The epitome of what I’m trying to refer to is the Playdead games (Limbo and Inside). Dark Souls and BioShock both hit on this idea but not quite so directly. The game BADLAND is also a great example of this, too. The mobile game The Silent Age also did this exceptionally well. Never quite knowing what’s going on, and maybe some tension without release, but again not straight up horror. A feeling of uneasiness is what I’m looking for.
When playing through Inside, there’s never any moments where you’re scared, but you’re never sure what’s going on and there’s always a level of unease. What are all the mindless zombie-like people? Why is everyone hunting the player? What happened to this city? What’s the goal of the character the player controls? What exactly is going on here? That’s what I’m looking for. If you know of any other games which do this, I’d greatly appreciate hearing about them. It’s a very specific niche so I’m not sure how many games do this, but the games that I’ve seen do this tend to be some form of post-disaster or dystopia. I’ve seen some great artwork do this too. Zdzisław Beksiński had done some stuff like this. Some great dystopian novels also do this quite well.
Check out Manlybadasshero’s channel, he plays a lot of games like that. CJU does as well. A lot of them are very narrative-based, which might not be what you’re looking for. The Coffin of Andy and Leyley for example, freaking fantastic game but it’s a slow creepy burn rather than action-oriented. Little Misfortune is another personal favorite, and the Tartarus Key. They also play some random ass games like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VWL4vKRp8U where it’s a dystopian world and you never really find out what’s going on, which sounds similar to what you’re into.
Awesome, thanks for the recommendations. I’ll definitely be checking out those channels later on. That last game you mentioned sounds exactly like what I’m looking for, so I’ll check out that video tonight or tomorrow. Appreciate it!
I want to play Bloodborne so bad. If they weren’t so expensive I’d buy a PS5 just to play Bloodborne and the Demon’s Souls remake. I do have access to OG Demon’s Souls through PS3 emulation and I’ve put in a few hours but I’m going to try to 100% the Dark Souls trilogy first. If they ever port Bloodborne to pc though I’m buying it in a heartbeat it looks fantastic.
I’m aware I could buy a PS4 for Bloodborne and I do consider it sometimes. I recently got a pretty big promotion/raise at work so maybe now would be a good time to treat myself.
I’ve played all of Soulsbourne/ Elden ring games, and bloodborne for me is still the best game.
First time playing it was an experience cannot be repeated by any other kind of media consuming. The atmosphere, the soundtrack of the game, the vibe it gives, the gameplay of course are a league of itself.
I don’t want to give you spoilers here, but the first half of the game feels really like a Victorian horror movie but the hell breaks loose first in the second half of the game.
Yeah, I know there’s a lot of people who say Bloodborne is the best one. Maybe after I 100% the Dark Souls trilogy I’ll buy a PS4 and Bloodborne. It’s probably the most interesting looking game I’ve ever not played. This sounds kinda stupid but I bought the VaatiVidya painted world Displate a few months back and I want to “get” all the Easter eggs he put in there. I also just love the rest of the SoulsBorne games. Dark Souls, Elden Ring, and Sekiro are all some of my favourite games of all time.
I’m also in a bit of an advantage in that I haven’t had any of Bloodborne spoiled for me, like, at all. I know basically nothing about the game, which is exciting.
Absolutely! I’ll come back to this post in several months’ time when I’ve gone through it all and let you know my thoughts. I might make a post about it on this community as well, assuming it impresses me as much as it impresses the rest of the Souls community
Not sure if I’m double-commenting, I thought I replied but didn’t find it so let’s see if Lemmy is being weird
Anyway, what I think I said in the reply is that I’m not usually one for PvP except for in Elden Ring a little bit, so it’s not too big of an issue for me. I mostly play games for single-player, I guess I’m an antisocial gamer lol
STALKER for that horror undercurrent, Deus Ex Mankind Divided probably has the best atmosphere of any game I’ve ever played and the fact the franchise was abandoned for that marvel brain-rot is a crying shame.
Signal Simulator is a game about being completely alone in a base in the desert doing science stuff in search of aliens. It’s not really horror but there’s plenty of uneasy stuff in it.
There’s also a newer game inspired by it called Voices of the Void which is more actively developed. Technically, it’s not horror but the developer likes to fuck with you in all kinds of ways.
it’s a step more horror-y, but little nightmares always felt to me like the third playdead game. i solidly recommend playing the first one first too
there’s also far: lone sails (and its sequel, but I haven’t played that); and it’s a bit more low-budget i also really liked darq
salt & sanctuary had this atmosphere; but i’ve never finished it so i can’t comment on its quality. and some other souls likes as well - thymesia and helloint come to mind
also portal (1) kind of fits this if you haven’t played it
I totally forgot to mention Portal. After leaving the test levels in the second one especially was really on-point, and probably what started my love for these types of games. The first one also did it really well too.
I’ve got Little Nightmares on Steam but haven’t played it yet. I’ll definitely download it soon. I played the mobile one (Very Little Nightmares) and loved it.
I’ve heard of Far: Lone Sails but don’t know much about it. I’ll check it out; thanks! I’ll also look into Darq
I saw Iron Pineapple play Salt & Sanctuary, along with a million other souls-likes, I’ve got that one and several others on my wishlist and kind of forgot about them until your comment. Thanks for the reminder
I wouldn’t say it’s that much niche.
I can recommend the first Alan Wake game (since the sequel is allegedly going more into horror). It’s a game that makes you tense without showing you guts or jump scares every 2 minutes. I remember it making me pretty anxious about staying in the light (it’s the premise of the game, you can’t be hurt in the light, the monsters come from the shadows).
Control was so good! I found it was a little tough at times, but it maintains the creepy vibes throughout the game. And the more you progress, the more Jesse feels like an absolute badass without undercutting the game’s atmosphere. Just a fantastic game all around.
I’ll be bitter about Bloodborne not being on PC until the day they release it on Steam. I’ll look more into the other ones though. I think I own Control already so I might play that one soon
Yes, Control hit all the right spots for me. Its got an X-files/Twin Peaks feeling about it. I loved every minute of my playthrough. Its architecture and level design also really appealed to me.
I want a second little monsters and little monsters two, those are great and creepy.
And I’d also like to mention a game I just played called the alien cube, which is like a lovecraftian story that you’re the star of. It’s really good and a couple parts are genuinely nerve-wracking,l. there’s not so much outright horror as there is pervasive creepiness and sudden high tension moments.
If by little monsters you mean Little Nightmares, that’s probably next on my list of games to play. If you do in fact mean little monsters, I haven’t heard of it but I’ll check it out tonight.
The Alien Cube sounds pretty awesome from how you’ve described it. I’ll definitely be checking that one out.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice kinda fits this description. It’s a game about a mentally ill viking(ish) warrior so it’s more “psychological” creepiness than zombies, but it definitely achieves what it seeks out to do as with its atmosphere without being outright horror. The game is not for everybody since the gameplay can be a bit offputting.
If you have issues with too-close FOV in games, you may want to make sure you play the PC version and not the console one. PC you can adjust the FOV. Console version is one of the few games I’ve played that made me straight up barfy. Dishonored 2 was another.
I started playing Superliminal a week or so ago but got stuck at one point and started a playthrough of Dark Souls, whoops. It was a pretty fun game though, I should finish it.
I haven’t heard of that second one, but I don’t have VR so maybe that’s why.
@cod One or two of the puzzles are a bit finicky, but it does make you feel smart for solving them. Oh yea, intruders is just a short game, you finish it in about 2 hours. I bought it at a deep discount just to play in vr.
@cod if its the one I think it is, that one stumped me for a bit because the solution was different to any of the puzzles that came before it. Still perfectly fitted with the worlds logic though.
Thinking about it a bit more, it had a ball that would replicate itself every time you clicked it and you have to get a pressure plate to be pressed on but a fan blocks the way, blowing the balls away. I’m sure there’s something I’ve missed though. The rest of the game has been a ton of fun so I hope I can figure this one out when I get back to playing it again.
SOMA with the safe mode that makes the monsters not attack you is still really creepy and an extremely atmospheric game, but without the amnesia type hide and run horror elements.
This might not hit the right genre for you based on the games you mentioned, but I feel like a lot of visual novels have that setting without horror. For example: 999, the Zero Escape games, Danganronpa, maybe AI Somnium Files as well can be creepy at times, CORPSE FACTORY
Half Life/Black Mesa. I replayed it recently and I had forgotten the level of unease that pervades most of it. While short of horror, there’s been an obvious disaster, people are panicking, and it’s unclear to the PC what is going on for most of the game.
I played Black Mesa a few months back and loved it. It also did a really good job with what I’m trying to explain. I kind of want to go through the original as well at some point, too.
The original is great. I actually haven’t played Black Mesa all the way, but played the original recently… I have to admit it looks quite dated, which isn’t surprising considering it is (amazingly) 25 years old.
I don’t mind outdated graphics (unsurprising, given that I mod this community). I’ve been meaning to get to the sequels too. Are they similar in terms of creepiness?
I am not sure which is better. I played the first at a seminal time, when the only other FPS I knew was quake. We also played a lot of HL P2P (back when it was ‘deathmatch’…). I played HL2 much later, several years after it was released, and did no PvP ever. All in all, I like about 60% of each one, as far as the single player story experience.
Fair. There are some advantages to playing games at the time they were popular for sure. I’m a little bit younger though and Halo CE was my first ever video game so I didn’t really experience Half-Life as a brand new game
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Check out Manlybadasshero’s channel, he plays a lot of games like that. CJU does as well. A lot of them are very narrative-based, which might not be what you’re looking for. The Coffin of Andy and Leyley for example, freaking fantastic game but it’s a slow creepy burn rather than action-oriented. Little Misfortune is another personal favorite, and the Tartarus Key. They also play some random ass games like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VWL4vKRp8Uwhere it’s a dystopian world and you never really find out what’s going on, which sounds similar to what you’re into.Awesome, thanks for the recommendations. I’ll definitely be checking out those channels later on. That last game you mentioned sounds exactly like what I’m looking for, so I’ll check out that video tonight or tomorrow. Appreciate it!
Bloodborne in my first play through was one of the scariest game I’ve ever played.
I want to play Bloodborne so bad. If they weren’t so expensive I’d buy a PS5 just to play Bloodborne and the Demon’s Souls remake. I do have access to OG Demon’s Souls through PS3 emulation and I’ve put in a few hours but I’m going to try to 100% the Dark Souls trilogy first. If they ever port Bloodborne to pc though I’m buying it in a heartbeat it looks fantastic.
I’m aware I could buy a PS4 for Bloodborne and I do consider it sometimes. I recently got a pretty big promotion/raise at work so maybe now would be a good time to treat myself.
Congrats for your promotion!!!
I’ve played all of Soulsbourne/ Elden ring games, and bloodborne for me is still the best game. First time playing it was an experience cannot be repeated by any other kind of media consuming. The atmosphere, the soundtrack of the game, the vibe it gives, the gameplay of course are a league of itself.
I don’t want to give you spoilers here, but the first half of the game feels really like a Victorian horror movie but the hell breaks loose first in the second half of the game.
Extremely recommended.
Thank you!
Yeah, I know there’s a lot of people who say Bloodborne is the best one. Maybe after I 100% the Dark Souls trilogy I’ll buy a PS4 and Bloodborne. It’s probably the most interesting looking game I’ve ever not played. This sounds kinda stupid but I bought the VaatiVidya painted world Displate a few months back and I want to “get” all the Easter eggs he put in there. I also just love the rest of the SoulsBorne games. Dark Souls, Elden Ring, and Sekiro are all some of my favourite games of all time.
I’m also in a bit of an advantage in that I haven’t had any of Bloodborne spoiled for me, like, at all. I know basically nothing about the game, which is exciting.
You’re in for a ride mate. :)
Tell me how your experience is after you’ve played the game. :D
Remind me in… We need a remind me bot for lemmy.
Absolutely! I’ll come back to this post in several months’ time when I’ve gone through it all and let you know my thoughts. I might make a post about it on this community as well, assuming it impresses me as much as it impresses the rest of the Souls community
Maybe the PvP is not that active anymore, since it’s a pretty old game (damn it’s already 9 years old). But the community is awesome, per usual. :D
Not sure if I’m double-commenting, I thought I replied but didn’t find it so let’s see if Lemmy is being weird
Anyway, what I think I said in the reply is that I’m not usually one for PvP except for in Elden Ring a little bit, so it’s not too big of an issue for me. I mostly play games for single-player, I guess I’m an antisocial gamer lol
STALKER for that horror undercurrent, Deus Ex Mankind Divided probably has the best atmosphere of any game I’ve ever played and the fact the franchise was abandoned for that marvel brain-rot is a crying shame.
STALKER was my first thought as well. amazing atmosphere. The zone doesn’t care if you’re there or not.
Metro games are pretty good too, especially the first two for that creepy vibe.
Voices of the Void. It’s a free “job simulator” game from itch.io with a creepy atmosphere that is pretty unsettling.
Can’t complain with free. I’ll look into it some more, thanks!
Signal Simulator is a game about being completely alone in a base in the desert doing science stuff in search of aliens. It’s not really horror but there’s plenty of uneasy stuff in it.
There’s also a newer game inspired by it called Voices of the Void which is more actively developed. Technically, it’s not horror but the developer likes to fuck with you in all kinds of ways.
it’s a step more horror-y, but little nightmares always felt to me like the third playdead game. i solidly recommend playing the first one first too
there’s also far: lone sails (and its sequel, but I haven’t played that); and it’s a bit more low-budget i also really liked darq
salt & sanctuary had this atmosphere; but i’ve never finished it so i can’t comment on its quality. and some other souls likes as well - thymesia and helloint come to mind
also portal (1) kind of fits this if you haven’t played it
I totally forgot to mention Portal. After leaving the test levels in the second one especially was really on-point, and probably what started my love for these types of games. The first one also did it really well too.
I’ve got Little Nightmares on Steam but haven’t played it yet. I’ll definitely download it soon. I played the mobile one (Very Little Nightmares) and loved it.
I’ve heard of Far: Lone Sails but don’t know much about it. I’ll check it out; thanks! I’ll also look into Darq
I saw Iron Pineapple play Salt & Sanctuary, along with a million other souls-likes, I’ve got that one and several others on my wishlist and kind of forgot about them until your comment. Thanks for the reminder
I wouldn’t say it’s that much niche. I can recommend the first Alan Wake game (since the sequel is allegedly going more into horror). It’s a game that makes you tense without showing you guts or jump scares every 2 minutes. I remember it making me pretty anxious about staying in the light (it’s the premise of the game, you can’t be hurt in the light, the monsters come from the shadows).
That certainly sounds promising. I’ve seen gameplay before and it looked to be a bit too horror-esque but I’ll look into it some more. Thanks!
Bloodborne
Control (definitely what you’re looking for)
The Last of Us
Little Nightmares (quite similar to Inside, horror-inspired and creepy but barely any jump scares)
Inscryption
Dying Light (admittedly not very scary, but at night where you get chased by creatures can be very intense)
Inscryption is such an amazing, surprising, mind-bending and downright crazy experience. Everyone should play it absolutely blind.
Seconding Control. It’s an absolutely amazing game. Very creepy vibes in most of the game but not quite horror.
Control was so good! I found it was a little tough at times, but it maintains the creepy vibes throughout the game. And the more you progress, the more Jesse feels like an absolute badass without undercutting the game’s atmosphere. Just a fantastic game all around.
Bloodborne is my favorite game of all time.
So amazing. The music in the goal… shivers!
I’ll be bitter about Bloodborne not being on PC until the day they release it on Steam. I’ll look more into the other ones though. I think I own Control already so I might play that one soon
Control is definitely 10/10 for me, very satisfying once you get used to the mechanics.
Yes, Control hit all the right spots for me. Its got an X-files/Twin Peaks feeling about it. I loved every minute of my playthrough. Its architecture and level design also really appealed to me.
@simple @cod I loved Control. One of my few platinum trophies
I want a second little monsters and little monsters two, those are great and creepy.
And I’d also like to mention a game I just played called the alien cube, which is like a lovecraftian story that you’re the star of. It’s really good and a couple parts are genuinely nerve-wracking,l. there’s not so much outright horror as there is pervasive creepiness and sudden high tension moments.
If by little monsters you mean Little Nightmares, that’s probably next on my list of games to play. If you do in fact mean little monsters, I haven’t heard of it but I’ll check it out tonight.
The Alien Cube sounds pretty awesome from how you’ve described it. I’ll definitely be checking that one out.
Hahaha pffff That’s exactly what I mean. Little nightmares. I’ll keep my blunder up though. And make sure to get the second one also.
I’ve added the second one to my wishlist, I’ll pick it up when it’s next on sale. I actually thought I owned it already but I only own the first one.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice kinda fits this description. It’s a game about a mentally ill viking(ish) warrior so it’s more “psychological” creepiness than zombies, but it definitely achieves what it seeks out to do as with its atmosphere without being outright horror. The game is not for everybody since the gameplay can be a bit offputting.
I’ve heard really good things about that one. Good to know it fits what I described, I’ll be checking it out for sure. Thanks!
If you have issues with too-close FOV in games, you may want to make sure you play the PC version and not the console one. PC you can adjust the FOV. Console version is one of the few games I’ve played that made me straight up barfy. Dishonored 2 was another.
Duly noted. I always play on pc anyway, so no big deal. Thanks for the tip
I have an extra key for Senua if you’re interested.
If you’re willing to, that would be awesome.
Definitely try Hellblade. And definitely play with headphones.
Play it with good over-ear headphones. It’s SO good that way.
This is the most skin crawling game in the thread. In VR it’s super creepy, the voices are just downright harrowing.
Oof, I can only imagine VR. The voices with good headphones and a long play session gave me a headache the next day haha
@cod a tougher ask than it initially seems. Most creepy games do seem to categorise as horror.
I think Superliminal has an eery feeling to it.
I don’t think Intruders hide and seek is a horror, but it is pretty scary in virtual reality.
I started playing Superliminal a week or so ago but got stuck at one point and started a playthrough of Dark Souls, whoops. It was a pretty fun game though, I should finish it.
I haven’t heard of that second one, but I don’t have VR so maybe that’s why.
@cod One or two of the puzzles are a bit finicky, but it does make you feel smart for solving them. Oh yea, intruders is just a short game, you finish it in about 2 hours. I bought it at a deep discount just to play in vr.
It’s a puzzle with a fan and a ball I think. I’m sure I’ll get back to it and immediately figure it out soon enough
@cod if its the one I think it is, that one stumped me for a bit because the solution was different to any of the puzzles that came before it. Still perfectly fitted with the worlds logic though.
Thinking about it a bit more, it had a ball that would replicate itself every time you clicked it and you have to get a pressure plate to be pressed on but a fan blocks the way, blowing the balls away. I’m sure there’s something I’ve missed though. The rest of the game has been a ton of fun so I hope I can figure this one out when I get back to playing it again.
@cod yes, it is the one I thought. I thought they were apples, but I probably misremembered
SOMA with the safe mode that makes the monsters not attack you is still really creepy and an extremely atmospheric game, but without the amnesia type hide and run horror elements.
Oh that definitely sounds promising. I’ll take a look, thanks!
This might not hit the right genre for you based on the games you mentioned, but I feel like a lot of visual novels have that setting without horror. For example: 999, the Zero Escape games, Danganronpa, maybe AI Somnium Files as well can be creepy at times, CORPSE FACTORY
I’ve never tried that genre before, but I’m not immediately against it. I’ll take a look.
Half Life/Black Mesa. I replayed it recently and I had forgotten the level of unease that pervades most of it. While short of horror, there’s been an obvious disaster, people are panicking, and it’s unclear to the PC what is going on for most of the game.
I played Black Mesa a few months back and loved it. It also did a really good job with what I’m trying to explain. I kind of want to go through the original as well at some point, too.
The original is great. I actually haven’t played Black Mesa all the way, but played the original recently… I have to admit it looks quite dated, which isn’t surprising considering it is (amazingly) 25 years old.
I don’t mind outdated graphics (unsurprising, given that I mod this community). I’ve been meaning to get to the sequels too. Are they similar in terms of creepiness?
Oh, definitely! I don’t really recall the add-ons (Opposing Force, etc) but Half-Life 2 is a very worthy sequel.
I know some people say the second is the best one, others swear by the first. I own all the Half-Life games so I really should continue the series
I am not sure which is better. I played the first at a seminal time, when the only other FPS I knew was quake. We also played a lot of HL P2P (back when it was ‘deathmatch’…). I played HL2 much later, several years after it was released, and did no PvP ever. All in all, I like about 60% of each one, as far as the single player story experience.
Fair. There are some advantages to playing games at the time they were popular for sure. I’m a little bit younger though and Halo CE was my first ever video game so I didn’t really experience Half-Life as a brand new game
The world of Scorn felt pretty alien and unnerving.
I just wish Scorn’s gameplay had been better (more engaging at least). It kinda felt like a visual tech demo.
Incredible art direction though