Video game developers have a number of tools and tricks in their arsenal to scare the player. A talented creator or team can use these techniques in new and interesting ways that frighten even the most jaded and desensitized player. After all, why play horror if it doesn’t scare you, even just a little?
Horror Games That Use Players’ Microphones
Using the player’s microphone in gameplay is an excellent way to increase immersion and tension in horror games. Here’s which titles did it the best.
Despite the association with horror games, these techniques are not exclusive to horror games; they are also used in other genres to emphasize a moment of tension or danger. Players of a wide variety of games will recognize some of these tricks. As always, when discussing the construction of horror in video games, I have drawn on Bernard Perron’s The World of Scary Video Games to inform the theory behind the scares.
Hiding the Monster
The Fear Lies in Ambiguity
Let’s start with one of the most well-known tricks that a lot of developers use to make their monsters scary. They hide them. The player’s imagination is more adept at making terrifying monsters than can often be achieved by designers. That is not to say that the monster does not need to be scary; it just means that sometimes the danger of the unknown and the indistinct can be far scarier.
The Amnesia series does this on multiple occasions. Not only by obscuring the monsters in darkness or underwater, but also through a sanity mechanic that discourages the player from looking at the monsters for a prolonged period of time. If the player looks at the horror for too long, it will compromise their sanity, leading to further visual distortion and other more dire consequences.
Low Diegetic and Non-Diegetic Sound
The Drone of Doom
Diegetic sound is sound that would be natural for an environment being depicted; non-diegetic sounds are those, such as leveling up noises, musical cues, and other noises that a player would not expect in an environment. Low, barely audible sounds of both kinds can be used to build atmosphere in a way that may not be obvious to the player.
19 Horror Games Inspired By Silent Hill
Silent Hill inspired many games over the years with its expertly crafted puzzles and psychological horror, and here are some of the best.
Low background droning and rumbling are staples of the Silent Hill series, particularly those that take place in the town itself. It creates a sense of unease that continues to grow as the game progresses. It is often so unintrusive that players may not even realize what is putting them on edge. Coupled with the foggy or grimy atmosphere, the clever sound design helps make Silent Hill one of the most atmospherically creepy series in horror gaming.
Pareidolia
Is that a Tree or a Monster?
The human brain is very susceptible to certain kinds of misunderstanding and often reads human patterns into surfaces and objects that are far from human. This is called pareidolia. Creators of all forms of visual media deftly exploit this to create fake outs and ghostly apparitions, which can create a moment of intense fear.
A great example of creators using pareidolia to both fake out and disguise the monster is in depictions of Slender Man, in which he is sometimes partially camouflaged by the spindly trees and dense woods that surround him. Slender: The Eight Pages does this in a particularly high-stakes way, as the player is not supposed to look directly at Slender Man. But it’s hard to tell the difference between a tree and this internet boogeyman, keeping the player in a constant state of paranoia.
Antici…pa…tion
The Moment of Quiet Before a Jump Scare
The moment before a jump scare is just as important, if not more important, than the sudden appearance of the image and/or sound itself. The jump scare only works if the right atmosphere has been achieved. What that looks like varies. The developers may create a false sense of security or a lingering sense of dread to set the scene for the abrupt scare that is to come.
If you have ever watched someone play Five Nights at Freddy’s, you’ll have seen the expression of fear on the player’s face as everything goes silent, and they know something bad is coming. The early entries of the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise take a particularly effective but formulaic approach to jump scares, which consists of a deathly silence or an unsettling musical cue before the animatronic attacks.
Taking Away Resources
They Don’t Call it Survival Horror for Nothing.
Part of scaring the player is taking the power of the classic video game power fantasy and throwing the overpowered guns and plot armor out the window. Or at least taking away some of the offensive capabilities of the player. Scavenging for supplies and managing inventories is a huge part of what makes survival horror scary and compelling.
The Resident Evil series has this down to a fine art. While sequences towards the end of the game feature considerable power and weaponry to overcome the “big bad”, there are few more ill-prepared shooter game protagonists than the so-called elite squads of Resident Evil, to say nothing of reluctant protagonists such as Ethan Winters of the metamycete arc.
Making the Player Feel Lost
But Not Really
There’s a reason that the maze or labyrinth is such a staple of horror and Gothic fiction. It creates a feeling of helplessness and confusion, which, when used carefully, can create an intense feeling of doom and distress in the audience, or in this case, the player. A great example of this is in the Outlast games, in which disorientation is a key part of the horror. If you knew how to get out, you wouldn’t be in this mess.
How to Escape Huggy Wuggy Room in Poppy Playtime: Chapter 5 (Battery Locations & Locker Code)
Poppy Playtime: Chapter 5 traps players inside a room with Huggy, and they’ll need to find three batteries & an optional locker code to escape it.
There is a fine line between the control and deftly engineered disorientation of a well-executed labyrinth, but if it is too challenging, a player will cease to be scared and start to get frustrated. A really clear example of this is the notorious chase sequences in Poppy Playtime. Being chased by Huggy Wuggy in the first game, in particular, is often cited as one of the most frustrating chase sequences in horror video gaming. In large part, because the player often has to retry so many times that this giant blue monster ceases to be terrifying.
The Monster is Coming from Inside Your Computer
A game of any genre becomes especially unsettling when it seems to invade the player’s console or PC. From Flowey taking control in Undertale to Monica altering data in Doki Doki Literature Club or Ocelot threatening your data in Metal Gear Solid, developers subvert the player’s sense of control.
By shattering the illusion of player control and agency, developers are able to bring the threat of the video game narrative space a step closer to the reality of the player. Another example of this is in P.T., in which a fake error screen suddenly interrupts to tell the player that whatever is sending the message (presumably the terrifying undead Lisa) is coming to get them. It is an effective and mischievous way for developers to turn the video game in on itself.
Scariest Analog Horror Series
These analog horror series are the most frightening shows the genre has to offer.
