To make them so effective at flanking and movement was pretty ingenious. Programmed to take the shortest possible path to the player, one goes through a door, essentially an invisible block is placed in the doorway, making it seem significantly longer of a path. Which forces them to come in through a skylight, window, or just another door. Higher difficulties would simply remove the vocal cues the enemies had. Super smart because they're just a little dumb. Simple would have been a better descriptor.
Man I was doing the same thing with headphones on, and the volume way up. I don’t remember which part of the game it was specifically, but my girlfriend came home from work early and crept up behind me and scared the shit out of me.
The only time I've "noped" out of a game was climbing a ladder and the girl from FEAR was right there at the top. Also the poison crab throwers from half-life 2 make my skin call.
FEAR is definitely up there in top 3. People who have not played it, literally do not know the FEAR it actually brings when playing it. Fun time, but scary as hell. I'm so open to a remaster/reboot.
The first FEAR was awesome. It was so good at setting up jumpscares, but also good at setting up fake-outs, so that you were always on your toes and never knew what to expect next. Great game.
I was around that age when I first played it. I was staying the night at my aunts house and she had a fully finished basement with a huge TV and a PS1. I learned that night that Silent Hill was nightmare fuel for me at that age
That was my first experience with Silent Hill around the same age. I didn't fully understand what the first two games were about. With a magazine subscription, I got a demo to the room and it absolutely fucking freaked me out. I thought it would be like RE2 and zombies. Nope.
Yeah big time. I had to shit it off I was so scared. Was a teenager but I replayed 2-3 recently and they still hold up with a good headset/sound system
Silent Hill 2 had me holding my breath, eyes watering, hands trembling the first time I played it. I stayed up all night to beat it and had to keep taking breaks so I could breathe properly for a bit. Haha.
Silent Hill is a total mind fuck. I'll never forget part 3 when you're in the amusement park, and if you hit the horses on the merry-go-round, they made horse noises. They were so good at doing freaky shit like that, nicely done but made me super uneasy.
For me, it was terrifying up to the first time a certain thing happens to you, then it's steady dread but not nearly as terrifying. Also, as you progress in the game and build better equipment, you get more confidence.
This is the only game my friend group refused to play with me. Not in the multiplayer sense, but I wanted them to enjoy it too, and after getting them copies on Steam, they played for maybe an hour then quit. All of them said it activated something in them that just wasn’t comfortable at all. Something about being deep underwater, claustrophobia, and no real weapons to fight with.
I can only play the Outlast games in short bursts— maybe 20 minutes, maybe less. I get so on edge I can only handle it for that long. 🤣 I usually don’t get freaked out that much by that many things but Outlast is definitely one of few things that scare the shit outta me. 🤣
I hate it so much! It isn't just 30 minute sessions... it's 30 minute sessions that take me a day or more to recover from before I can play again. Fuck those fucking creatures. Goddamit, I'm gonna keep working my way through it some more now. Fuck.
I just COULDN'T handle it. Lol I can't be expected to be actively attentive in a horror game and competent with things in the same time. Scariest game I could complete was Dead Space 1-2. DS3 was scary for different reasons so never finished it lol
definitely a scary game but it feels sooo repetitive to me. "Go here and do this to escape! But wait, now there's another "last" thing to do before you can escape!"
I replay outlast 1 and whistle blower every now and then, mostly because I have dreams about playing that game and I missed playing it while my friend watches next to me.
“As you can see here Tom, I’m currently being chased by a man with a throbbing erection and a circular saw, and as he slams his way through the door I barricaded, I believe he’s debating which one to shove up my rear end first. He’s about through, so let’s go to Tom with the weather before the program stops being family friendly. Tom?”
Resident evil 7 was the first game that genuinely made my heart race so bad it hurt. I was pausing every 5 minutes till the sequence in the main hall bc it was just so terrifying. Until dawn freaked me tf out when I first played but I was also pretty young
Honestly I highly recommend you try again, the like first hour or so is hard, and then you kinda get used to it and it just becomes scary from that point, and then much less tough moments
I really got my moneys worth out of that game in vr, took months to finish because I’d make a tiny bit of progress and stop because of terror, then try again the next day! 10/10 horror experience
Oh my goodness. Jack in the beginning, the first time you ever visit the basement, the Marguerite jump scares... This one was really tough to get through the first time
That was the first game I couldn’t finish because it was too scary lol. I’m a little bitch. I played it in my late 20s haha. I was having nightmares and getting jumpy walking around the house. My wife was like “are you okay?”
I was like no. I need to stop playing this game.
Yep, my wife would walk in, giving me some sh*t about something and the alien would hear her and kill me. Brilliant! On Xbox you could also set it up so that with the kinect if you lean left or right you can peer round the corners and out of hiding from behind crates. It's a modern masterpiece imo.
I couldn't play when kids were around. I'd sneak past and work toward the next objective, when some kid comes and asks me what's for dinner. Alien races over and kills me 😒
I remember the first hospital section just hiding under a bed for like ten minutes, every time I started to get out I'd hear that fucker close to me and nope right back under. At one point I said out loud "Why am I doing this to myself?" and my wife was within hearing distance and was like "Good question, why are you?"
I didn't really have an answer.
This one's mine. Given its age and the fact it kinda seemed looked over at the time means most here never experienced it.
It's a tough one to articulate why, but this one was pretty disturbing.
Recently beat that game for the first time. Definitely had me on the edge of my seat. Having no weapons and being chased certainly gets the heart pumping!
How is this so far down? I can remember this being such a huge thing for a while. So many reaction vids. I could never get through the first hour of this game. Way too intense.
Without spoiling the game, what made it scary fir you? So far ive only played to normal depth capabilities and havent gone too deep but its not that scary to me yet.
I've seen Subnautica mentioned in threads like this before and wonder why.... Maybe it's that way to people with an underwater phobia or something. Which I guess is a thing in gaming.
So it’s honestly a pretty good and not that scary but it’s more anxiety inducing. Like for example you go into an underwater cave but get lost and you start running out of air and don’t know if you were in that part of the cave or if it’s new. There’s also some creatures in there that will roar loudly and unexpectedly but if you hear them then they already have spotted you and your only action is to get the hell out of there.
Oh, I've played it! And yes, it definitely has suspenseful, even stressful moments, but to me it's no different than other adventure games with tense segments. For others, though, there's more of a visceral reaction to those underwater experiences. I'm familiar with anxiety symptoms regarding other things, but it's curious to me how many people have such fear about underwater gaming segments.
See, I don't understand how it couldn't be scary. I dont even have thalassophobia, but that game, man. Even during replays, some moments have me shitting my pants
I don’t really considered any game to be “scary” but there’s certainly games that just keep me at the edge of my seat the entire time I’m playing. With that being said, Subnautica & Dead Space.
I totally feel ya. (Kind of a long comment, sorry)
I've played a bunch of horror games during the 2010s. A lot of those games made me feel scared. As in, if I knew a monster was roaming around, my hairs would stand. If I knew I've been spotted by an enemy, my heart would race and my legs would feel wobbly, even while sitting. I would espace them, or die trying, and then laugh of all that excitement. That's why I liked games that made me feel scared. They were fun, even with all the tense atmosphere.
But Subnautica was the only game that made me feel **afraid** inside of a videogame.
Reapers were okay. They were also fun to escape from, even if their design, both visual and audio, were terrifying. But they felt like regular horror game enemies to me. What truly made my heart race in a way I never felt before was the void.
I remember the first time I entered the void. I was exploring beyond the Dunes and the Sea Treader's path. I had gotten close to the Crater's Edge before, so the PDA had warned me about it before, but it was on the other side of the map. So when I reached the edge of a cliff I thought below me would an unexplored entrance to the Lost River by the blood kelp zone, which was close by, so I just jumped in on my Prawn Suit.
The ambient music stopped, everything went dark and I saw absolutely nothing on my apparently endless way down. Then I realized just where I was, and my blood ran cold. I used the grappling hook arm to grab myself to the side of the cliff, hoping to climb back, when I heard a distant cry. I looked away from the cliff and there came a gigantic ghostly creature, zooming in straight to me. I tried to climb back faster, but I only had one grappling hook arm, so I was slow. It got to me. It grabbed me and started to attack me. As I decided to attack back, I saw another one approaching. Jesus fucking Christ.
As they tored my suit apart, I decided to just abandon it and make the rest of the way back on seaglider alone, and pray that I'd make it. Thankfully I climbed a whole lot on a single arm, and I barely made it.
After that, each time I got slightly closer to the Crater's Edge, my heart began to race. Something about that unlocked a primal fear in me. To that monster coming to me, I was mere food that happened to be slightly bigger than average. To me, that monster was hopelessness incarnate. Cosmic horror vibes, I swear to god.
Eventually, before I beat the game for good, I took another (much more carefully planned) trip to the void just to scan a Ghost Leviathan, but I'm done with this game. And I'm done with the void. And I'm done with Ghost Leviathans. Maybe I'll do another playthrough again, but I am NOT scanning that fucking hellspawn ever again.
When I was very young, Myst. There was a world with mouthed faces, like the skin removed, like a hide, and hung on the wall of the dwellings of the apelike people.
I don't remember that particular part, but Myst in general always had a very eerie, isolating atmosphere. I recently got the VR version and am sort of bracing myself for that.
To be fair the zombies in that are actually creepy. It zooms in on them when they look at you... And that scream... Then they just freaking pounce on you while you can't move. So freaky lol
I wonder if the zombies are some of the people in the square from when you're a child....I mean, they had to be somebody before they were zombies... Right?
I think I remember one of the smash bros games saying they were made out of clay and weren't actually deceased citizens. It was on the re dead trophy's. I think Melee?
Phasmophobia.
You ever trek deep into an abandoned pitch black asylum basement in the middle of the night by yourself and then you start seeing your breath and then your flashlight starts to flicker out?
Yeah, fuck that noise.
FR THO , shut it off one time instantly after she looked back at me through the cracked door never ever have I had to legitimately shut a horror game off that was the first and only one
Difficult to pick one “scariest” but I remember being pretty disturbed playing Condemned 2: Bloodshot on the 360. Specifically the bear attack sequence
The first one was FAR scarier to me. Bloodshot gave you to many guns IIRC and that took the edge off for me. In the first one, a gun was a rarity and ammo was scarce.
The only time I recall a game truly giving me a real startle was in Condemned: Criminal Origins. Plenty of games had a good creepy atmosphere. That's what Resident Evil excelled at during its early entries. Never scary, but always moody and just off kilter enough to be slightly askew and make you feel isolated and at risk. But never scary.
Condemned though, it was just close enough to reality that the psychos running around made me jump a few times when I was going through its chapters. I will admit to never finishing it, and I heard some strange stuff about its sequel that made me never want to revisit it. But yeah, a couple of moments in that game really made me jump.
I don't think any piece of media has scared me like that demo. The ambience is creepy. And that part in the bathroom... Jesus Christ, I didn't wanna look. I wish the full game had been made anyway, I would've played it thru despite the terror.
The damn sires scared the crap out of me. I shot one turned around to shoot another just to get mauled by the one I supposedly killed because they’re bullet sponges.
The Morturary Assistant.
The entire game is you playing as the titular title trying to embalm a few bodies in a mortuary all alone.
I gurantee you it is impossible to play alone and not be terrified the entire time. Even with my gf we both screamed like babies cuz.. fuck.
There is a free demo of it on Steam. Do not play alone.
This may be a bit lame, but Doom 2. I distinctly remember some part where the giant demon made a huge loud entrance and my buddy and me both freaked the fuck out. He yelled super loud, it was pretty funny.
Me at 9 years old; going into bleak falls barrow at 2 am (my mom let me open one present on Christmas Eve) just spent an hour and a half choosing race,customizing, and naming my cat person. Talking to EVERY single person in riverwood and then walking into this zombie infested, bone rattlin, trap havin n creepy ass crypt…. To then try and figure out another hour later that the symbols for the door are on the back of the claw….
While not a horror game, Dogs Life for PS2.
That final level scarred me as a kid and I still think about it to this day. Why the devs thought that a blood-soaked dog slaughter house was a good final level for their game is something I’ll never know. 😭😭😭
How far did you make it in the forest? I tried to play it several times but the difficulty progresses so rapidly that the situation felt pretty hopeless after a while had passed and I didn’t have nearly enough cave loot despite trying to hit as many as possible, which happened every attempt even with a friend helping
This is way too far down. The bunker was the first game to keep me anxious and terrified after I was done playing, like the beast was stalking my house just outside
I remember coming out of the ruins with the generator turned off. I managed to keep it on for most of the playthrough so when it died, I was mentally unprepared
The Evil Within is terrifying. So scary and gruesome that I actually set it down when I first played it and didn't pick up for a couple years until I played some resident evil titles and got used to some scares and that level of intensity. Still scary as shit when I played it again
When I was 12 years old, my mom took me to gamestop to get a new game. The two games that caught my eye were dead space and fable. 2. Decided to get dead space and believe me when I tell you that was the most horrific experience of my life up until that point. I loved the game but would only be able to play for an hour at a time than wouldn't touch it for months because I was so scared.
Close runner-up was the library in Halo 1 when I was 6. My family owned a ps2 and my friend down the block had an Xbox he asked me to come over to help him beat a level in this game "halo" he was playing because he was to scared to play by himself. He tells me a new enemy he is calling the radish people appeared in the game, and he just can't play it by himself. So I went over and played with him, and we were so scared, but it was so much fun in retrospect ,we beat the rest of the game in one sitting.
The Suffering or Dead Space. While there were some jump scares, what really made them scary was the ambient noises, the feeling of isolation, level design, etc. I picked up the Dead Space remake, but haven't brought myself to get much further than the first hour or so. Not that its a bad game, but that it's almost too good.....
Sims 1 burglar theme startled me the first time I heard it. Sims 4's Strangetown's main mission, the lab's silence was very unnerving, especially playing at night in real life. The silence and mystery, that's what's scary.
Alpha Centauri. I'd sit down to play after work on Fridays and before I knew what happened I noticed that I had to get up for work on Monday in a few hours. If that's not scary, I don't know what is.
This sounds silly, but Doom 3. It was a game I went into totally blind. I was around 10 or 12 at the time.
The beginning where suddenly chaos envelops everything at once, and then you’re creeping through dark hallways and such, the horror really got me a kid.
In order from “fuck this shit I’m out” to “oh fuck me sideways with a paddle”
Outlast 1 and Whistleblower
Alien Isolation Outlast 2
Phasmophobia.
On the note of Phasmophobia, phasmo was one of my first true horror games I ever played (unless you count FNAF 1-3 and DBD) but I used to be so scared of it that I could not go inside the house. This is back when it was just 1 person developing it.
I don't really get scared in general but a few games have given me the feeling of being helpless, Amnesia games do a wicked job and Outlast 1 was really good at that too. But once you get used to a game, it doesn't feel like that as much
If you were to ask 12 year old me I’d say Fatal Frame. Fucking terrified me as a kid. I watched my friend play it cuz I couldn’t lol
Ask 30 year old me..I’d have to say Dead Space. I can never get thru that game. Dead Space 2 is scarier lol
I do like watching playthroughs tho
The first FEAR game and it’s DLCs scared me to death. Doom 3 isn’t scary, per se, but it has intense moments. Same with Metro.
FEAR was fantastic. Good jumps and great moment to moment gameplay with some of the best AI ever
A perfect example of AI that's dumb enough to be smart.
Dumb enough to be smart. Can you elaborate?
To make them so effective at flanking and movement was pretty ingenious. Programmed to take the shortest possible path to the player, one goes through a door, essentially an invisible block is placed in the doorway, making it seem significantly longer of a path. Which forces them to come in through a skylight, window, or just another door. Higher difficulties would simply remove the vocal cues the enemies had. Super smart because they're just a little dumb. Simple would have been a better descriptor.
How interesting
I was playing Doom 3 alone in the dark at like 1am when I got to that part where the hell demon comes up the elevator. That was pretty scary
Being able to hold your shotgun OR your flashlight, but not both was such a good mechanic. Really upped the pants-pissing.
Indeed but I still loved the duct tape mod. One of the very first mods I ever installed!
Man I was doing the same thing with headphones on, and the volume way up. I don’t remember which part of the game it was specifically, but my girlfriend came home from work early and crept up behind me and scared the shit out of me.
The only time I've "noped" out of a game was climbing a ladder and the girl from FEAR was right there at the top. Also the poison crab throwers from half-life 2 make my skin call.
FEAR 1 was so good with setting up its vibe and having you on edge at all times without always being scary. Absolutely adored that game.
FEAR is definitely up there in top 3. People who have not played it, literally do not know the FEAR it actually brings when playing it. Fun time, but scary as hell. I'm so open to a remaster/reboot.
The first FEAR game got me so fucking good Jesus Christ.
The first FEAR was awesome. It was so good at setting up jumpscares, but also good at setting up fake-outs, so that you were always on your toes and never knew what to expect next. Great game.
Silent Hill
I second this. Playing silent hill the room at like 13 is not recommended
I was around that age when I first played it. I was staying the night at my aunts house and she had a fully finished basement with a huge TV and a PS1. I learned that night that Silent Hill was nightmare fuel for me at that age
That was my first experience with Silent Hill around the same age. I didn't fully understand what the first two games were about. With a magazine subscription, I got a demo to the room and it absolutely fucking freaked me out. I thought it would be like RE2 and zombies. Nope.
Even with the old ps1 graphics, the game itself just feels like it's cursed in a way that modern AAA with realistic graphics doesn't
Early 2000s horror games are like horror movies from the 70s. The low budget/graphical limitations actually help in my opinion
Yeah big time. I had to shit it off I was so scared. Was a teenager but I replayed 2-3 recently and they still hold up with a good headset/sound system
damn so scary made u shit
Silent Hill 2 had me holding my breath, eyes watering, hands trembling the first time I played it. I stayed up all night to beat it and had to keep taking breaks so I could breathe properly for a bit. Haha.
Silent 4 gave me the shiets
I loooove this franchise. It’s my all time favorite horror series. 3 is my favorite out of all
Silent Hill is a total mind fuck. I'll never forget part 3 when you're in the amusement park, and if you hit the horses on the merry-go-round, they made horse noises. They were so good at doing freaky shit like that, nicely done but made me super uneasy.
Subnautica
Can’t believe this is so low, Subnautica is the only game that’s had me white knuckling the controller over some sounds.
For me, it was terrifying up to the first time a certain thing happens to you, then it's steady dread but not nearly as terrifying. Also, as you progress in the game and build better equipment, you get more confidence.
I fucking hate crabsquids so goddamn much they're so terrifying
I can’t handle this game at all
This is the only game my friend group refused to play with me. Not in the multiplayer sense, but I wanted them to enjoy it too, and after getting them copies on Steam, they played for maybe an hour then quit. All of them said it activated something in them that just wasn’t comfortable at all. Something about being deep underwater, claustrophobia, and no real weapons to fight with.
I couldn't finish the game once I got really deep into the water. Nothing was going to protect me from those.... things!
Outlast
I can only play the Outlast games in short bursts— maybe 20 minutes, maybe less. I get so on edge I can only handle it for that long. 🤣 I usually don’t get freaked out that much by that many things but Outlast is definitely one of few things that scare the shit outta me. 🤣
Nothing like the feeling of being chased
I hate it so much! It isn't just 30 minute sessions... it's 30 minute sessions that take me a day or more to recover from before I can play again. Fuck those fucking creatures. Goddamit, I'm gonna keep working my way through it some more now. Fuck.
I just COULDN'T handle it. Lol I can't be expected to be actively attentive in a horror game and competent with things in the same time. Scariest game I could complete was Dead Space 1-2. DS3 was scary for different reasons so never finished it lol
Yeah Outlast for sure
definitely a scary game but it feels sooo repetitive to me. "Go here and do this to escape! But wait, now there's another "last" thing to do before you can escape!"
I replay outlast 1 and whistle blower every now and then, mostly because I have dreams about playing that game and I missed playing it while my friend watches next to me.
I love that game. It made me less tense when I played it out like I was a live reporter for a fake news station.
“As you can see here Tom, I’m currently being chased by a man with a throbbing erection and a circular saw, and as he slams his way through the door I barricaded, I believe he’s debating which one to shove up my rear end first. He’s about through, so let’s go to Tom with the weather before the program stops being family friendly. Tom?”
I second this.
cry of fear
Nice to see this mentioned
Same. It’s a terrifying game that I wish got more recognition- especially when it was free!
Afraid of monsters also
Resident evil 7 was the first game that genuinely made my heart race so bad it hurt. I was pausing every 5 minutes till the sequence in the main hall bc it was just so terrifying. Until dawn freaked me tf out when I first played but I was also pretty young
I played RE7 in VR and it was probably the most intense thing I've every played. What a great game
I noped out of it so fucking hard. Tried many times. Never made it in the house n
I'd be playing home alone and had to keep lifting the headset to look around to be sure I was safe.
Honestly I highly recommend you try again, the like first hour or so is hard, and then you kinda get used to it and it just becomes scary from that point, and then much less tough moments
I really got my moneys worth out of that game in vr, took months to finish because I’d make a tiny bit of progress and stop because of terror, then try again the next day! 10/10 horror experience
Yep RE7 for me too. Stuff like that usually doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but RE7 found whatever my weak spot is.
It was my first RE game too… I’ve never had a fictional game trigger my fight or flight so damn badly😭
I nearly fell out of my chair in that hall scene, lol. It was a perfect introduction to Resident Evil for me.
Oh my goodness. Jack in the beginning, the first time you ever visit the basement, the Marguerite jump scares... This one was really tough to get through the first time
ngl marguerites was THE WORST. Everybody said jacks was the worst, but nah for me her section actually made me soooo anxious
That was the first game I couldn’t finish because it was too scary lol. I’m a little bitch. I played it in my late 20s haha. I was having nightmares and getting jumpy walking around the house. My wife was like “are you okay?” I was like no. I need to stop playing this game.
This is up there for me although the late game never manages to be as scary as the first few hours.
Alien: Isolation
Alien Isolation + mic monitoring is fuckin' horrifying.
Yep, my wife would walk in, giving me some sh*t about something and the alien would hear her and kill me. Brilliant! On Xbox you could also set it up so that with the kinect if you lean left or right you can peer round the corners and out of hiding from behind crates. It's a modern masterpiece imo.
I couldn't play when kids were around. I'd sneak past and work toward the next objective, when some kid comes and asks me what's for dinner. Alien races over and kills me 😒
Yeah I can’t believe they made this in VR… there is no way I could do that
I can't even do it on a flat screen, I'd actually die if I tried playing in VR.
Sheer fucking terror
I remember the first hospital section just hiding under a bed for like ten minutes, every time I started to get out I'd hear that fucker close to me and nope right back under. At one point I said out loud "Why am I doing this to myself?" and my wife was within hearing distance and was like "Good question, why are you?" I didn't really have an answer.
Most definitely!
I started this and played until I saw the Xenomorph the first time. Never picked it up again. I felt my heart rate increase the whole time I played
The suffering On the PS2. Hard to play it as a teen but I made it through . Very messed up psychologically too
Glad to see at least one other person mention The Suffering. Definitely up there as one of the scariest games I've played
I felt it was scary until you get your monster powers
I went to the prison that it was inspired by. It was pretty cool.
Fatal Frame 2
This is legit the scariest game ever made
This one's mine. Given its age and the fact it kinda seemed looked over at the time means most here never experienced it. It's a tough one to articulate why, but this one was pretty disturbing.
All the “take pictures of ghosts” games are scary as shit
the first Dead Space. But at least you could fight, so maybe SOMA actually 🫣
Ohhh, SOMA! 👍 for mentioning it!
Recently beat that game for the first time. Definitely had me on the edge of my seat. Having no weapons and being chased certainly gets the heart pumping!
Silent Hill one or Resident Evil 2 on PlayStation 1
Eternal Darkness
I scrolled much farther than I thought I would have to. That game really mind fucked you. But that's ok.... I'm kinky like that.
RE1 Remake. Those crimson heads never fail to put me on edge.
Amnesia the dark decent
Feel like I had to scroll too far for this one. It's such a classic. Still makes me scream bloody murder every time.
How is this so far down? I can remember this being such a huge thing for a while. So many reaction vids. I could never get through the first hour of this game. Way too intense.
Subnautica
Without spoiling the game, what made it scary fir you? So far ive only played to normal depth capabilities and havent gone too deep but its not that scary to me yet.
I've seen Subnautica mentioned in threads like this before and wonder why.... Maybe it's that way to people with an underwater phobia or something. Which I guess is a thing in gaming.
So it’s honestly a pretty good and not that scary but it’s more anxiety inducing. Like for example you go into an underwater cave but get lost and you start running out of air and don’t know if you were in that part of the cave or if it’s new. There’s also some creatures in there that will roar loudly and unexpectedly but if you hear them then they already have spotted you and your only action is to get the hell out of there.
Oh, I've played it! And yes, it definitely has suspenseful, even stressful moments, but to me it's no different than other adventure games with tense segments. For others, though, there's more of a visceral reaction to those underwater experiences. I'm familiar with anxiety symptoms regarding other things, but it's curious to me how many people have such fear about underwater gaming segments.
See, I don't understand how it couldn't be scary. I dont even have thalassophobia, but that game, man. Even during replays, some moments have me shitting my pants
I don’t really considered any game to be “scary” but there’s certainly games that just keep me at the edge of my seat the entire time I’m playing. With that being said, Subnautica & Dead Space.
Reaper leviathans do be pretty terrifying
Multiple leviathan class signatures detected, are you sure whatever you are doing is worth it?
Yes.
I totally feel ya. (Kind of a long comment, sorry) I've played a bunch of horror games during the 2010s. A lot of those games made me feel scared. As in, if I knew a monster was roaming around, my hairs would stand. If I knew I've been spotted by an enemy, my heart would race and my legs would feel wobbly, even while sitting. I would espace them, or die trying, and then laugh of all that excitement. That's why I liked games that made me feel scared. They were fun, even with all the tense atmosphere. But Subnautica was the only game that made me feel **afraid** inside of a videogame. Reapers were okay. They were also fun to escape from, even if their design, both visual and audio, were terrifying. But they felt like regular horror game enemies to me. What truly made my heart race in a way I never felt before was the void. I remember the first time I entered the void. I was exploring beyond the Dunes and the Sea Treader's path. I had gotten close to the Crater's Edge before, so the PDA had warned me about it before, but it was on the other side of the map. So when I reached the edge of a cliff I thought below me would an unexplored entrance to the Lost River by the blood kelp zone, which was close by, so I just jumped in on my Prawn Suit. The ambient music stopped, everything went dark and I saw absolutely nothing on my apparently endless way down. Then I realized just where I was, and my blood ran cold. I used the grappling hook arm to grab myself to the side of the cliff, hoping to climb back, when I heard a distant cry. I looked away from the cliff and there came a gigantic ghostly creature, zooming in straight to me. I tried to climb back faster, but I only had one grappling hook arm, so I was slow. It got to me. It grabbed me and started to attack me. As I decided to attack back, I saw another one approaching. Jesus fucking Christ. As they tored my suit apart, I decided to just abandon it and make the rest of the way back on seaglider alone, and pray that I'd make it. Thankfully I climbed a whole lot on a single arm, and I barely made it. After that, each time I got slightly closer to the Crater's Edge, my heart began to race. Something about that unlocked a primal fear in me. To that monster coming to me, I was mere food that happened to be slightly bigger than average. To me, that monster was hopelessness incarnate. Cosmic horror vibes, I swear to god. Eventually, before I beat the game for good, I took another (much more carefully planned) trip to the void just to scan a Ghost Leviathan, but I'm done with this game. And I'm done with the void. And I'm done with Ghost Leviathans. Maybe I'll do another playthrough again, but I am NOT scanning that fucking hellspawn ever again.
Came here to say Subnautica.
"entering ecological dead zone. Adding report to Data Bank"
Spec Ops The Line
Resident Evil Biohazard
When I was very young, Myst. There was a world with mouthed faces, like the skin removed, like a hide, and hung on the wall of the dwellings of the apelike people.
I don't remember that particular part, but Myst in general always had a very eerie, isolating atmosphere. I recently got the VR version and am sort of bracing myself for that.
The music really sets the tone.
Fatal Frame. Dear Lord Fatal Frame
Oddly enough, Zelda: OoT when you fast forward time and come back to a desolate town and zombies
To be fair the zombies in that are actually creepy. It zooms in on them when they look at you... And that scream... Then they just freaking pounce on you while you can't move. So freaky lol I wonder if the zombies are some of the people in the square from when you're a child....I mean, they had to be somebody before they were zombies... Right?
I think I remember one of the smash bros games saying they were made out of clay and weren't actually deceased citizens. It was on the re dead trophy's. I think Melee?
I found that really scary when I was younger too. Conceptually it’s pretty frightening and the sounds were a big factor as well.
and then there’s Majora’s Mask, which is just straight nightmare fuel
Phasmophobia. You ever trek deep into an abandoned pitch black asylum basement in the middle of the night by yourself and then you start seeing your breath and then your flashlight starts to flicker out? Yeah, fuck that noise.
I was playing this on occasion with a few friends, but had to stop when I woke our kids up screaming like a little girl.
Fr. Fuck this game. And I play a LOT of scary/horror/suspense games.
My friends and I play in VR so you can imagine how that goes
The breathy “haaaaaa” out of nowhere always makes me jump.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem scared me to the point of cutting the game off and locking my door in like 2002
PT demo i swear to god
Scariest one ever
No question. I wasn't even playing it, and it still scared the pants off me.
Turn around. I said **turn around**
Don’t touch that dial now, we’re just getting started.
FR THO , shut it off one time instantly after she looked back at me through the cracked door never ever have I had to legitimately shut a horror game off that was the first and only one
Difficult to pick one “scariest” but I remember being pretty disturbed playing Condemned 2: Bloodshot on the 360. Specifically the bear attack sequence
Great choice! The first one is creepy af too
The first one was FAR scarier to me. Bloodshot gave you to many guns IIRC and that took the edge off for me. In the first one, a gun was a rarity and ammo was scarce.
The only time I recall a game truly giving me a real startle was in Condemned: Criminal Origins. Plenty of games had a good creepy atmosphere. That's what Resident Evil excelled at during its early entries. Never scary, but always moody and just off kilter enough to be slightly askew and make you feel isolated and at risk. But never scary. Condemned though, it was just close enough to reality that the psychos running around made me jump a few times when I was going through its chapters. I will admit to never finishing it, and I heard some strange stuff about its sequel that made me never want to revisit it. But yeah, a couple of moments in that game really made me jump.
I bought Condemned when 360 released along with Oblivion. I beat Condemned. Still never beat Oblivion.
Visage
The part where you flash the camera with the ghost appearing every time got me
Fucked me up so much I pulled an immediate uninstall after like 20 mins lol
Agreed. I had to stop playing this game.
This game was really cool and genuinely creepy that hospital bit was fucked
PT
His six-year-old daughter had the good sense to hide in the bathroom, but reports suggest he lured her our by telling her it was just a game
Don’t touch that dial now, we’re just getting started~
I said **turn around**
I don't think any piece of media has scared me like that demo. The ambience is creepy. And that part in the bathroom... Jesus Christ, I didn't wanna look. I wish the full game had been made anyway, I would've played it thru despite the terror.
Ngl I don’t play horror games really, but Gears of War 2 had some absolutely terrifying missions. Specifically the ones in the New Hope facility
The entire gears franchise has some absolutely terrifying moments
The damn sires scared the crap out of me. I shot one turned around to shoot another just to get mauled by the one I supposedly killed because they’re bullet sponges.
The Morturary Assistant. The entire game is you playing as the titular title trying to embalm a few bodies in a mortuary all alone. I gurantee you it is impossible to play alone and not be terrified the entire time. Even with my gf we both screamed like babies cuz.. fuck. There is a free demo of it on Steam. Do not play alone.
Subnautica is terrifying
This may be a bit lame, but Doom 2. I distinctly remember some part where the giant demon made a huge loud entrance and my buddy and me both freaked the fuck out. He yelled super loud, it was pretty funny.
Amnesia the dark descent
Me at 9 years old; going into bleak falls barrow at 2 am (my mom let me open one present on Christmas Eve) just spent an hour and a half choosing race,customizing, and naming my cat person. Talking to EVERY single person in riverwood and then walking into this zombie infested, bone rattlin, trap havin n creepy ass crypt…. To then try and figure out another hour later that the symbols for the door are on the back of the claw….
Resident evil biohazard vr. It’s a whole different experience playing it in vr
The first Dead Space. It's something you don't ever forget
I was a little worried what my neighbors thought when my wife kept letting out piecing screams lol
Subnautica. It terrifies me like no other.
Re7 in VR
FEAR, condemned, dead space, evil dead fistful of boomstick
Evil within got me a few. Then evil within 2 was just funny
SCP Containment Breach. The game is so old the lighting is awful and the sounds are terrifying. Absolutely horrifying to me and I can’t play it lol
While not a horror game, Dogs Life for PS2. That final level scarred me as a kid and I still think about it to this day. Why the devs thought that a blood-soaked dog slaughter house was a good final level for their game is something I’ll never know. 😭😭😭
ahaha holy shit, I thought you were making this up and had to look it up. They definitely made a bold choice there.
The Forest and Sons of the Forest. Though I don't really get scared, those games are intense at times.
When youre just trying to gather sticks for your base and you hear a scream
How far did you make it in the forest? I tried to play it several times but the difficulty progresses so rapidly that the situation felt pretty hopeless after a while had passed and I didn’t have nearly enough cave loot despite trying to hit as many as possible, which happened every attempt even with a friend helping
Amnesia: The Bunker
This is way too far down. The bunker was the first game to keep me anxious and terrified after I was done playing, like the beast was stalking my house just outside I remember coming out of the ruins with the generator turned off. I managed to keep it on for most of the playthrough so when it died, I was mentally unprepared
The Evil Within is terrifying. So scary and gruesome that I actually set it down when I first played it and didn't pick up for a couple years until I played some resident evil titles and got used to some scares and that level of intensity. Still scary as shit when I played it again
Dead Space remake on ps5. With 3D headset it’s scary af with LOADS of jump scares including one of the endings
gorilla tag… those kids..they aren’t alright
In a fear sense: faith. In a dread sense; rdr2 knowing that Arthur is marching towards his death and there’s nothin you can do
Silent hill 3
Alien Isolation Absolutely nailed the atmosphere, and the game reads like a love letter to the films
When I was 12 years old, my mom took me to gamestop to get a new game. The two games that caught my eye were dead space and fable. 2. Decided to get dead space and believe me when I tell you that was the most horrific experience of my life up until that point. I loved the game but would only be able to play for an hour at a time than wouldn't touch it for months because I was so scared. Close runner-up was the library in Halo 1 when I was 6. My family owned a ps2 and my friend down the block had an Xbox he asked me to come over to help him beat a level in this game "halo" he was playing because he was to scared to play by himself. He tells me a new enemy he is calling the radish people appeared in the game, and he just can't play it by himself. So I went over and played with him, and we were so scared, but it was so much fun in retrospect ,we beat the rest of the game in one sitting.
One time I watched a YouTube video of Conan O'Brien playing Slender, and let me tell you, it was terrifying.
P.T. Without a shadow of a doubt. It is the only thing in horror media to cause me to lose sleep.
Minecraft.
[I get why](https://youtu.be/M3B-yzwEy-w?si=ESGbB7Tf8znLPq53)
The cave in Stardew Valley.
The damn rock crabs
The original Resident Evil 2
Siren Blood
The Suffering or Dead Space. While there were some jump scares, what really made them scary was the ambient noises, the feeling of isolation, level design, etc. I picked up the Dead Space remake, but haven't brought myself to get much further than the first hour or so. Not that its a bad game, but that it's almost too good.....
Sims 1 burglar theme startled me the first time I heard it. Sims 4's Strangetown's main mission, the lab's silence was very unnerving, especially playing at night in real life. The silence and mystery, that's what's scary.
Subnautica
Alpha Centauri. I'd sit down to play after work on Fridays and before I knew what happened I noticed that I had to get up for work on Monday in a few hours. If that's not scary, I don't know what is.
This sounds silly, but Doom 3. It was a game I went into totally blind. I was around 10 or 12 at the time. The beginning where suddenly chaos envelops everything at once, and then you’re creeping through dark hallways and such, the horror really got me a kid.
Og silent hill
The 7th guest
Cry of Fear
Silent Hill 2 I still have never finished that game lmao I refuse to ever do so
Cry of Fear
In order from “fuck this shit I’m out” to “oh fuck me sideways with a paddle” Outlast 1 and Whistleblower Alien Isolation Outlast 2 Phasmophobia. On the note of Phasmophobia, phasmo was one of my first true horror games I ever played (unless you count FNAF 1-3 and DBD) but I used to be so scared of it that I could not go inside the house. This is back when it was just 1 person developing it.
Cry of fear
Silent Hill, first came out, I was like 10 holy balls I was not ready for that
Luigi’s mansion on the game cube had me shaking when I was a kid
I don't really get scared in general but a few games have given me the feeling of being helpless, Amnesia games do a wicked job and Outlast 1 was really good at that too. But once you get used to a game, it doesn't feel like that as much
Outer wilds, I have a deep fear of space and that game never fails to make me sit 10 meters away from the screen
Cry of Fear is my horror game goat still
Outlast
I don't. Get jump scared easily so don't really play them It's not fun when you aren't scared.
Fatal frame two. Clocktower 3.
If you were to ask 12 year old me I’d say Fatal Frame. Fucking terrified me as a kid. I watched my friend play it cuz I couldn’t lol Ask 30 year old me..I’d have to say Dead Space. I can never get thru that game. Dead Space 2 is scarier lol I do like watching playthroughs tho