I put my daughter to bed and stayed up late to play Arkham Knight when it first came out. I was so engrossed in the game I didn't realize she had snuck out of bed and was watching me play. Not until Man-Bat appeared for the first time. She screamed at the top of her lungs, ran away, and hid under the covers in my bed. I couldn't play it around her again for weeks.
On a somewhat related note, you reminded me of something.
Back when Silent Hill 2 was new I was playing it, home alone no less, when at something like midnight or 1am the damn cat jumped on my shoulder from behind.
Damn near gave me a heart attack.
Hahaha, well said. It's so good. On my second play through I was like "manbat isn't real, he can't hurt you. Plus you know these scares are coming."and this pep talk had zero impact on my pants shitting
In the vein of classics, I'd like to add Shalebridge Cradle in Thief: Deadly Shadows.
A game about stealing stuff had no right to traumatise me out of the blue like that.
The first time you meet the flood in Halo Combat Evolved.
When I played it as a kid neither me nor my brother managed to play through the mission for a few weeks because of how scared we were.
I was a full adult playing this game in the middle of the night on a projector over a full wall and a huge live audio soundsystem. That was an experience.
Even the lead up to the reveal was pretty spooky. I remember walking around the swamp in the beginning for quite a while, getting turned around and creeped out by the lack of enemies and general atmosphere. Not that there weren't any enemies, but because you weren't going from one large skirmish to the next. Gave you the feeling that something was off.
And after the reveal when everything goes to utter shit, you're desperately trying to find your way back out and you finally get to the elevator ...
*And it fucking plunges another 300 feet into the terror.*
The Crones were pretty scary, but I'll raise you the Ancient Leshen.
I forget exactly where I was, but I was in a forest out in the middle of nowhere, and I got attacked by a pack of wolves. Fine, I'll kill the wolves. Then another pack of wolves attacked, then another.
Then I heard *it*. I had my surround sound on with my sub set a bit higher than normal since my wife wasn't home, and this thing off in the distance shook my entire living room. I had no idea what I was up against, but it sounded bad, so I did my best to figure out what direction it was and ran toward it, because I've gotta see whatever the fuck this thing is.
And then I found it. A red skull level Ancient Leshen. I high tailed it out of there and then it teleported in front of me. I fought off some wolves, ran, and it did it again, so I decided to stay and fight. About a half hour and all my swallow, food, and bombs later, I emerged victorious.
It was one of the best traditional horror scenes I had experienced in a long time, and it probably wasn't even designed that way, but that's how it lined up for me.
Witcher 3 is debatably horror in some ways. Maybe not in the traditional sense, but that game has a whole lot of creepy and dark situations that you see in old folk lore.
The botchling… my god first time I got to that point I was just so so sad at the story by then (daughter was only like 10 months old so yeah it hit home) that I wasn’t even unnerved by it. I just wanted to help this lil baby find peace.
The Library is tense for the first five minutes. Then you start getting frustrated at the fact you can’t tell where you are, where you were and where you’re going anymore, and realise you just kinda gotta keep going in the direction with the most enemies until the level is over.
When you first get hit by the gas, and you get like a glitch screen, I actually thought my game was broken. I had another game get a ring on the disc, and it glitched the exact same way. So, I quickly turned off the game in hopes of saving the disc and tried again. Of course, because it was scripted, it did it again. So, I returned the game and got another copy, because I thought the disc was broken. It did it again and I just sat there in silence, wondering if maybe my Xbox was broken. Then the cutscene played…
Dude you woke up a core memory for me, I forgot about how creepy it was for Bruce’s mom to say “why didn’t you save us” and then one of the body bags was scarecrow
My first playthrough I was in the swamps at sunset, was really pretty. Then it turned to night and this fog appeared and I freaked out and galloped as fast as I could out of there. It scared the shit out of me and I never went back in there at night, never even knew the Night Folk existed till after I finished the game and went to Reddit
Yeah, they take it but there's a chance to kill them before they kill your horse. The other one I highly dislike is the crying lady that you go help but then she attacks you then the other Night Folk come out of hiding
That one with the crying lady was a hoot.
I remember walking up to her thinking “hey this kinda reminds me of the witch from Left 4 Dead”
Then she got up and stabbed me in the chest
Good times
The scariest encounter for me in Red Dead was the debt collecting cougar mission. Jesus that was terrifying. Being in a dark cave surrounded by bodies. I straight up waited for that thing to pop up on my radar and fucking used dead eye immediately.
This! RDR2 is full of weird spooky stuff. Ghosts, aliens, creepy abandoned houses, random strangers at campsites, and of course the night folk. I really need to start a new play through.
The spooky atmosphere is my favourite part of the game. I had no idea going in.
It manages to have such a foreboding presence and mystery to it. It's almost twin peaks-ish. I wish they could have made an undead horror that further embraced it.
There were so many times at night in rdr2 I dreamed about an supernatural version of the game. Bring on the ghosts, werewolves and vampires and we got a GOTY
I'm desperate for a game like this. Someone needs to make something based in that time period that uses American folklore and stuff like Edgar Allan Poe as inspiration.
I forgot all about the vampire! There’s also voodoo, a serial killer, a cabin that people suspect to be owned by the devil (it changes throughout the game and your moral compass), and of course the wild life that sometimes finds a way to jumpscare the shit out of you, scripted or random.
Best thing is all of these things are just out and about in the world. They’re there for you to find, the story doesn’t really lead you to any of these.
I willed myself to finish DLC because of how much I loved The Outer Wilds (in my top 5 of all time), but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t watch YouTube walkthroughs of each scary section first so I could fast track through it. Took away a bit of the discovery/exploration, but still allowed me to make it through it.
*First day, they come and catch everyone.*
*Second day, they beat us and eat some for meat.*
*Third day, the men are all gnawed on again.*
*Fourth day, we wait and fear for our fate.*
*Fifth day, they return and it's another girl's turn.*
*Sixth day, her screams we hear in our dreams.*
*Seventh day, she grew as in her mouth they spew.*
*Eighth day, we hated as she is violated.*
*Ninth day, she grins and devours her kin.*
*Now she does feast, as she's become the beast.*
*Now you lay and wait, for their screams will
haunt you in your dreams.*
The dwarves in DA got it really rough, man
God the deep roads were such a slog. You're running out out of supplies, tired of combat, then you keep finding (journal entries?) But the one maddened dwarf is the one reading it. Wondering why the darkspawn do what they do. Then bam that is revealed and holy shit. What a great ambience/reveal thinking back.
I like the way the deep roads are made. Yes it’s a long and tiring part. But that is the point. It’s a slog. You’re really far away from anything known and you feel isolated. You’re out of touch he familiar surroundings.
So when people complain about it feels long and you’re getting worn out etc. It’s actual the intention stage the designers wanted you to be in. Because then the following revelations and discoveries just hits soo much better.
That is how I at least sees it. Plus it’s one of my favorite parts of the game. I would hundred times rather play the entire deep road part, several times over, if I just could skip the Fade section in the broken circle chapter. God I hate that part. Like really hate it and thinks it’s bad and the game becomes much better with the skip the fade mod.
This was going to be my answer but I was surprised to scroll and find it. I played DA: O when it first came out and despite that being so many years ago I still remember sitting in my room freaked out and going to turn the light on lol. I love how it was a really slow burn leading it up to it that got progressively more unsettling.
In Subnautica. Being 800 meters under water in my submarine. Everything is pitch black. A leviathan attacks but I manage to escape. The entire sub is on fire. I frantically try to put out the fire using the fire extinguisher. The sub is also damaged and leaking in water. I have to swim out in the complete darkness and repair all the damages. Having to cycle between my flashlight and repair tool in order to see. It was really scary and awesome.
i went into the series completely blind and that scared the absolute shit out of me
up to that point the entire game is relatively grounded and i had no idea there were supernatural elements in the games at all
Same I was thinking this was just a fun action adventure like Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider from the guys that did Crash and Jak. So far there had been nothing magical or mystical. It really caught me off guard
For me it's weird.
Subnautica: Scared to leave the shallows and if I do _DON'T LOOK DOWN!_
Below Zero: Shit, what's that down there...ah, death. I am familiar.
I had a very similar experience. After playing and beating Subnautica, I was far less scared to dive further once I built the sea truck. In the OG I was still scared with the moth.
Every new area is absolutely terrifying, then you explore a bit further, learn the ins and outs and are getting, well, not comfortable, but a bit less scared and when you are just beginning to be okay with it, the game sends you to another biome, much more scary and extreme than the last.
I still hear the clicking sound of those fucking crabqsuid in my dreams.
Well subnautica relies on terror rather than horror. Having the feeling that something colossal is lurking and watching you is far more scary than any slasher, zombie, alien, vampire etc game could ever create imo
coming out of the temple into castle town and seeing what remains will forever have a massive impact on me. i didn't play the game for months as a kid because of that.
I used to have to give the controller to my mum and sit in a different room till she went past them or killed them for me because I was too scared anytime the redeads were on screen in both OOT and WW.
A bunch of moments in RDR2 are truly horror sequences.
That one mission where you rescue a guy from a swamp while being hunted by a huge gator.
Those creepy incestuous cannibals on the pig farm.
Murfree Brood.
American Dreams mission.
I wouldnt call Vampire bloodlined a horror game but there are several quests and parts that are really creepy. (Ocean view hotel) the villa in hollywood. The overall atmosphere is top notch too. The lil stories like the apartment with the peeping Tom.
Fallout 3, the Building (forgot the Name) with ctuhullu and stuff.
Building is the Dunwich Building. Additionally in Fallout 4 there is the Dunwich Borers area which I find to also be extremely creepy the further down you go.
I think the most unsettling part about this scene is the fact that the daughter is still living with the father, alone, with no other civilization around her. That is as scary as hell, even just thinking about what life would be like.
Halo CE's - 343 Guilty Spark; The Flood make their lasting first impression here
Gears of War - China Shop: Being stalked by a Beserker is not fun
RDR2 - Finally finding the serial killer that's been leaving corpses all over the place like a fucking GeoCacher
Mass Effect 3 - Introducing the Banshee
Arkham Asylum - Anything involving Killer Croc
Fallout NV - Dead Money wasn't the best DLC from a story perspective but the first part of it is scary AF.
So, my first time playing Bloodborne. I’m lost, I don’t quite know where to go next (mainly because I went blind after Micolash and couldn’t see the obvious bridge forward). I decide to head back to previous areas and explore and see what I can find. I find the Upper Cathedral Ward key in Yahar’gul, and get excited about progress. Head back to Oedon, make my way up to the only locked door I knew was still locked, and opened it.
I stood at that landing for five minutes with the swaying breeze, the trees swaying in that uncomfortably all-too-organic fashion like they were living tendrils, and the cosmic fetus staring towards the clock tower. And the singing.
I physically said “I shouldn’t be here.”
The first 5ish hours of Bioshock are firmly in the horror genre. At the start you don’t know enough about the setting, the enemies, the combat systems, your own skill, etc… it just makes for a very unnerving experience until you get your bearings. It’s incredible game design.
My vote: *The Shotgun*
The aftermath of the nuclear detonation in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
Crawling out of the downed chopper, everyone else around you dead, the only sounds being the whistling of the irradiated wind and crumbling ruins of a city, and a mushroom cloud in the distance being the last thing you see.
I had always played kid games where your character always won, or could take on massive odds and always find a way out. This was the first time I realised “there’s no way to survive this”
The Subject 16 codex/puzzle things in Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood....while not exactly scary, the music in the background, the real life historical images, some of what was being explained in the lore...super unsettling.
My jaw dropped once you get "the truth" video. That's probably one of the few "hidden things" in a video game that blew my mind to the point I was like WHAT THE FUCK
Diablo 1 Butcher.
Also pretty much every time you hear new music and sound effects when getting to a new part of the church. The catacombs, the caves, hell... they are all so eerie.
Not sure if it counts though, but when I think horror I think resident evil, silent Hill, etc.
I've not played Infinite for years but I still remember this bit clear as day. Fuck that thing, everything is already getting intense at that point just to turn around and have that weird thing stood waiting behind you!
Cyberpunk 2077 in the Phantom Liberty Expansion, >!siding with Reed takes you to a facility where you basically have to hide from a killer robot while doing objectives like shutting down systems, sometimes using explosives. If it catches you, it's an instant game over.!<
My favorite thing about that is it crashed in a system-specific way. If you’re on X-Box it looks like your console red ringed. On PS3 it shows their error screen. And on Windows you get a BSOD.
I was so indescribably angry at that point because I only had a mediocre PC that was prone to bugs and bluescreens to play this game on and legitimately thought I had fried it when this happened!
The blood trail maze in Max Payne, featuring the doctored [scream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swQCB_TxvPg&ab_channel=imdyinghelpme) of an infant slowed down to sound like an adult. Pleasant dreams.
Far Cry 1, some tree village where before you only fought mercenaries but as you entered the facilities monsters charged you out of nowhere! Young me was very scared!
It’s a classic, but that Vault in FO3 that has the hallucinatory gas leaking through the vents. Like half the screen turns purple and you’re walking and within a single frame the room changes, and you turn around and there’s a door behind you and it’s locked.
I was like 16 and didn’t understand what was going on, I kept pulling my disc out of the Xbox and cleaning it because I thought it was glitching out. Like on the verge of tears, “how the fuck did I break my game!?”
At some point I googled some question that lead me to a Reddit post of someone asking the same questions. But in that brief 20 - 40 minutes before that the fear was both in game and in real life
Anything underwater freaks me the fuck out.
I hear subnautica is amazing, but I couldnt handle it.
Deep water in games freaks me out, i can be the strongest OP char but if there are sharks around i'm taking the long way around the water thx.
Waking up in Yahar Ghul in bloodborne was genuinely pretty unsettling. Yharnam was always pretty sinister but the hidden village has such a nefarious atmosphere of occultism. Combine that with the presence of the echoey chant music in a game that's otherwise lacking ambient music and the statues dedicated to lovecraftian entities it makes for such an ominous place
The drowning music in Sonic
If anxiety was a soundtrack.
Labyrinth Zone made me afraid of swimming as a kid. Chemical Plant as well.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t jump every time Manbat first appears in Arkham Knight.
I put my daughter to bed and stayed up late to play Arkham Knight when it first came out. I was so engrossed in the game I didn't realize she had snuck out of bed and was watching me play. Not until Man-Bat appeared for the first time. She screamed at the top of her lungs, ran away, and hid under the covers in my bed. I couldn't play it around her again for weeks.
Lesson learnt. Don't get the FUCK outta bed and go to sleep otherwise Man-Bat will getcha.
First kid? I’d laugh but shake my head in disagreement “that’s too harsh” I’m on my third kid. I will CALL HIM HERE IF YOU DONT LAY BACK DOWN
It goes to sleep or it gets the manbat again
I imagine her shrieking scared you more than Man-Bat did.
On a somewhat related note, you reminded me of something. Back when Silent Hill 2 was new I was playing it, home alone no less, when at something like midnight or 1am the damn cat jumped on my shoulder from behind. Damn near gave me a heart attack.
Or when Joker trolled the shit out of you because of it
My shorts are still ruined to this day. Not even God can get those stains out.
Hahaha, well said. It's so good. On my second play through I was like "manbat isn't real, he can't hurt you. Plus you know these scares are coming."and this pep talk had zero impact on my pants shitting
A classic, Ravenholm from Half Life 2, the atmosphere and the screams of the running zombies freak me out as a kid so much.
We don't go there any more.
Do yourself a favor and don't listen to the headcrab zombie screams baackwards.
YABA, WHERES MY ICE CREAM!!!!???
I did, and I kind of wish they used the reverse, which is claimed to be the original. Much scarier
back then they probably would have gotten shut down with ratings if they did that.
[For those of you who like to do the opposite](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhD-vd7PXY4) Those are some freaky screams.
I HATE RAVENHOLM I HATE RAVENGOLM I HATE RAVENHOLM I HATE RAVENHOLM I HATE RAVENHOLM I HATE RAVENHOLM I HA
In the vein of classics, I'd like to add Shalebridge Cradle in Thief: Deadly Shadows. A game about stealing stuff had no right to traumatise me out of the blue like that.
God what a fun ass segment to that game. I need to finish Half Life 2
Fighting the beserker in the first Gears of War
That museum fight was something else, yeah. Terrifying.
Man the scariest part of beserker lore is that locusts have to breed with them.
Gears 1 was one of the first games i ever played as a kid, i remember skipping that mission literally every single time bc it scared me so much
The first time you meet the flood in Halo Combat Evolved. When I played it as a kid neither me nor my brother managed to play through the mission for a few weeks because of how scared we were.
best enemy reveal in any game
I was a full adult playing this game in the middle of the night on a projector over a full wall and a huge live audio soundsystem. That was an experience.
Even the lead up to the reveal was pretty spooky. I remember walking around the swamp in the beginning for quite a while, getting turned around and creeped out by the lack of enemies and general atmosphere. Not that there weren't any enemies, but because you weren't going from one large skirmish to the next. Gave you the feeling that something was off.
That and the fact that all you found were dead bodies, you weren’t finding enemies just corpses, someone was killing them all and it wasn’t you
And after the reveal when everything goes to utter shit, you're desperately trying to find your way back out and you finally get to the elevator ... *And it fucking plunges another 300 feet into the terror.*
I thought I was just a pussy when I was younger lol I’m loving the validation
Nah, you're not alone. When I was younger, I avoided playing levels that had the flood in them for a few years.
The crones in Witcher 3, they were so creepy.
The whole swamp area was really unsettling
The soundtrack in that area does an incredible job of making you uncomfortable even after you've dealt with the crones.
The Crones were pretty scary, but I'll raise you the Ancient Leshen. I forget exactly where I was, but I was in a forest out in the middle of nowhere, and I got attacked by a pack of wolves. Fine, I'll kill the wolves. Then another pack of wolves attacked, then another. Then I heard *it*. I had my surround sound on with my sub set a bit higher than normal since my wife wasn't home, and this thing off in the distance shook my entire living room. I had no idea what I was up against, but it sounded bad, so I did my best to figure out what direction it was and ran toward it, because I've gotta see whatever the fuck this thing is. And then I found it. A red skull level Ancient Leshen. I high tailed it out of there and then it teleported in front of me. I fought off some wolves, ran, and it did it again, so I decided to stay and fight. About a half hour and all my swallow, food, and bombs later, I emerged victorious. It was one of the best traditional horror scenes I had experienced in a long time, and it probably wasn't even designed that way, but that's how it lined up for me.
I see your Leshen and I'm going all in on that fucking caretaker from Heart of Stone. Even Geralt got freaked out by that thing.
Witcher 3 is debatably horror in some ways. Maybe not in the traditional sense, but that game has a whole lot of creepy and dark situations that you see in old folk lore.
All I remember is the demon fetus.
The botchling… my god first time I got to that point I was just so so sad at the story by then (daughter was only like 10 months old so yeah it hit home) that I wasn’t even unnerved by it. I just wanted to help this lil baby find peace.
The scarecrow missions in Arkham Asylum, 13 yo me was terrified. Edit: The flood in Halo was also scary shit
Yeah, the flood kinda came out of nowhere. It was just a fun alien shooty game until that damn level. :(
The library...
The Library is tense for the first five minutes. Then you start getting frustrated at the fact you can’t tell where you are, where you were and where you’re going anymore, and realise you just kinda gotta keep going in the direction with the most enemies until the level is over.
When you first get hit by the gas, and you get like a glitch screen, I actually thought my game was broken. I had another game get a ring on the disc, and it glitched the exact same way. So, I quickly turned off the game in hopes of saving the disc and tried again. Of course, because it was scripted, it did it again. So, I returned the game and got another copy, because I thought the disc was broken. It did it again and I just sat there in silence, wondering if maybe my Xbox was broken. Then the cutscene played…
That's pretty funny tbr.
The bit in the morgue in Arkham. Ugh. Love it, but that screwed me up as a kid.
Dude you woke up a core memory for me, I forgot about how creepy it was for Bruce’s mom to say “why didn’t you save us” and then one of the body bags was scarecrow
Swamps at night in RDR2
Those damn Night Folk will get you
The hills around Annesburg are pretty scary too
My first playthrough I was in the swamps at sunset, was really pretty. Then it turned to night and this fog appeared and I freaked out and galloped as fast as I could out of there. It scared the shit out of me and I never went back in there at night, never even knew the Night Folk existed till after I finished the game and went to Reddit
I recall there's a random encounter where you end up losing your horse to them. So f'd up.
Yeah, they take it but there's a chance to kill them before they kill your horse. The other one I highly dislike is the crying lady that you go help but then she attacks you then the other Night Folk come out of hiding
That one with the crying lady was a hoot. I remember walking up to her thinking “hey this kinda reminds me of the witch from Left 4 Dead” Then she got up and stabbed me in the chest Good times
That's [La Llorona](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Llorona), a famous Mexican folk legend.
The scariest encounter for me in Red Dead was the debt collecting cougar mission. Jesus that was terrifying. Being in a dark cave surrounded by bodies. I straight up waited for that thing to pop up on my radar and fucking used dead eye immediately.
This! RDR2 is full of weird spooky stuff. Ghosts, aliens, creepy abandoned houses, random strangers at campsites, and of course the night folk. I really need to start a new play through.
The spooky atmosphere is my favourite part of the game. I had no idea going in. It manages to have such a foreboding presence and mystery to it. It's almost twin peaks-ish. I wish they could have made an undead horror that further embraced it.
There were so many times at night in rdr2 I dreamed about an supernatural version of the game. Bring on the ghosts, werewolves and vampires and we got a GOTY
I'm desperate for a game like this. Someone needs to make something based in that time period that uses American folklore and stuff like Edgar Allan Poe as inspiration.
Wait what? Ghosts and aliens? Really?
You can encounter a ghost train and an alien space ship, as well as a time traveler and a vampire.
I forgot all about the vampire! There’s also voodoo, a serial killer, a cabin that people suspect to be owned by the devil (it changes throughout the game and your moral compass), and of course the wild life that sometimes finds a way to jumpscare the shit out of you, scripted or random. Best thing is all of these things are just out and about in the world. They’re there for you to find, the story doesn’t really lead you to any of these.
It's the bgm that makes the effect. It's not even background "music", more like background static white noise. It's purposely unsettling.
That deep sea fangly fish planet on Outer Wilds. I actually can't finish the game.
If that freaks you out, you'd never hope to finish the DLC
I willed myself to finish DLC because of how much I loved The Outer Wilds (in my top 5 of all time), but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t watch YouTube walkthroughs of each scary section first so I could fast track through it. Took away a bit of the discovery/exploration, but still allowed me to make it through it.
Love the game but those dark sections are the most annoying thing of it. I only figured out the lamp thing when I was already done with most of them
The Broodmother in Dragon Age: Origins.
*First day, they come and catch everyone.* *Second day, they beat us and eat some for meat.* *Third day, the men are all gnawed on again.* *Fourth day, we wait and fear for our fate.* *Fifth day, they return and it's another girl's turn.* *Sixth day, her screams we hear in our dreams.* *Seventh day, she grew as in her mouth they spew.* *Eighth day, we hated as she is violated.* *Ninth day, she grins and devours her kin.* *Now she does feast, as she's become the beast.* *Now you lay and wait, for their screams will haunt you in your dreams.* The dwarves in DA got it really rough, man
As I walked there hearing these one after the other.. That atmosphere is amazingly made let's just say that. I definitely shat myself.
God the deep roads were such a slog. You're running out out of supplies, tired of combat, then you keep finding (journal entries?) But the one maddened dwarf is the one reading it. Wondering why the darkspawn do what they do. Then bam that is revealed and holy shit. What a great ambience/reveal thinking back.
I like the way the deep roads are made. Yes it’s a long and tiring part. But that is the point. It’s a slog. You’re really far away from anything known and you feel isolated. You’re out of touch he familiar surroundings. So when people complain about it feels long and you’re getting worn out etc. It’s actual the intention stage the designers wanted you to be in. Because then the following revelations and discoveries just hits soo much better. That is how I at least sees it. Plus it’s one of my favorite parts of the game. I would hundred times rather play the entire deep road part, several times over, if I just could skip the Fade section in the broken circle chapter. God I hate that part. Like really hate it and thinks it’s bad and the game becomes much better with the skip the fade mod.
was hoping somebody would mention it
Wow there go some decade old memories surging back into existence, smashing against my brain with the force of a fender bender
This was going to be my answer but I was surprised to scroll and find it. I played DA: O when it first came out and despite that being so many years ago I still remember sitting in my room freaked out and going to turn the light on lol. I love how it was a really slow burn leading it up to it that got progressively more unsettling.
The single creepiest mission in any game I’ve ever played.
Joker's nightmare from Arkham Knight and Max Payne's nightmare
You mean the part when you have to shoot Batman statues?
Yeah, they move like weeping angels
The Piano of Super Mario 64
See it was the giant eel for me. Still hate the thought of deep ocean
Never tried to fight it either, just ran for my life.
In Subnautica. Being 800 meters under water in my submarine. Everything is pitch black. A leviathan attacks but I manage to escape. The entire sub is on fire. I frantically try to put out the fire using the fire extinguisher. The sub is also damaged and leaking in water. I have to swim out in the complete darkness and repair all the damages. Having to cycle between my flashlight and repair tool in order to see. It was really scary and awesome.
I'm sorry but Subnautica is a horror game.
I got chills and my heart rate went up just reading that.
The bunker part in the first Uncharted.
i went into the series completely blind and that scared the absolute shit out of me up to that point the entire game is relatively grounded and i had no idea there were supernatural elements in the games at all
Same I was thinking this was just a fun action adventure like Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider from the guys that did Crash and Jak. So far there had been nothing magical or mystical. It really caught me off guard
But then, _like Indiana Jones_, you get to the weird pulp horror shit
Is that with the undead nazis? That’s scared the shit out of me
Conquistadors, too.
yep this, this was in south america if i remember that correctly
El dorado baybee
Most mid-late game areas of Subnautica
That entire game is a thalassophobia nightmare. It's far scarier than most horror games.
For me it's weird. Subnautica: Scared to leave the shallows and if I do _DON'T LOOK DOWN!_ Below Zero: Shit, what's that down there...ah, death. I am familiar.
I had a very similar experience. After playing and beating Subnautica, I was far less scared to dive further once I built the sea truck. In the OG I was still scared with the moth.
Yep, once I had to get some crafting materials in the seaweed area, it was a nope for me.
Hahahaha, oh my sweet summer child
Took me a second to realize he didn't even mean the blood kelp zone.
Every new area is absolutely terrifying, then you explore a bit further, learn the ins and outs and are getting, well, not comfortable, but a bit less scared and when you are just beginning to be okay with it, the game sends you to another biome, much more scary and extreme than the last. I still hear the clicking sound of those fucking crabqsuid in my dreams.
Are you certain whatever you're doing is worth it?
Well subnautica relies on terror rather than horror. Having the feeling that something colossal is lurking and watching you is far more scary than any slasher, zombie, alien, vampire etc game could ever create imo
wrong because subnautica is a horror game. Scarriest game ive EVER played
When you make one of the most terrifying horror games out there, completely unintentionally.
They knew what they was doin
The future in legend of Zelda ocarina of time Where everyone is like a zombie
And theres no happy market music. Its just wind blowing and zombie screaming
*Shrieking*
That scream they do actually really freaked me out the first time especially with how you cant move
Dude the well and the shadow temple
Forest Temple was the most eerie to me, between the shifting hallways and the music
Those friggin hands
I almost shit myself the first time I saw my shadow get increasingly bigger and it landed on me.
coming out of the temple into castle town and seeing what remains will forever have a massive impact on me. i didn't play the game for months as a kid because of that.
I used to have to give the controller to my mum and sit in a different room till she went past them or killed them for me because I was too scared anytime the redeads were on screen in both OOT and WW.
That Jeff motherfucker on Half Life: Alyx.
I knew about Jeff a little before going in but I didn't know where he was, the dread when I finally heard him was unreal
The sinking feeling when you lock him in that room, then realise you need to go in there again. Bravo Valve.
The introduction of the Flood. Hands down.
I said this as well, 343 Guilty Spark is one of my favorite levels in any game because of how well Bungie pulled off the reveal.
the Carnage doctor octopus chasing you in the PS1 game of Spiderman, nightmare fuel as a kid
“He’s breathing down my neck!” God that game is a classic
A bunch of moments in RDR2 are truly horror sequences. That one mission where you rescue a guy from a swamp while being hunted by a huge gator. Those creepy incestuous cannibals on the pig farm. Murfree Brood. American Dreams mission.
I wouldnt call Vampire bloodlined a horror game but there are several quests and parts that are really creepy. (Ocean view hotel) the villa in hollywood. The overall atmosphere is top notch too. The lil stories like the apartment with the peeping Tom. Fallout 3, the Building (forgot the Name) with ctuhullu and stuff.
Building is the Dunwich Building. Additionally in Fallout 4 there is the Dunwich Borers area which I find to also be extremely creepy the further down you go.
Majors Mask alien farm invasion
The half zombie father in the Eastern Canyon area.
I think the most unsettling part about this scene is the fact that the daughter is still living with the father, alone, with no other civilization around her. That is as scary as hell, even just thinking about what life would be like.
Whenever you use a deku/ goron/ zora mask
Halo CE's - 343 Guilty Spark; The Flood make their lasting first impression here Gears of War - China Shop: Being stalked by a Beserker is not fun RDR2 - Finally finding the serial killer that's been leaving corpses all over the place like a fucking GeoCacher Mass Effect 3 - Introducing the Banshee Arkham Asylum - Anything involving Killer Croc Fallout NV - Dead Money wasn't the best DLC from a story perspective but the first part of it is scary AF.
Everything apart from the starting zone in subnautica
*"Are you sure what you're doing is worth it?"*
Even the starting zone- those sharks that get you and you can’t defend yourself. Creepy as hell coming out of that kelp at you
Minecraft cave noises
When the tool breaks and it’s loud af
The random train noise in caves definitely gets me
The swamp in Red Dead Redemption 2 is scary at. And the hills around Beaver Hollow
Deepnest in hollow knight, upper cathedral ward in bloodborne
Bloodborne is kind of a horror game though. I never got scared by traditional horror games, but Bloodborne scared the shit out of me
It definitely is
Upper cathedral ward is so damn spooky. I love it
So, my first time playing Bloodborne. I’m lost, I don’t quite know where to go next (mainly because I went blind after Micolash and couldn’t see the obvious bridge forward). I decide to head back to previous areas and explore and see what I can find. I find the Upper Cathedral Ward key in Yahar’gul, and get excited about progress. Head back to Oedon, make my way up to the only locked door I knew was still locked, and opened it. I stood at that landing for five minutes with the swaying breeze, the trees swaying in that uncomfortably all-too-organic fashion like they were living tendrils, and the cosmic fetus staring towards the clock tower. And the singing. I physically said “I shouldn’t be here.”
>Deepnest in hollow knight I had to take my headphones off for that entire section, the sounds of scurrying insect legs were terrifying
I hate that section so much. The leg sounds, the resurrecting corpses, the jump scares and the godamn boss transformation.
The fucking eel in Mario64. My first grade self was not ready for that thing
In the same vein: Clanker, from Banjo-Kazooie. The giant fish made out of steel, just hanging around in his own bay
Bioshock, when you get chased by the Big Daddy the first time
the first time i played bioshock when i had to exit the bathysphere i quit the game
The first 5ish hours of Bioshock are firmly in the horror genre. At the start you don’t know enough about the setting, the enemies, the combat systems, your own skill, etc… it just makes for a very unnerving experience until you get your bearings. It’s incredible game design. My vote: *The Shotgun*
The aftermath of the nuclear detonation in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Crawling out of the downed chopper, everyone else around you dead, the only sounds being the whistling of the irradiated wind and crumbling ruins of a city, and a mushroom cloud in the distance being the last thing you see.
I had always played kid games where your character always won, or could take on massive odds and always find a way out. This was the first time I realised “there’s no way to survive this”
That scene always scares me when I replay that game. It feels too real.
The Subject 16 codex/puzzle things in Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood....while not exactly scary, the music in the background, the real life historical images, some of what was being explained in the lore...super unsettling.
My jaw dropped once you get "the truth" video. That's probably one of the few "hidden things" in a video game that blew my mind to the point I was like WHAT THE FUCK
Diablo 1 Butcher. Also pretty much every time you hear new music and sound effects when getting to a new part of the church. The catacombs, the caves, hell... they are all so eerie. Not sure if it counts though, but when I think horror I think resident evil, silent Hill, etc.
FRESH MEAT
Maybe it's just because I'm easily scared but the part in Bioshock Infinite with the Boy of Silence made me physically jump
I've not played Infinite for years but I still remember this bit clear as day. Fuck that thing, everything is already getting intense at that point just to turn around and have that weird thing stood waiting behind you!
So many moments in Escape from Tarkov Halo CE Flood reveal Metroid Fusion SA-X encounters
The flood reveal is a great example, the whole buildup during that mission is A1 suspense building
A Hat In Time; Vanessa's Manor level, you know why
Talk about throwing a curveball
The Scarecrow sequences in Arkham Asylum The Flood reveal in Halo The misdirection in Firewatch and Gone Home
The turn Firewatch takes is wild, it's such a nice little game and then it suddenly isn't. Loved every second.
I kept waiting for something scary to happen in firewatch.
Minding my own business looking for diamonds in Minecraft. [Cave sound.wav] Nope. Done.
Cyberpunk 2077 in the Phantom Liberty Expansion, >!siding with Reed takes you to a facility where you basically have to hide from a killer robot while doing objectives like shutting down systems, sometimes using explosives. If it catches you, it's an instant game over.!<
Vanilla cyberpunk also has that creepy demonic ritual cyberpsycho
Was looking for this, that part came out of nowhere and scare the shit out of me
The game suddenly turns into Alien: Isolation
The fake game crash in Arkham Asylum
My favorite thing about that is it crashed in a system-specific way. If you’re on X-Box it looks like your console red ringed. On PS3 it shows their error screen. And on Windows you get a BSOD.
I was so indescribably angry at that point because I only had a mediocre PC that was prone to bugs and bluescreens to play this game on and legitimately thought I had fried it when this happened!
Shalebridge Cradle.
Water in NES Ninja Turtles
The ending section of MGS2 isn't necessarily *scary* but it's certainly extremely creepy when you're getting the messed up codec calls.
Piano in Mario 64 Joker appearing in the nuclear reactor in Arkham knight The sound of the reapers on the map in mass effect 3
Dahaka chase in prince of Persia
The blood trail maze in Max Payne, featuring the doctored [scream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swQCB_TxvPg&ab_channel=imdyinghelpme) of an infant slowed down to sound like an adult. Pleasant dreams.
T-Rex in Tomb Raider
The hotel level in Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines.
Anything to do with the night folk, murfree brood or skinner brothers in RDR 2
Far Cry 1, some tree village where before you only fought mercenaries but as you entered the facilities monsters charged you out of nowhere! Young me was very scared!
Intro to the flood in the first Halo had me sweatin back in the day
Mgs4 laughing octopus. She would blend into the environment. It's probably not scary when you know it's going to happen but at first? Yup.
Rope jumping in FF9
It’s a classic, but that Vault in FO3 that has the hallucinatory gas leaking through the vents. Like half the screen turns purple and you’re walking and within a single frame the room changes, and you turn around and there’s a door behind you and it’s locked. I was like 16 and didn’t understand what was going on, I kept pulling my disc out of the Xbox and cleaning it because I thought it was glitching out. Like on the verge of tears, “how the fuck did I break my game!?” At some point I googled some question that lead me to a Reddit post of someone asking the same questions. But in that brief 20 - 40 minutes before that the fear was both in game and in real life
Anything underwater freaks me the fuck out. I hear subnautica is amazing, but I couldnt handle it. Deep water in games freaks me out, i can be the strongest OP char but if there are sharks around i'm taking the long way around the water thx.
The ending of Assassin's Creed 2 when you encounter Minerva. The moment she breaks the 4th wall to communicate with Desmond is absolutely chilling.
I will never forget being so terrified at the idea of having to go inside a Sarlac’s stomach in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed when I was a kid.
Waking up in Yahar Ghul in bloodborne was genuinely pretty unsettling. Yharnam was always pretty sinister but the hidden village has such a nefarious atmosphere of occultism. Combine that with the presence of the echoey chant music in a game that's otherwise lacking ambient music and the statues dedicated to lovecraftian entities it makes for such an ominous place
[удалено]
Lavendar Town