Scariest game(s) you've ever played?

[Selastan]

Subnautica

[Tucci]

I shit you not...

Subnautica. http://store.steampowered.com/app/264710/

If anyone here is as terrified of the deep blue sea as I am and what might be lurking beneath you, I highly recommend you give it a look. It's early access and I paid 10 bucks when it was half off on the Steam winter sale. It was worth every penny and more.

It's a survival game. You're dropped off on an alien ocean planet. Alone. On a tiny rescue pod that you have to repair. There are day/night cycles. So yeah. It gets pitch fucking black. In a REALLY deep, vast, terrifying, alien ocean. And because it's alien, they can do whatever the fuck they want with the wildlife...and they did. Straight up Cthulu shit.

The scariest thing is the damn sound. It is SO good. The game is incredibly immersive.

You need food and water constantly to survive and you have to continue to build new things to progress further into the game...where things get bigger and scarier. So you're forced to venture out to gather. I'm 17 hours in and I've barely scratched the surface, no pun intended. If you have big enough balls, you can sniff out the scattered blueprints and craft yourself all kinds of awesome shit.

It's not considered a horror game and it's way fucking scarier than the vast majority that I've played.


Just a few reasons why this game is the scariest for me so far:

1.) I prepared myself to go search a new area. When I got there I found a gigantic sea snake monster with a goddamn Predator face. It was totally open water and it saw me. I could only hide under this bit of wreckage. The fucking thing stalked me while I was under there. It was horrifying. Nothing is scarier than escaping something like that via tiny water scooter thing that moves at like 15 mph with you dangling off the back all while hearing loud, angry roars and moans.

2.) I needed to mine some silver and I stumble across a large hole in the sea floor which leads down a series of tunnels. Against my better judgement I decide to turn my light on and go down. Suddenly my screen goes all crazy and I'm being pulled towards a glowing flower and my computer woman is telling me that my "primary directive is to swim closer to the flower....swim....closer...........CLOSER." I almost shit my fucking pants. Still don't know what the hell it was about to do to me. I broke free from the hypnotizing bullshit and was out.

3.) I touched a gigantic land mass and it swam away.

[Shadowbane]

Played PT round a friend's place at midnight - a memorably fun experience but damn it didn't raise the bar for horror. We watched a horror film afterwards to relax. A shame it won't be made into a full game.

[Tucci]

Subnautica

LOL that's so funny, I just got done typing up that whole thing. I thought I'd be the only one. What even is this game.

[Selastan]

LOL that's so funny, I just got done typing up that whole thing. I thought I'd be the only one. What even is this game.

Scary. For me, its the lack of vision. One short trip and you're in a whole new zone, even though you can probably swim to your base on one breath you can't see it, and you feel like you're on your own. I still have yet to work up the courage to swim anywhere Crabsquid live...the idea of being caught unware by one of them....nope. I'll fight the Sea Dragon Leviathan all night long, but I won't go near a fuckin crabsquid. I also get the scare around the Aurora's wreckage, especially around the back. Seeing massive structures like that really puts it into perspective how deep you are.

[mizeri]

the very first silent hill, the scene where you are walking through the school and the phone rings, and when you pick it up you just hear your kids voice, -chills-

[Nihilan]

Back in the mid 90s System Shock 2 came out and was incredible. Playing in the dark with good surround sound was creepy af. It didnt rely on shit tier jump scares or pools of gore around every corner either. It was all about the immersion and slow-building tension. Probably pretty tame in this day and age of videogame sociopathy, but it definitely left its mark on me at the time.

[Kazgrel]

Obligatory Silent Hill nomination from me.

However, an honorable mention goes to, oddly enough...Final Fantasy 4. Wait, what?

I was 9 years old when my parents got an SNES for me. It was used, and it had FF4 (or 2 as we knew it back then in the US). No instruction manual. So at some point after being tired of playing Super Mario World, I loaded it up, not having any idea how the game worked. Manage to get to overworld map...oh hey cool I can walk around out in the world here - OMG WTF AAAAHHHHH!!!...from the first random mob encounter I ever endured in any game. I remember damn near throwing my controller up through the ceiling at that, lol.

Despite that, I continued to play the game, and the ambience of some of the settings, combined with the creatures encountered, was a bit creepy. The sealed cave in the underworld, the sylvan cave, and any of the stuff on the moon. Creepy central for a then-9 year old.

[Jakexe]

Eternal Darkness.

I went into the game blind and when the insanity mechanic started doing shit with the actual console and tv the fear actually moved beyond what was happening on screen. It was a shock. That and the actual house exploration parts were freaky.

[ryanmahaffe]

Warlords of Draenor


ewww

[Escepticus]

Fatal Frame saga. Worst (in a "good way") than R.E., Silent Hill (I love these two) and others. For me, Fatal Frame, the scariest of all.

[Lady Dragonheart]

I wasn't really a fan of horror games until recently. However, from what I have played, Silent Hill 1, 2, and 3 have all been really creepy with me, even still. Also, the Fatal Frame series, when I played it (though in reverse order: 3, then 2, then the original) always had me on edge in my chair... despite being a wildly fascinating game (I absolutely adore just about any lore and/or stories involving ghosts). I also played the indie game DreadOut, which is very reminicent of Fatal Frame, which I also loved and was scared by for the same reasons as the Fatal Frame series...


I did play several older classic games, like the original Resident Evils and such, but they weren't really scary to me. Most new styled horror games don't really suit me as they are either full of mundane jump-scares and/or lots of gore, which is more repulsive than scary. Also, if I feel empowered by having an arsenal of weapons or some form of formidable AI tank-character to throw at a scary thing, it becomes entirely not scary extremely quickly.


That said, there are many games that I haven't played that I think could be really scary... I just haven't gotten to them. I also feel that VR is going to be a massive key to a lot of potentially good horror games in the near-future.

[May90]

It's tense as fuck, i would buy it just for the pure perfection of the setting and adaptation from the movies, they really nailed the looks and feels from the first movie.

Aliens was one of my first ever horror films as a young boy and to this day remains one of my favorites.

That game would wreck my head.

I absolutely loved the first three Alien movies. That said, the idea of playing Ripley, shaking under a table 3 meters away from a xenomorph without any ability to fight it, doesn't appeal to me much. I like such a situation in movies or in books, but when I'm playing a character in a video game, I want to feel a bit more powerful.

[draykorinee]

LOL that's so funny, I just got done typing up that whole thing. I thought I'd be the only one. What even is this game.

That looks really intriguing. Might have to pick that up

[OGXanos]

That looks really intriguing. Might have to pick that up

"sold" me on it too *downloads from one of friends steam share*

[Deleted]

Haven't played many, but the scariest one for sure was Outlast.

[Deleted]

Layers of Fear i really enjoyed the game good story

[schwarzkopf]

World of Warcraft.

[Lotus Victoria]

Pony Island creeped out me a little bit.

[Aoyi]

I'd probably say the first Resident Evil or original Silent Hill simply because I hadn't really played games like that before. They may not hold up to the games of today, but that zombie dog bursting through the window or my first time seeing the hell/night phase with those little demons chasing you were pretty scary for their time.