People enjoy giving themselves a good fright every now and again. This is very evident from the many different kinds of horror films we watch, playing scary practical jokes, or a player sitting behind a screen with a shaking controller in their hands.
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Horror games are just a really fun way to face one’s fears and said fears come in many shapes and forms. This includes haunted animatronics, unstoppable mutated zombies, evil clowns, or even small children. These are but a few of the heart-racing implantations that horror games have experimented with over the decades. Some of these stand out from the rest and have successfully injected more fear into the hearts of their players than any other game has been able to.
10 Sudden Little Girl
F.E.A.R.
- Almost always never expect Alma when she appears.
- Jump scares when you are trying to focus on something else.
First-person shooters that have a very heavy lean into the horror genre are not too uncommon. However, some lean more heavily than others. This is more evident in games like Bioshock and F.E.A.R., which create an ebb and flow between their action combat elements and create a genuine moment of terror in their players.
It is the way of man to make monsters. And it is the nature of monsters to destroy their makers.
F.E.A.R really hit the nail on the head when it came to being unsettling. Players would see an enemy patrol around a corner, and when they tried to sneak up on them, they turned into a dead end without any enemy in sight. They turn around, and the environment is “off” in some way. However, a persistent jump scare came in the form of a little girl named Alma. This can be simply when you turn around or are trying to focus on another task.
F.E.A.R.
- Released
- October 17, 2005
9 People Pretending To Be Puppets
Condemned: Criminal Origins
- Unsure which dummies are safe and which are dangerous.
- Immediate sense of tension whenever seeing a lone dummy in a corner.
Living puppets and/or statues of some kind can be incredibly creepy and unnerving. So much so that it rivals clowns as being a common phobia among people. Condemned features a level that is filled with plenty of dressmaker’s dummies scattered around. It is hard to realize when one of them might move out of place from how it was originally positioned.
Body’s rottin’ as we speak. The patrolman on duty said there was a mannequin involved. Just like the Match Maker.
However, at one point, one of them will just straight up walk off of its stand and come at the player. Players will soon encounter many more of these dressmaker’s dummies that are actually people in masks who are just standing really still until they can get the jump on the player.
Condemned: Criminal Origins
- Released
- November 15, 2005
8 Zombie Dogs
Resident Evil
- A fixed camera angle allows every player to experience this jump scare in the same way.
- A new kind of nimble and highly aggressive enemy has a player panicking before they start reacting.
The original Resident Evil was one of the best horror gaming experiences at the time of its release. New technology was on the rise and allowed for some completely new ways to play and enjoy games. The game featured fixed camera angles that would change when players moved to different parts of the map.
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This allowed the game to set up the perfect position for one of the game’s most notorious jump scare moments — when a zombie dog would come bursting through a window. This is not the only time this happens, as it occurs again at the very next camera angle.
7 Mr. X Coming Through The Door
Resident Evil 2 Remake
- Mr. X cannot be stopped, only slowed down.
- Constantly on edge, listening for footsteps.
Resident Evil 2 Remake helped kickstart a large resurgence of interest in the survival horror genre. Its massive success caused a lot of studios to realize that there is still a large enough audience just looking to be scared.
While the game has many terrifying moments throughout it, one of the most terrifying of the lot comes in the form of Mr. X. Once you see him, all you can do is attempt to get as far away from him as possible. Even though he pushes helicopters aside and comes smashing through solid walls, one of the most heart-stopping of moments is when you approach a door only to have Mr. X come from the other side.
Resident Evil 2 (2019)
- Released
- January 25, 2019
6 Something In The Water
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
- Being targeted by something you cannot see.
- Need to navigate through tight corridors and small spaces.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a game that doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to delivering a brilliant horror game experience. It continues to deliver scare after scare and is ideal for anyone looking to experience consecutive bouts of terror throughout a single playthrough — all in one game.
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There is a flooded basement in the game, and players will need to keep an ear out for an invisible monster that can only be detected by its steps in the water. This part of the game is so terrifying, that some players stopped playing the game entirely.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
- Released
- September 8, 2010
5 Animatronic Jumpscare
Five Nights At Freddy’s
- Players cannot move during the game.
- Players constantly need to engage and focus or fail the night.
One of the biggest horror games in all of gaming history is Five Nights at Freddy’s. What sounds like just another dime-a-dozen indie horror game, which is not wrong, would develop an internet-breaking cult classic of a franchise. It has spawned countless sequels and even a feature-length film.
I guess he doesn’t like being watched.
The game puts players in the position of a security guard that cannot leave their desk. Players have to manage various tasks and while their focus is on one thing, they can turn into a jump scare from one of the animatronic nightmares waiting for them.
Five Nights at Freddy’s
- Released
- August 8, 2014
- Developer(s)
- Scott Cawthon
4 Deleted Save File
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
- Players are already in a panicked state from a low sanity meter.
- Makes you believe you just deleted your save file.
Games like Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem are true gems in the gaming world. They go out of their way to be unorthodox so that players have new ways to discover things they never knew they would be completely delighted by. Other noteworthy examples are Psycho Mantis using his “mind reading” on players, or how the original PlayStation let you take out the disc you were using to use another game disc to unlock a secret.
Are you sure you want to delete all of your Saved Games? (Note: All of your progress so far will be lost!)
Players in the game have a Sanity Meter. As this gets lower, many strange and unsettling things start to happen when players enter a room or pick up an item. One of the most terrifying things is when a player attempts to save when their sanity is too low, the game will ask if the player is sure they want to delete all of their saves. To make things even worse, the only options are “yes” and “continue without saving.” Seeing all the time and effort just gone is a sense of dread that supersedes any short-lived jump scare.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
- Released
- June 24, 2002
- Developer(s)
- Silicon Knights
3 Seeing Lisa
P.T.
- Fear instantly sets in each time you see Lisa appear.
- Constantly looking over one’s shoulder to make sure she isn’t stalking the player.
Players navigate through a nightmarish looping corridor of rooms. Constantly looking for something that might be different or out of place, often finding disturbing features with each repetition. The most terrifying of the lot is Lisa, a haunting apparition that appears throughout P.T. and makes players panic to get away in time.
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Sadly, P.T. was only a demo for a game that was ultimately pulled from development. Even worse is that the game is no longer obtainable through official means. However, it left such a mark on the community that it is still spoken of to this day.
2 Man-Bat
Batman: Arkham Knight
- Completely out of place and unexpected.
- Not being a horror game lulls players into a mindset where the scare hits harder.
Batman: Arkham Knight is not a horror game, but that is just why this scene is so noteworthy on this list. Batman: Arkham Knight is a game where you get to be a superhero, armed with plenty of gadgets and an intuitive combat system that is challenging, but still fair.
I… I feel different. I can’t explain it. Something inside. A presence. What’s happening to me?
While the player is traversing the game through the open skies. The player can use their grappling hook to latch onto buildings and shoot up towards their roofs. Normally, they just vault at the end and are on the roof. However, completely without warning, the player will encounter Man-Bat at some point. This jump scare is completely unexpected and the face they see is so ghoulish that it can cause one’s controller to slip from their relaxed grip.
Batman: Arkham Knight
- Released
- June 23, 2015
- Developer(s)
- Rocksteady Studios
1 Making The Mind Think It Is Actually In Danger
Dreadhalls
- Utilizes tried and true horror game tropes perfectly.
- Players feel trapped and need to keep moving through a maze of horror.
Everything about Dreadhalls is a textbook horror game. It has players navigating through tight hallways, has rooms where players need to interact and focus on objects that open them up to worrying about something that might be coming, very eerie music with subtle sound effects, and threats that behave in different manners. The fact the game is in VR just elevated this game to a new dimension, especially since devices like the Oculus Rift were still in their early stages and VR was a new frontier.
Use the oil in your inventory to fuel your light
This game had Youtube Let’s Players screaming louder than any of their previous videos — one in particular even starts to cry after pulling the headset off of them. This game hit hard, and for those who have never tried VR, is the perfect way to have your brain believe you are in a nightmare scenario. While many horror games that have come later have implemented VR, Dreadhalls lack of a narrative story is what makes it such a frightening ordeal. Players feel like they are the ones actually undergoing this experience and are left feeling truly scared while playing. It doesn’t need to do anything ‘new’, because it does what already works perfectly.
Dreadhalls
- Released
- March 28, 2016
- Developer
- White Door Games
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