13 Frightening Moments In Games That Live In Our Heads Rent Free - Kotaku

We’re astir a week and immoderate days distant from Halloween, my fave holiday, but the spooky play is already successful afloat plaything present astatine Kotaku. While I’ve precocious blogged astir FromSoftware games—and Bloodborne’s Amygdala—giving maine the creeps, I figured I’d grow the scope and circular up immoderate of the astir terrifying moments successful games, period. Because determination are plenty.

This database kinda has it all. There are the ace creepy necromorphs successful Dead Space. You’ve got the incredibly eerie Shalebridge Cradle successful Thief: Deadly Shadows. And of people there’s a motion to Silent Hill 2, which Konami confirmed is getting remade by Layers of Fear developer Bloober Team. So what are we waiting for? You’re not…scared, are you?

There are a batch of iconic, memorable villains connected this list, but I deliberation the scariest things successful video games are the things that play closest to the things I find the scariest successful existent life. And for me, that’s sharks. Not lone bash immoderate of them devour people, and I unrecorded successful a state wherever that’s a real, existent information (and I’ve had my run-ins with them before, which hasn’t helped!), but it’s the information they’re truthful hidden, truthful invisible, conscionable lurking determination beneath the waves. One 2nd you could beryllium surfing, the adjacent you’re missing a leg.

So I get beauteous damn frightened whenever determination are sharks successful a video game! Assassin’s Creed Black Flag’s underwater sections were a nightmare, and I adjacent conflict erstwhile Wind Waker’s cartoony sharks sound you disconnected your boat. But 1 video crippled shark scares maine much than immoderate other, and that’s Half-Life’s. It’s fast, the first-person viewpoint means you ne'er spot it coming, it’s deadly, and you’re trapped successful a truly tiny spot with it. All the ingredients I request to marque maine perfectly crap my pants. —Luke Plunkett

The sanction unsocial is perturbing enough, but past you spot the headcrab successful action. Its meek assemblage scuttling crossed the floor, leaping toward your cranium astatine each accidental it gets. It’s truthful gross! Part crab, astir the size of a pumpkin, and the aforesaid fleshy colour arsenic a quality scalp, this grotesque parasitoid doesn’t conscionable privation a small bite. It wants your full body, actually, arsenic it commandeers your centrifugal functions erstwhile it bites down connected your skull. Whatever consciousness you had volition soon beryllium replaced due to the fact that the headcrab, should it latch on, turns you into a damn zombie. And erstwhile the zombification is done, your tummy cavity volition beryllium swapped retired with a gaping, sharp-toothed rima and your fingers volition turn into lengthy talons. Yuck. —Levi Winslow

It’s hard not to deliberation astir batshit brainsick scary moments from gamers’ pasts and not unlocking the suppressed representation of The Twins from Red Barrels’ first-person endurance game, Outlast. Although the crippled has its just stock of arsenic freakish baddies, 2 cannibalistic brothers stalking you astir each country of David Cage’s bedewed imagination of a intelligence asylum, with their dicks retired similar it’s going retired of style, takes the barroom each freaking time. Truly, an unrivaled show of caucasity. —Isaiah Colbert

Little Nightmares is 1 creepy-ass game. Every being successful it is immoderate kinda monstrosity, either deformed, deranged, oregon both. And the Janitor is nary objection here. Though blinded by the soma of his scalp, his proceeding is extraordinarily precise. While slowed owed to truncated limb length, his elongated arms springiness him plentifulness of reach. And contempt not looking it, connected relationship of his airy and chalky skin, he’s beauteous strong, crushing your puny small assemblage the infinitesimal helium gets ahold of you. The encounter with the Janitor is genuinely unsettling arsenic you play a unsafe crippled of cat-and-mouse, hoping to flight with your beingness and limbs inactive intact portion helium gropes each crevice looking for you. The crippled gave maine anxiousness arsenic The Maw creaked and groaned passim my playthrough, but gathering the Janitor haunted me. —Levi Winslow

I truly hatred the Bubble Head Nurses successful Silent Hill 2. They’re slimy-skinned, staggering monsters with bloated heads hardly connected to their necks, but, luckily for James, their push-up bras and cleavage stay generously intact. That juxtaposition makes maine consciousness gross—it aims to titillate somewhat much than it wants to scare. Like, the Nurses’ skirts are excessively short, and erstwhile you sound 1 down, they wriggle connected the crushed with their ass up.

This is immoderate palmy monster-ing, though. The Nurses, similar each of Silent Hill’s horrors, are meant to bespeak the anxieties of their viewer. In 2’s case, that’s James and his unresolved woman trauma and intersexual frustration. Unfortunately, I deliberation James’ subconscious projections are supremely gross. Go to therapy.

Some of Richard Prince’s dripping caregiver paintings from the aboriginal 2000s, masked, posing women covered successful blood, marque maine deliberation of the Bubble Heads. Everyone wants to debilitate the pistillate holding a syringe. —Ashley Bardhan

There are fewer enemies successful games that disrupt a team’s dynamic rather similar the stupidly annoying and terrifyingly almighty witches successful Left 4 Dead. These foes suck, and not conscionable due to the fact that they tin down you successful a azygous hit—though that’s portion of it. Frail and unassuming, the witches fto retired these ominous weeps and moans arsenic you navigate done a level. They aren’t convulsive disconnected the rip, but don’t fto their docile quality fool you. Get adjacent capable and you’ll agitate the witch, prompting her to sprint truthful accelerated toward you that it feels similar she teleported. Then she incapacitates you with conscionable 1 stroke earlier mauling you to decease with her long, sharp, bloodied claws. And there’s truly not a full batch you tin bash erstwhile she gets you since she’s not conscionable incredibly beardown but besides incredibly resilient, which makes encountering her each the much frightening. —Levi Winslow

“Take a breather Spidey, it’s over.” That’s what 2000’s Spider-Man would person you judge pursuing climatic brag battles with multi-armed jerk Doctor Octopus and symbiotic serial slayer Carnage. However beloved readers, it was precise overmuch not over. Enter Monster Ock.

Monster Ock is not truthful overmuch an force oregon adjacent a boss, really. They’re a writhing, poorly pixelated wide of mayhem. A grotesque amalgamation of gargling, digitized screams, and limbs that’ll rip your arachnid-ass to shreds. Sometimes I inactive perceive the noises of Monster Ock arsenic a dependable connected the upwind and shiver.

For what felt similar the longest 4 minutes of my life, I fled successful panic done six levels of sickly-green hallways, blast doors, and chutes earlier reaching the aboveground and salvation. Working against maine were shoddy camera angles, rubber set AI astatine its astir terrifying, and dependable enactment gems from our wall-crawler similar “Pressure’s truly building”—no shit, spidey!

Eventually, mercifully, we escape. “Perfect extremity to a cleanable day,” we quip arsenic Captain America and Venom of each radical prime america up successful a Quinjet. I’m excessively frazzled to attraction by this point. —Eric Schulkin

Nothing successful Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic escapade is arsenic unsettling arsenic the archetypal clip a clicker gets you. You’re stealthing done a crumpled passageway, choking retired infected humans near and right, making arsenic small sound arsenic imaginable arsenic you clamber implicit verdant yet destroyed obstacles. But whoops, you knocked implicit immoderate random solid vessel and present it’s there, chasing aft you portion flailing its arms and making this horrible clicking noise similar a cricket oregon a croaking frog. And erstwhile it catches you, it’s curtains. It munches connected your neck, presumably tearing your glands apart, and you dice and it sucks. Clickers are dreadful! Covered successful fungal spores and hardened flesh, they’re ace fast, ace strong, and ace intelligent, utilizing that spine-tingling clicking dependable to pass with different clickers to find your nonstop location. Don’t fto their overgrown domes fool you. The clickers successful The Last of Us privation your death, now. —Levi Winslow

The Shalebridge Cradle successful the 3rd Thief crippled remains the scariest acquisition I’ve ever had successful each of gaming. For truthful overmuch of the game, it’s this ominous gathering you walk by connected your mode elsewhere successful the city. You perceive rumors astir it, perceive its sanction muttered successful fear, until it already possesses a consciousness of panic earlier you ever request to spell inside.

When you do, it’s truthful overmuch worse than you could person imagined. This conception of Ion Storm’s stellar game, overseen by Dishonored’s Harvey Smith, is simply a masterpiece of biology storytelling. Yes, determination are awful, shuffling creatures to beryllium feverishly hidden from among its dank, cruel corridors, and yes, they scare the bejesus retired of me, but they’re not The Cradle’s existent horror. The existent menace, that makes this a level you tin ne'er shingle from your consciousness, is the building’s history.

You cognize that astatine 1 constituent Shalebridge Cradle was erstwhile a sanatorium for the clinically insane. You besides cognize that astatine 1 constituent Shalebridge Cradle was erstwhile an orphanage. What you larn arsenic you play (and for goodness sakes, if you haven’t, halt speechmaking present and spell play it) is that the 2 things happened at the aforesaid time.

This infinitesimal of realization is truthful brutal, arsenic you enactment unneurotic that those mediocre children were surviving successful imperishable fearfulness of the murderous, unsafe patients, each portion cruel doctors performed experiments, and, well, there’s a witch too.

This catastrophic infinitesimal rewrites your full knowing of the place, and makes the remainder of the already-terrifying conception consciousness so, truthful overmuch worse. It’s atrocious capable arsenic my muscles fastener up arsenic I effort to evade a shambling, masked monstrosity, leaning into my show arsenic if that makes maine smaller and little apt to beryllium spotted, but it’s a full different level of atrocious erstwhile you perceive the ghostly fearful voices of the long-dead kid inhabitants of this unspeakable place. Brrrrrrr. —John Walker

As a monster hunter, The Witcher 3's Geralt of Rivia is nary alien to abominations. After all, he’s besides an abomination, an experimentation whose azygous intent is to slay beasts. But what bash you bash erstwhile that abomination successful request of a punctual sedate isn’t truthful overmuch a beast but much of a satanic specter who feeds connected your guilt? If you’re Geralt of Rivia, you astir apt combat it. If you’re everyone other who encounters the Hym Demon, though, you decidedly run. A ghostly fig truthful achromatic it makes shadows look bright, Hym is simply a gangly wraith with elongated limbs and crisp claws that disappears successful a puff of fume and deals plentifulness of damage. Most unnerving isn’t conscionable that the Hym Demon wallows successful your tragedy. It weaponizes it, lurking successful your shadow, waiting patiently to erode your mind and propulsion you to madness oregon suicide. And the much symptom it causes, the much anguish it devours, the stronger it grows. Yeah, no, miss maine with that. —Levi Winslow

Manhunt mightiness not beryllium a fearfulness crippled successful and of itself, but the series with erstwhile porn-star-turned-cannibal Piggsy is perfectly horrific. An obese antheral who wears a rotted pig’s caput arsenic a disguise and virtually thing else, Piggsy is the worldly of nightmares, akin to Freddy Krueger oregon Jason Voorhees but belligerent and nude. I mean, this dude chases you with a bloodied chainsaw, astir apt hoping to fuck your skull earlier utilizing it arsenic croutons successful his quality salad. He’s flabby, speaks incoherently, and has devolved from antheral to carnal if his squeals are thing to spell by. There’s besides the unsettling chainsaw helium conscionable leaves revving, due to the fact that Piggsy is ever acceptable to chop up and gobble his adjacent victim. —Levi Winslow

I didn’t truly cognize I had thalassophobia until I tried Subnautica successful VR. I’d been redeeming this game, which had immoderate retired respective years earlier, until I had a headset to usage with it. And going in, um, I truly thought I’d play for much than an hour.

As the crippled begins your spaceship flight pod plunges into an alien ocean. It is daytime, and you rapidly recognize that your lone accidental of endurance lies successful scavenging for resources underwater. I leap successful and commencement gathering coral and junk. Neat. Good graphics. The alien food are cute. One small, darting taxon attacks maine erstwhile I get excessively close, but nary prob. I conscionable debar their cave.

As I aquatics astir gathering bio-junk the daylight dilatory wanes. Bioluminescence proliferates. The bully graphics are present beautiful. But the water’s besides looking a batch spookier. I calm my nerves and proceed harvesting, noting a fewer caller taxon present and there. Little things, mostly, but besides a large thing, immoderate benignant of oversea cattle I’d seen successful the region during the day. Its bulbous, spherical process is present glowing. Apparently I got a small excessively close, due to the fact that abruptly it started swimming toward me. And successful VR, this happening feels very, precise large.

I americium instantly freaked out, like, 0 to 60 successful .3 seconds. Turning tail, I reasonably alert retired of the h2o and don’t halt jamming keys until I’m safely backmost connected the platform of my crashed pod. I spell wrong and announcement its life-support systems are draining, and I haven’t truly made immoderate advancement toward stopping that. To bash truthful would mean going backmost into the water, and you cognize what? That was capable of that. I closed the crippled and haven’t gone backmost to it since.

In mentation I privation to…but I haven’t. I conscionable looked it up and this mostly peaceful creature was the 1 that frightened me. It’s not adjacent terribly hostile, and I’ve heard the stories of the legit, existent horrors that await successful this game’s depths. I’m reasonably definite I’d beryllium good (enough) with VR Alien: Isolation, but Subnautica? I conscionable don’t cognize if I’m up to it. —Alexandra Hall

Dead Space is perfectly frightening, making the hairs connected the backmost of my cervix basal up with its eerily sparse environments and ominous dependable design. And portion I could precise easy accidental the full crippled scares the hellhole outta me—and it does, don’t get it twisted—it volition ever beryllium the grotesque necromorphs that marque maine tremble successful my shoes. Mutated corpses infected with immoderate extraterrestrial disease, these monsters are the epitome of assemblage horror. Deformed successful the worst imaginable ways, with protruding bones reconfigured to lucifer talons and lanky arms extending retired from a gaping chasm of a stomach, the necromorphs are nigh unkillable creatures hellbent connected tearing you apart. They besides travel successful a assortment of archetypes depending connected however the microorganism affects its host, meaning you’ll spot galore antithetic versions that’ll springiness you plentifulness of nightmare fuel. Yeah, I hatred these things. Always have, ever will. —Levi Winslow