Parts in non-horror games that freak you out

[Cantarella]

i'm going to do my best to describe this feeling. I don't want to oversell it and make this sound like the subject of some stupid creepypasta. Freaked out is too strong a term but something about the combination of elements here struck something in my brain. Rattled something primordial, y'know?


At the end of Quest 64, you enter the world of Mammon. Mammon is the main bad guy of the game that you've been hearing about for a bit. When you get there, you're greeted by this track, and it's the only track that you'll be hearing for a looooong time.

The world of mammon is a pretty atypical quest 64 dungeon. Forests with bright pink, bubbly backgrounds, long, loooong checkered hallways with miasmic backgrounds, and it goes on for a while. I don't think it's the longest, most exhausting dungeon, but it's pretty long. Hallway, forest, stairs, hallway, forest, stairs, over and over, fighting mobs in most areas, and eventually end up in a nightmare version of the town you started the game in. Now, this isn't scary. Even as a kid, I thought it was kind of cool. There are no monsters here, the music track has changed, and it's just kind of interesting to encounter. Quest 64 dungeons sometimes have tiny breaks, but usually they're almost unnoticeable. So a reprieve from the journey? With a unique setpiece! How refreshing. I must be near the very end or something. So, with nowhere else to go, you go through the town and then up to the nightmare version of the monastery you started your journey at. You open the door, and...

the music starts back up again and it's ANOTHER forest with a bright pink background.

Just those opening bars of the song, combined with how this game had made you walk through some brutally long hallways, and just how suddenly things shifted from 'enjoying an oasis' to 'oh god how much more I have to go,' well, it didn't frighten me, but I'm sure you all have had those nightmares where you're being chased or are lost, maybe in a hotel, maybe in a mansion, maybe somewhere else, and you throw open a door you think is the exit and there's just more hallway. There comes a point where you're sure subconscious is just fucking with you. And for a split second, I felt like this stupid sometimes charming rpg was fucking with me the same way a bad dream would.

 

[glokglakglak]

being chased

 

[ArkenDev]

Good ol' Ravenholm from HL2.
I think this part of HL2 would kill someone who has arachnophobia.

 

[nobitakun]

A mix of respect and fear:

 

[WesternYokai]

This fucker

Also this other fucker

 

[PhrawzT]

The Flood in Halo

 

[Your_Homie_Gale]

The ghosts in Sonic Adventure 2 are just so ugly and scary to me. I find it weird that they didn't scare me as a kid but now, only now that I've played other scarier games, they do. My only question is why add something like this to a child's game? Why do they look so ugly? And why do they jumpscare the player? That's just evil. As much as I love Pumpkin Hill and Aquatic Mine I dread going there because then I have to deal with them. Same goes for Death Chamber.

 

[Skeleben]

Lovin all the Earthbound talk in this thread. Me personally I always think about the Desert of the Knaaren level from Rayman 3. Scary atmosphere, location, and the Knaaren themselves.... jesus. The shit they yell at you while they hunt you down, while they're completely invincible to damage.

"Crush his bones."
"Skin him."
"Tear off his flesh!"

Crazy scary stuff for a goddamn Rayman game.

 

[Varyag]

I'm sure many people can confirm getting freaked out the first time SA-X shows up in Metroid Fusion, and the game does a close up of it's face and blank eyes inside the helmet.

But one thing that truly fucked me up as a kid, in a game that I still love to this day, was the "We live...." scene in Homeworld Cataclysm. When the Beast awakens taking over a huge section of your ship, and absorbing all the helpless crew into it.

Nowadays, the one not-specifically-horror game that I play a lot and still manages to scare me and keep me on a constant state of tension, is Stalker, specifically Anomaly with mods. Roaming around The Zone with a gas mask and an assault rifle, just hoping that an Emission doesn't pop up suddenly and ruins your latest loot run back to your base. Or getting jumped by mutants when you least expect it. Have jumped me off my chair a few times.

 

[kingofdragons]

Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland

freaking love this game. So underrated, ironically its a spinoff and yet its one my fav Zelda games

The Ocean House Hotel in Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines... No enemies just sound design and dreary atmosphere, some high tension situations also.

lmao, I still remember that when first playing it, here I am, cool Toreador Vampire, immortal, virtually indestructible, a creature of the night, I drink humans blood, I have supernatural speed and powers, I am the danger...and then here I am in this hotel, its haunted, it should be a great place to crash for a vampire and instead my heart is beating, I'm sweating, and I'm scared shitless. Its just one of the reasons I doubt anybody will ever make another VTM game as broken yet as perfect as this.

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

Spider headcrabs in Half Life Alyx nearly made me poop my pants.

 

[Pinballbuzzbro]

Lovin all the Earthbound talk in this thread. Me personally I always think about the Desert of the Knaaren level from Rayman 3. Scary atmosphere, location, and the Knaaren themselves.... jesus. The shit they yell at you while they hunt you down, while they're completely invincible to damage.

"Crush his bones."
"Skin him."
"Tear off his flesh!"

Crazy scary stuff for a goddamn Rayman game.

Love how eventually they just start yelling ridiculous crap like "Stick bamboo under his nails....", the entire game is full of great stupid humor like that and it's partially why it's my favorite Rayman game

 

[Grumpy_Old_Man]

lmao, I still remember that when first playing it, here I am, cool Toreador Vampire, immortal, virtually indestructible, a creature of the night, I drink humans blood, I have supernatural speed and powers, I am the danger...and then here I am in this hotel, its haunted, it should be a great place to crash for a vampire and instead my heart is beating, I'm sweating, and I'm scared shitless. Its just one of the reasons I doubt anybody will ever make another VTM game as broken yet as perfect as this.

That level was pretty well constructed, from the moment you emerge from the sewers and enter that courtyard, you feel that eeriness, permeated by silence.
Thankfully we have the unofficial patch that fixes most of the "blunders" of 1.2 version, some still remain like I often get stuck in the levels geometry specially if you use the third person view.
I miss the Troika guys, they made other bangers like temple of elemental evil and Arcanum.