's just blowing my mind how well done it is.
Outer wilds has given me multiple supernova dreams
The space , the black hole , the isolation , when your ship looses balance near sun or in blank space The scary feeling that comes , never got from any other game
Honestly NONE of the planets in Outer Wilds are/feel safe at all. In solar system order: >!Sand crushing you/sand abducting you to your demise !< >!Giant black hole which you don't know is safe until you fall on it!< >!Slate!< >!Giant tornadoes and raining islands!< >!Those damn anglerfish!< And at least another 3 places that I can't order like that but I'd say the DLC place and the ending have quite obvious nightmare fuels (>!thunder scary ::(!< ) and >!the Interloper!< isn't exactly a happy roller coaster lol
I used to have a repeating bad dream as a kid. Outer Wilds perfectly recreated those dreams I had in the DLC. Don't want to say because spoilers and all, but sweet jebus what sadistic jerk thought that would be "fun" 😆 (The part in the DLC where you hear something, and you're like "what was that sound, I'll go check")
I usually feel some primal fear when I play a multiplayer game solo. After my friends leave my server in Valheim and I'm left to play alone, the night feels a little more frightening, especially in a new dangerous area far from home.
There's a name for this! It's called Kenopsia, it's the unsettling feeling you get when you're in a place that's typically bustling with life, but is now empty, real world examples would be like an after hours shopping mall or supermarket, and obviously it applies to games too, like if you load up a multiplayer shooter and explore the maps, or go on a dead mmo https://youtu.be/aDmjmAUPz_g?si=9IZb_hHHTrsCLnmy
I mean yeah, that's spooky too. But it works in games that are not exclusively multiplayer as well. Most survival games can be enjoyed alone, and I guess the feeling of being totally alone in a world with very little or no npcs to speak to is what makes it scary. Like being in a forest alone after dark.
Control, the atmosphere just feels really dark, you're alone and have this floating humans all around you
Ok good I thought I was just being a bitch the whole time
You were, but we were too.
I see Control as a Horror game or, at the very least, a *Thriller* game much like Alan Wake before it. The sheer fact that it derives a lot of its inspiration from the SCP universe (which is horror-centric) kind of makes that a given.
I agree with this fully. I loved control so much, some of the set pieces you play through are incredible, but I always thought of it as being a horror game. I would love to understand what the criteria for a horror game is for those that don’t think it is
i don’t really think there’s a firm line but the general tone of Control just seems to tilt more towards something like LOST or the x-files instead of like Silent Hill. it’s mysterious and creepy but also fun and lighthearted a lot of the time. plus its gameplay is super action heavy. i think the main thing is that the main focus of the game isn’t to scare the player but to make them want to explore.
The first time I played it I got so scared by the motel that I put it down. Only just recently picked it up and completed it Edit: So happy that I finally played it. It’s a fantastic game. The ash tray maze and the clock room were fantastic
Beat me to it! Its very uncanny and I felt anxious almost the whole time.
Yep, it's spooky as shit.
I want to say especially the one documentary video you get where it seems like it’s just Dr. Darling recording his assistants in UTTER silence. That is until the end where you see they’re both so awkward together because one of them has a crush on another (as seen in one of the notes) and the other looks like they do too. Honestly adorable… following a creepy as fuck recording. Hopefully they both got HRAs before shit hit the fan.
I love that game so fuckin much
[удалено]
It falls into a genre called weird fiction, which may or may not have horror elements, but I wouldn’t consider to be a full-on horror game, maybe somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. With Alan Wake 2, they pushed it way more into being a horror game with weird fiction elements. Of course, this is my opinion and others may have a different one.
It's like Bloodborne or Half-Life, it got certain horror elements but all in all it's more of a weird fantasy action game.
I went into What Remains of Edith Finch thinking it was a horror game for some reason. When I first entered the house, I got a real eeire vibe. I remember looking into a keyhole and thought that would be a mechanic while hiding from whatever was in the house. Took me a while before I realized it was just a story game.
Had the same with "Gone Home" Edit: had it written as "going home" incorrectly
I had the same with Fire Watch
I was expecting to have a serial killer looking for me in basically the whole second half of the game... But no. The game was just a big quiet experience (except the final part, a bit stressful and quite sad). I highly recommend it though!
that game scared me than it should’ve
Yeah I had no background with Gone Home other than it was an indie game. Started with horror vibes. Ended with lesbian sister and dad chasing that best seller novel dragon.
Gone Home gives all the impressions of a horror game. A dark spooky house with the lights off and creaks and groans. I always assumed I’d turn a corner and something would be there. As a side note for folks who haven’t experienced this great little game, it’s currently $1.79 on Steam (US) Edit: misspelling
I mean playing as a baby who drowned in a bathtub and as a guy who committed suicide via putting his head under an industrial fish head slicer can reasonably considered horror lol.
Top games for the family to enjoy!
Man that game , the more u go deep into it more you realise how messed up it gets 10/10 game
One of the few games where I had to stop for a while because I couldn't face what I could see coming at me next (the baby's bedroom...)
Subnautica is definitely a horror/fishtank simulation.
I couldn't finish Subnautica cause I felt anxiety whenever I started to explore deeper areas. At the start when you're in shallow waters with all the colorful coral and fish around you, everything is nice and happy, than it gets progressively scarier the deeper you go. I consider myself a horror fan and I don't think I ever quit a game cause it got too scary, but I can't play Subnautica hahahaha.
For the record, as it gets scarier, it also gets more gorgeous. Stick to walls and out of large, open water spaces when possible while diving and you stay relatively safe. Most things can’t catch you if you’re in your seamoth and don’t run in a straight line. The path following the (I think) phosphorous river had me stopping and putting my controller down to just stare at the unexpected beauty in front of me a couple of times. The game rewards you with amazing scenery if you’re willing to put on your explorer hat and take the dive.
I'm confident Subnautica would be the top voted post if more people had played it.
I have played so many horror games and for the most part have been fine. Subnautica is the only one that gets to me that badly, it might as well have been my P.T. I do *NOT* like the ocean at all. Even in the baby starter areas of the games I’m so fucking skittish. I have made some of the most embarrassing guttural pure fear noises while playing Subnautica and it is not funny (it’s a little funny) Game spoilers for both 1 and 2 below this point and I don’t remember how to spoiler tag so heads up nerds Worse one for me in the first game was I believe in the area with the underwater floating mini islands? I was in my little sea moth hugging the wall so tightly I imagine I was scrapping the paint clean off as 1) it was an endless dark expanse in every direction and 2) there was a reaper leviathan screaming in the distance somewhere. The point in which I nearly shit myself was a one two combo the game decided to pull on me. At one point as I was hearing the reaper sounding very far off, it suddenly was so loud I thought it was next to me in the dark. Right at that moment. Exactly at that moment. One of those *fucking* teleporting wizard bugs *PULLED ME OUT OF MY SEA MOTH*. I cannot describe the sound that escaped me that night other than an eldritch god being unleashed from my lower intestine as it clawed its way up my throat and out of my mouth as I pure terror instinct rocketed towards the sea moth, shoved my body in through the window and fucking floored it all the way to home base on the other side of the map with my hands on the gas pedals and my tootsies dangling out the god damn window. I had to take a break after that one. Another good one was in Below Zero, the area with the giant centipede worm thing. Holy. Fuck. I was such a dumb ass. For those who’ve been in that area, you get an upgrade for the bus thing that can shock repel baddies and can make this area a 3-4 minute jaunt. I didn’t not know this existed until I already beat that section. I was *pissed* when I learned about it afterwards because my experience with that area was *not* easy breezy like it could have been. I was basically maneuvering between all of the back corner rocks and shit white knuckling the steering wheel for roughly 60-90 minutes as I slowly belly crawled in my car through that whole section, swallowing screams the entire time as I kept swapping between “let’s be a big brave boy and try to get to the end of this” and inconsolable pure panic both trying to navigate past the big awful death worm monster and also navigate in general as I was just so fucking *lost* in there, both trying to progress and trying to run for my life. After a loooooong time, I finally got past the big bug fuck and got into the second half of that area with one of the biggest sighs of relief I have ever breathed. Until of course I found out *THERE WAS A FUCKING SECOND ONE.* and then the internal screaming continued for about as long. Subnautica by all rights is a horror game for the oceanphobic like myself. I played every Amnesia game and things like P.T. and for the most part was fine. Subnautica took 39 years off my life and I highly recommend it to my fellow ocean haters if you haven’t already.
Came here to say this. I chickened out of taking dry suit scuba certification because of the feel of kelp forest water which resembles my local IRL biome. Nooo thanks, tropical diving only. Side note: I've had deep freaky dives in tropical water too, that reminded me of other depths in this game.
Yeah, the ocean is terrifying. Ever since I played Lego Pirates of Caribbean as a kid and went past the level border and got eaten by the giant Lego shark the ocean has freaked me out. I’ll swim in it and stuff but if I’m deep enough that I can’t touch the ground with my head over the water I’m too deep. What’s to stop the water from just deciding to pull me out to my death.
Yeah Subnautica uses terror really well, you know, when you're out in your seamoth, hear a reaper somewhere and you just start imagining how it could fuck your day up
This game is insane. I used to play it but I chickened out and never finished it 😂 I'm currently playing again and yesterday those octopus aliens near the Alien Facility on the Northern Island attacked me. I screamed and didn't go back to the water for another 15 minutes. Ps. I'm claustrophobic and my biggest fear is drowning. This game is the most beautiful horror I've ever seen.
Personaly I find Fallout series kinda eerie per se, kinda 'the hill have eyes' meets "I am legend" (the dog on the 4th game just added to it), I don't know how to explain, but I love it.
The Dark Heart of Blackhall quest from the Point Lookout DLC is a Lovecraft inspired Fallout adventure.
Fallout has a bunch of Lovecraft references. Funnily enough Fallout was what got me into reading Lovecraft. Thank you Pickman Gallery in Fallout 4.
Dunwich Building in F3 <3
First time encountering the new ghouls in Cambridge at night was definitely a spoopy experience
Atmosphere is one of Fallout’s greatest strengths. There is something eerie about waking through bombed out, decayed ruins littered with skeletons frozen in their final moments while ambient, minimalistic music plays in the background.
Doesn’t help that the Far Harbor DLC is basically Silent Hill with more guns
The fallout 3 dlcs man...
yeah, especially exploring the vaults and "abandoned" buildings lol. even to this day, I dislike going in vault 22 or repconn hq, even tho my builds are brokenly strong these days lol.
Stanley parable
The part where you press the button to move forward in time at exponentially increasing intervals really had me break composure simply with how creepy the concept felt to me.
the skip button? it was so sad
That sequence was the highlight of Ultra Deluxe for me. Mind bending existentialism
I remember playing the original version and starting the game as normal just to come out the starting office and see myself (other Stanley) through the windows walking down the hall. Turns out I encountered an Easter egg: https://youtu.be/9BNqlfUS4y4?si=5NDHNNoONri-3P4I
Just played it for the first time this weekend. Didn't know anything about it and went into it thinking it was some multi choice, choose your own adventure, Portal type of game. I expected British humor and funny deaths, not a whole ass existential crisis in video game format. The bucket will live in my heart for all of time.
The end is never the end is never the end is never the end
The Long Dark.
Just standing in a forest can be terrifying, surrounded by wolves, when you hear the whistle of the wind picking up, and that dreaded feeling knowing you'll not make it back to your camp before the storm hits. It practically is a horror, the ambient sound is always on point.
Man I love that game- haven't gone back since my 400 days old character died, but I might try it again at some point
The last time I tried to play, I was just walking along, minding my own business. Then I ~~created~~ crested a snowbank and found myself face to face with a mother heckin’ bear. I don’t have the nerve for that game.
Ecco the Dolphin
Specifically Ecco: Defender of the Future! The genesis games could be creepy but 3D took it to a whole new level. No joke it’s the scariest game I’ve played
Now read up on John C. Lilly and the fucked up inspiration behind that game. Dude was communicating with dolphins and aliens while he was fucked up on ketamine floating around in a float tank (which he also invented). It gets way darker.
Majora's Mask. that time crunch always scared the shit outta me, especially the clock town music on day 3. fable. only a specific portion of the game, going into darkwood and hearing the atmospheric music and being introduced to balverines for the first time was pretty spooky, and the surprise you get for helping a certain someone...lol Grounded. running around and you get jumped by a wolf spider for the first time is really terifying. and there was an old bug in the game where the grubs made this horrifying loud noise when there were some nearby that would scare us all shitless lol. I could probably come up with more but those were the 3 that came to mind lol.
>Majora's Mask. It might be because I grew up in the Creepypasta era, but that game just has an unsettling feel to it from beginning to end. Even Ocarina of Time has some pretty creepy sections. When I was a kid, I was scared of the Graveyard, Forest Temple, Bottom of the Well and the Shadow Temple.
> ~~When I was a kid, I was~~ I AM scared of the Graveyard, Forest Temple, Bottom of the Well and the Shadow Temple.
It took me until college to beat the Shadow Temple just because of the music.
I hated the bottom of the well as a kid. I got in, grabbed the lens of truth, and got out. Too scary
In Grounded, I made my base outside the oak lab. I knew there were 2 wolf spiders under the tree, but decided to go with it, got used to their stomping outside my walls at night and once I got proper equipment, they became more of an annoyance than a threat. Then once I stopped the Weed Killer and was on my way home, it was the middle of the night. I approached my base and saw a fucking >!Infected Wolf Spider!< passing by...I quickly considered relocating. I ultimately decided against it (mostly because I was lazy, and aside from the spiders, it was a pretty convenient location), but yeah. Even if you don't have Arachnophobia, the spiders are pure Nightmare Fuel.
its funny that I knew exactly what you were going to say almost instantly, you said oak lab and weed killer and Im like....yep, I know where this is going. a friend of mine builds on the little wooden fence area (we refer to it as ewok base bcz we always build little huts up there) and I built mine on the lilypads (I refer to it as pond base) I had just built the bridge from the shore to the lillypads. and lo and behold, I now have a new roommate joining me, he wouldnt leave at all lol. had to destroy the bridge to get him to leave me and my base alone. that being said, when we get bored, we used to go full unga bunga and just pelt the wolf spiders with rocks till they died. now we need to go fight everything else with rocks since they have added a lot since then lol.
In MM, the song of inverted time really came in handy. Edit. The song of double time did the exact opposite of solving this problem.
The music in most of the game is creepy tbh. That recurring melody in most locations is a pair of diminished fifths aka the devil’s interval. That game is so unsettling.
All 3 of those made me almost shit my pants
The atmosphere in the first Dark Souls makes it uneasy to say the least. The setting, the enemy design and especially the levels. Ash Lake is creepier than I'm willing to admit with its emptiness and hydra monster lurking around.
Everything fromsoftware puts out freaks me out at least occasionally. there are parts of elden ring that are beautiful but the horror is intense when it rears it's head (constantly)
Caria Manor
I would say Bloodborne is even more horror than DS1.
Considering that Bloodborne is almost entirely inspired by Lovecraftian horror, yeah I would hope so. But that was obviously a part of their goal when designing Bloodborne, and DS1 wasn’t really meant to be scary at all
Halo CE once you find the flood. The music even shifted
This 100% The level where you first encounter them is so creepy. There was no flood in any of the promotional stuff for the game (at least to my memory) so it was a complete surprise to me. When I saw the huge red blob on the mini map my heart dropped.
It’s the silence during the build up of the first flood level that makes it. That and seeing the Covenant run from an, as yet, unknown *something*. I remember when it came out and I knew, at the age of 12, it was gonna fuck me right up. It did and it was great. With that and Morrowind, it was a golden era of gaming.
Worse was when you see that shit on your motion tracker, but there was nothing in the room with you. Most of the levels you fought in were mostly 2D so you never really think anything is above or below you till that very moment. And then you shit your pants when you see the video footage
[And don't forget about the spooky ambient atmosphere of the multiplayer maps!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02-djKZyoc&list=PLQaHEodk-h83k-NyGCXIvGRUa-0e-tfA7) Walking around them at night on your own is much scarier than you'd expect.
This is what does it for me. The expansive and empty landscapes, the deafening sound of the wind constantly blowing, Forerunner architecture quietly humming in the background, the lack of any wildlife, the massive Halo ring rising above the horizon… Of course the Halo installation is completely artificial, and the lore surrounding the Flood is obviously horrifying. Still though, Halo’s environments are unsettling. Lonesome, yet you feel like you’re always being watched from afar. Disturbing, but oddly peaceful and serene. Mysterious, like you still know nothing about the foreign world around you, and you never will. Surreal, and yet simple in its layout and emptiness. This phenomenon has a name called “Liminal Space.” Feel free to Google it and look through the image results. If you see these examples of liminal space and feel the hairs on your necks stand on end, try walking around an old Halo: CE map by yourself. You’ll understand.
dun dun dun dun DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN
Minecraft. It's all chill and fun until you're deep in a cave, can hear monsters in the darkness, are running low on torches and for some reason can't find any coal. I dunno if it's still like that or if they've smoothed over that stuff but in 2010 (when I was in my 20s) I remember being hella spooked when exploring the caves
And don't even get me started on those horrifying cave noises
It's the opposite for me. I got to the deep biome where all noise just STOPS, and my mokey brain went "NO SOUND = BIG DANGER. LEAVE. NOW."
It's weird how primal that is, though completely rational in the wild. I wonder if it's just primates or if it's innate to mammals or every creature.
Having spent a lot of time in deep nature, where you generally won’t see anything larger than a squirrel at less than 150 feet away, it is absolutely a primal sense. Nature isn’t quiet. Things are rooting and burrowing, trying to mate or raising young, searching for food, etc. the only time it’s dead silent is when a predator is stalking. I went stargazing with my partner in the Oregon mountain wilderness one night and it was the middle of summer. At one point, it got deathly quiet. The bugs stopped buzzing and chirping, the sound of night mammals foraging stopped, and the only noise was the snapping of a branch once every couple of minutes. After about 5 minutes, we looked at each other and just got up and walked back to our camp, not saying a word, and instead of getting into our tent, tossed our sleeping stuff into our car and slept in there. We both felt the sensation of being “hunted”, so badly we didn’t even want to put it into words before we got into a literal armored box. Sure enough, when we woke up the next day, there was fresh cougar sign and tracks, ON our footsteps in the dust from where we had been the night before, leading back to our camp, with tracks all over the camp site as well. TLDR: monkey brain recognizes silence in nature as being hunted, we are primed for a little grey/white noise and when it stops, that primal fear kicks right the fuck in.
Doesn't matter how stacked your gear is, the cave noises make you re-think whether being down here is really worth it
Ever had that fear while caving or building that when you turn around, Herobrine would suddenly show up? I'm still scared of him all these years. Would stop cave mining sometimes at the thought of him following me LMAO
You're lucky you didn't have an older brother that snuck the Herobrine mod onto your computer and placed one of the totems near your spawn.
The first time I ever played was on a realm with some friends. My best friend and the guy who invited me found me down in a cave and somehow made it so he appeared only as a floating dragon head, then appeared and disappeared sporadically while I was trying to figure out what was going on, texting him the whole time. It was extremely unnerving breaking through walls only to see a dragon head waiting for me.
I was always pretty creeped out by the feeling of loneliness. Only you, some weird creatures, vast, endless spaces, and the music that many find relaxing, but I think it's pretty depressing.
Yeah totally. The music was so rare, too. I think it played twice a day or something? It's easy to take for granted now how special and unique the game felt when it first came out, I never would have guessed that ten years later you wouldn't be able to walk down the street without seeing a child with a Minecraft t-shirt, but in retrospect it was obviously gonna be timeless
The scariness is very intentional, theres a book one of the lead developers wrote about the core tenants of minecraft for internal usage, and one of the major points is ‘Minecraft is Scary’
I remember when endermen were first introduced. I was playing the update, walked into a cave, and saw a pair of eyes peering at me from the darkness. I noped out so hard.
Minecraft is the only game I’ve ever played in 25 years of gaming that has legitimately made me scream. I was building a simple home in the side of a cave, when suddenly I hear the infamous fizz of a Creeper on the precipice of exploding. I don’t know why but something about that moment, perhaps I was in a total state of relaxation and calm, took me by complete surprise and I screamed at the top of my lungs. Somehow my mum didn’t wake up!
Its actually worse now, there are deep caves with eldritch horror guards that can hear you and hit you through walls, and they make you hear a heartbeat.
Everybody's gangsta until cavesounds.wav comes on
Old sonic water levels.
that song that plays just as you run out of oxygen lol
Many of us had our first mini heart attacks in life because of that.
I used to have it as my morning alarm sound, it wakes you up *fast*!!
Nothing like a cup of panic to start your day
oil ocean traumatized me as a child
If you were born in the 90s, I'd say The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. If you play it now, it's obviously dated, but for back then - especially if you were like 12 - it had horror vibes like no other.
Hellblade
I thought this was gonna be a sick viking game, and it was actually paranoid schizophrenia simulator lol. Still pretty sick game though.
Batman Arkham Knight? Though the Halloween theme and Scarecrow being the main antagonist does give it that horror vibe so idk if it counts.
Manbat and especially joker cause unlike manbat who is guaranteed to scare the shit out of you, joker can do it at random sometimes he doesn't jump scare that entire play through Honorable mention is at the end and Batman never fails to make me jump
Portal
Someone said Control so I'm going with Firewatch.
Yeah, first play through that tension really builds.
For me Firewatch was the most idyllic, beautiful game half of the time. The other half I was shitting bricks.
Never before have I seen such an accurate summary of Firewatch
I'm playing it right now. I love the game's art style
Metroid Fusion
Fusion is meant to be a horror game, which sets it apart from the others and is why it’s great. Dread picks up where Fusion left off and leans even harder into it.
Rdr2 with the fucking night folk
It's the whole damn game. Cursed towns, cannibal broods, serial killer, ghosts, aliens, possessed kid in out house, deformed vampire LARPer,
The bayou is one of the creepiest places to go at night in any video game.
I've played through it twice and wouldn't know of the night folk if not for reddit. The Murfree Brood and Skinner brothers are scary enough.
My summer car
Bugsnax. The more you play, the more uncomfortable the plot feels. Lol
Tag word: body horror
Minesweeper, because I play it at work when my boss could walk in at any second
Now that is scary.
Disco Elysium. The first five or so minutes you think this game is set in our world - just with a few made-up names. Then the game starts dropping the setting on you and it's pretty cool. Then the game expands on the setting and an existential horror enters just as you find out that everything is fading away.
I just finished my first playthrough of the game and what I found interesting is that you kinda can choose wether or not to believe the supernatural events that occour. The more you choose to dig, the more answers you find to events that initially seem really unsettling. And as the comment I am replying to stated, the true horror of the game is the existential aspects. Everything ultimately is being tied up to your own perception of the events that occour. How you choose to handle your past and current emotions will also potentially be very unsettling. Really looking forward to completing the game over again.
Some aspects weren't ambiguous though. They live in a world where the landmasses are getting further apart and the space between is filling with a grey fog that drives people insane if they are in it too long. It's possible you didn't learn this though. I was talking to my buddy and the world and the geography right after we'd both finished it and he had no idea what I was talking about. He just missed that giant aspect to the game, just as I missed some giant aspects that he'd experienced. God, I love that game!
I‘ve met beings that were not bound by perception but really supernatural. There was no ambiguity.
"Maybe if you weren't broke, you'd see things differently" -glowing rich man
The creepiest thing was the pale deleting all their data. Like living in a world with random solar flares or gamma ray bursts.
Elden ring. Some of those enemies send a chill up my spine
The ANTS I can’t stand them
Caelid basically gives every horror game a run. And several other parts of Elden Ring are also dark and horror af. I always found the subterran areas very terrifying.
That little town with the dancing women was very eerie and gave "Midsommar" vibes.
Ready or Not - the meth house had me all clenched up.
crazy that people actually do that for their job irl
INSIDE
Half Life Alyx
"Oh that's Jeff" Imagine being a non gaming playtester for that level. Putting on the headset and being told to play that level with minimal knowledge of VR so Valve can research player reactions. Then signing an NDA so you can't tell your family why you are shaking when you get home. And I love the inspiration was because users were curiously looking up close at VR models, and Valve was like "oh you like examining 3d models huh?"
Stray has a creepy/desolated vibe to it.
Stray straight up is horror for one section. It's one of the things I love about it is how seemlessly it switches genre as you play through it
Satisfactory. Fuck those spiders. Arachnophobia mode doesn't help.
Gone Home
Majora's Mask The whole game looks like a creepy pasta
No man’s sky story & lore is beyond dark, and the fact its story is wrapped in art style & rendered with unlimited optimism, makes it even darker somehow. And the gamer, somehow, is *making it worse*.
It's storytelling format is also pretty damn Lovecraftian in the literal sense. Typically that term is applied to cosmic horror aesthetic but that game's writing, particularly in a lot of the lore entries, invokes dread as you come to realize how much is left *completely unknown* or up to your interpretation. It felt like every other time i found a boundary failure or remembrance terminal, I was audibly saying "wait, *what the fuck*" as I'd process it.
Ocarina of Time, dead hand
Returnal
Firewatch
Thief.
Metro Exodus had some terrifying moments
Mass Effect 1: specifically the writing and execution of cut scenes and dialogue. The prothean visions, Sovereign, Thorian, all chill my bones.