Non-horror games that will scare the bejesus out of you!
There was a time when videogames were a simple way of having fun on a rainy afternoon. Games like Pong, Frogger, and the Mario series had you completing simple objectives in cheery, colorful worlds, and the most terrifying thing you’d find were the ghosts in Pacman.
However, then things started to get scarier with the arrival on the scene of spine-chilling horror series like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. But the games that frightened us the most were often those we trusted to put us at ease. We can all take a fright from an Alone in the Dark or a Dead Space, but what about when we’re supposed to be hopping around a lighthearted platformer and suddenly caught off guard with a cruel jump scare?
With Halloween lurking just around the corner, it's time to name and shame these treacherous games that had no right terrifying us as much as they did. So, grab your flashlights and crucifixes, and be sure not to go wandering off as we take a tour through the haunted halls of supposedly safe games.
Contents:
- Minecraft
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
- Metal Gear Solid 2
- Portal
- Red Dead Redemption 2
1. Minecraft
The uninitiated might scoff at this pick and wonder how anyone could be scared of a kids’ game like Minecraft, with it’s cute, blocky world, simplistic building gameplay, and soothing soundtrack. Well, let us tell you, this game is absolutely not for the fainthearted. Just wait until you find yourself lost deep in a cave system, down to your last torch and surrounded on all sides by the oppressive darkness.
The score has transitioned from jolly and peaceful to ominous and foreboding, and suddenly you hear the unmistakeable hiss of a creeper before being blown to smithereens moments later. That’s enough to turn the bravest of adventurers into a quivering wreck, especially if you forgot to offload all your diamonds into a chest beforehand.
2. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
Majora’s Mask is held by many as one of the best games of all time, and when it was first released on the Nintendo 64, it definitely had 90’s kids hooked with its epic, high-stakes story. However, the story itself was an unsettling one, especially for young players looking forward to a “hero saves the princess” adventure.
It centered around an impending apocalypse as the moon came hurtling towards the Earth, drawing visibly closer in the sky throughout the game. And most horrifying of all was the appearance of said Moon, with its wide, lifeless eyes and disturbing toothy grin. Why should a hunk of cratered rock (or cheese if we are to trust Wallace and Gromit) be so cheery about bringing about the end of the world?
3. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
The Metal Gear Solid series has a reputation for its convoluted plotlines, bizarre characters, and epic stealth/action gameplay, but Sons of Liberty took things to a whole new level in its closing chapter. Towards the end of Raiden’s mission aboard an oil rig, the developers decided to unleash an all-out assault on your sense of reality.
As you are running around naked and unarmed, you are warned by other characters in the game to “Turn the game console off, right now!” and warned that “You’ll ruin your eyes playing so close to the TV”. This completely caught most of us off guard and is definitely in the running for gaming’s most unsettling fourth-wall break. The ultimate blow comes when the Colonel hits you with “You have played the game for a long time, don’t you have anything else to do with your life?” – um, clearly not, but ouch.
4. Portal
This early release for the Xbox 360 came bundled in the Orange Box, together with Team Fortress 2 and Half Life 2, and was sold to us as an innovative but fairly simple puzzle game involving – as the name suggests – portals. Early on, this is the case, as you cheerily bumble around in a series of different rooms messing around with Companion Cubes and gravity to try and solve some mildly challenging scenarios.
However, as the game progresses, you head deeper down the rabbit hole, and the game’s story takes a very unexpected and surprisingly dark turn. After some particularly dangerous challenges, antagonist GlaDOS attempts to kill you, and once you escape you discover that this has been the fate of all previous test subjects. This creepy final section of the game is all the more unsettling for its unexpected arrival, and for the hastily scrawled graffiti warning that “The cake is a lie!”
5. Red Dead Redemption 2
Red Dead Redemption 2 is a visually stunning gunslinging adventure game with RPG elements, but that didn’t stop Rockstar Games from sprinkling in plenty of horror moments to freak you out while you’re trying to soak in the gorgeous scenery.
Some terrifying highlights include a night-time encounter with an enormous alligator in a misty swamp; a showdown with an actual vampire in the back alleys of Saint Denis, a horrifying ordeal involving a pair of incestuous rednecks on a remote pig farm, and the ghost of a young woman who will lead you to the tree she hanged herself from if you strike up a conversation with her. Turns out the West wasn’t just wild, it was pretty spooky, too!