Horror in non-horror games

[SpcDaicon]

Have you ever played a non-horror game but it somehow creeped you out? Something you thought mildly upseting?

I was watching a Banjo Tooie Let's Play and it reminded me how much creepy this game is for me. I can't really put my finger on it but something about its overall atmosphere is really unsetteling for me.

One level in particular, Witchyworld, the theme park one, really got under my skin when I was a child. It looks like it is one step way from becoming something out of an creepypasta

I wonder if it was the developer's intention to make the game creepy or it was accidental

 

[CyberAngel573]

Nier Automata ...

This Cannot Continue ...

Birth ....

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

 

[Beepmoo]

 

[Lokgamer]

Well, I have been playing horror games since I was child, so nowadays nothing scares me. But I can still reconnice when a game is actually a horror game or when there's a horror moment on a non horror game, and the perfect example is the "baby" in Resident Evil Village. What great atmosphere, when you heard that "baby" and you just have to hide.

 

[Lyra29]

In Portal 2, in the lower part of Aperture Science, I was convinced an NPC was following me. I swear the NPC entered a door in a building, but when I tried to enter, it was just decorative. That experience was so terrifying for me that I never finished the game

 

[FrayGuillermo]

Off the top of my had, the more recent example I can think of is Hogwarts Legacy, both the quest were you go into that Slytherin crypt and the Hogsmeade haunted house were kinda creepy and cool

 

[Unknown Gamer]

Max Payne 1. I think halfway into the game you have to go through Max's nightmares where he tries to save his wife and daughter but is too late. The atmosphere and music kinda creeped me out as a kid but I played it again recently and the only thing that it did was piss me off because it's really just a giant maze section with next to no lighting and very creepy music with a layout that makes you think you're about to get jumpscared.

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

SCREE SCREEEE

 

[Bakuma1997]

Granted, Psychonauts can be hardly labeled non-horror, but this could be rejected as a Silent Hill level

 

[Stare best girl]

certain scenes in Xenogears and Xenosaga trilogy...

 

[goregoregoregoregoregore]

This is what i like to call "horror media for children"

 

[Iguana-0]

The ruins of Sadness from Klonoa. It's a depressing type of creepy

 

[J.B’s rabbit den]

 

[Jediuser]

There's the boss fight The Sorrow, from Metal Gear Solid 3:

 

[diapered]

View attachment 55233
This is what i like to call "horror media for children"

That was the first to come to my mind as well.

 

[Arklem]

I used to be terrified of wet dry world from mario 64 when i was a kid, i also used to feel a little scared and uncomfortable while playing some gmod maps alone, and the bridge stage from crash 1 creeped me out a little bit because it reminded me of silent hill lol

 

[DunkeyKong]

Most of the N64 games have this eerie and unsettling feeling in almost every games whether that's because of the setting, liminal space or the textures. Ocarina of Time for example, the first dungeon, Inside of the Deku Tree, have this dark and gritty looking environment

Even some of the monsters are just straight up horror

 

[happymasksalesman]

View attachment 55233
This is what i like to call "horror media for children"

Seriously real! A lot of characters never used again enemies like redead and character like hand in toilet. (Hand in toilet come back as a hand in pot in another version) from the start of game to end of it it dark atmosphere with sad stories remind me silent hill. It more like legend of silent.

Most of the N64 games have this eerie and unsettling feeling in almost every games whether that's because of the setting, liminal space or the textures. Ocarina of Time for example, the first dungeon, Inside of the Deku Tree, have this dark and gritty looking environment
View attachment 55256

Even some of the monsters are just straight up horror
View attachment 55258

The boss never reused in any other games like wind waker or even in twilight!
legend of zelda always have weird scary character. Most weird and scary is tingle th slaveholder! Did you know his brother David junior is a sailor which he captured for tingle tower in wind waker?
Just look at him and you find out he isn't your friend.

He have more lore than Happymasksalesman because he always appear in the franchise and all of them are dark!

 

[micheI]

Serious Sam: TFE kept jumpscaring me as a kid.
The monsters looked scary and they could've spawned right infront of you.

 

[Kesolr]

"Today i'm gonna check this far off building at the corner of the map" <---- Clueless

 

[drizzes]

The factory infiltration section of Beyond Good and Evil creeped me out severely

 

[Graw]

When I was a kid I was scared the first time I played through Super Metroid. The atmosphere and all the enemies were just so creepy. Especially Maridia and the Wrecked Ship. Super Metroid was just like nothing else compared to other snes games I'd played at the time.

 

[E0N]

Doki Doki Literature Club. Still gives me nightmares...

 

[Jakkaraius]

Pac-Man world on the PS1 had this level where a giant hand was trying to grab you as you ran. Scared me as a kid.

 

[Zerthyam]

Doki Doki Literature Club. Still gives me nightmares...

I think it was supposed to be a horror game though.


As for me, I recently played through Madou Monogatari 1, which was a really cute game, diabetes giving kind. And then at the end

Spoiler: spoilers to madou monogatari 1

there's a cutscene where your friends are being melted alive when you think its all over, in a vision given to you by the final boss.