There’s nothing quite like a game that can elicit actual, genuine scares out of you, and thankfully, there’s no shortage of those in today’s day and age. There are, of course, many different ways of going about terrifying the player, but the games that perhaps get the loudest reactions from their players are those that suddenly throw intense, focused scenes or sequences of unexpected horrors at you out of nowhere. Here, we’re going to talk about a few such moments that have etched themselves into our memory.
HOUSE BENEVIENTO – RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE
Resident Evil Village was a theme park of horror, but no area of the game was quite as startlingly scary (especially on your first playthrough) as House Beneviento. Starting out as a quiet but creepy house full of dolls, it quickly devolves into a sequence where you’re running through the darkness while being chased by a giant, horrifying baby that wants to swallow you whole. It’s an absolutely terrifying sequence, and nothing in the game quite matches up to that focused intensity.
THE FRIGGING WORKBENCH – THE LAST OF US PART 2
The Last of Us Part 2 excels at keeping players on the edges of their seats, but while encounters against Stalkers or the boss fight against the Rat King are certainly heart-pounding moments, nothing in the game is as scary as that one damn workbench. You know the one we’re talking about. Throughout the entire game, workbenches are supposed to be a safe space where nothing will attack you, but just as Ellie begins tinkering with her weapons at that one particular bench, she’s quickly ambushed by attackers. It takes a while for your heart to stop trying to pound through your ribcage, and afterward, you never quite look at workbenches the same.
ANIMA ENCOUNTERS – THE EVIL WITHIN 2
The Evil Within 2 delivers a very distinct brand of horror throughout its runtime, and though the game is full of plenty of unforgettable moments on that front, it’s probably at its best when you’re faced with Anima. The haunting creature roaming the streets of Union is perhaps the game’s most terrifying enemy, from her ghastly appearance and the bone-chilling melody she sings to the fog that she brings with her and the fact that she can phase through walls and doors.
GETTING CAUGHT BY THE XENOMORPH – ALIEN: ISOLATION
It’s nearly impossible to think of many enemies in horror games that haunt players’ nightmares as vividly as Alien: Isolation’s Xenomorph does. The stalker foe is a menace for the vast majority of the experience, and having to avoid its attention is never anything short of being a harrowing ordeal. Always quick to react and shockingly intelligent, the Xenomorph is sure to make you jump right out of your skin every time you’re unlucky enough to be caught by it.
MR. X THROUGH THE WALL – RESIDENT EVIL 2
Speaking of stalker enemies that we still have traumatic flashbacks about, the Resident Evil 2 remake’s Mr. X is another iconic survival horror villain that has brought us dangerously close to several heart attacks. The game is filled with such moments, and none of them will catch you off-guard as violently as when the brutish Tyrant smashes through a wall to catch you unawares while you walk through the halls of the RPD building.
LISA ON THE BALCONY – P.T.
The fact that P.T. is considered to be one of the scariest games ever made in spite of the fact that it’s essentially just a demo should tell you something about how good it is at unsettling players. And that’s putting it mildly, honestly. A lot of that tension comes, of course, through Lisa, the ghostly apparition that haunts you every step of the way throughout the experience. Every appearance she makes is blood-curdling, but spotting her staring down at you from her perch up on the balcony is particularly horrifying.
AYUWOKI ENCOUNTERS – ESCAPE THE AYUWOKI
There’s a good chance that you haven’t heard of Escape the Ayuwoki, but as those who’ve played it will tell you, this is a genuinely nightmare-inducing game. It places you inside a haunted mansion where your goal is to explore your surroundings and solve puzzles so you can find a way to escape, all while constantly being stalked by a creature known as the Ayuwoki. From its unpredictable behaviour to its terrifying appearance to the game’s chilling atmosphere, every encounter with the Ayuwoki is sure to make your pulse shoot right up.
MEETING THE HUNTER – DEAD SPACE
From beginning to end, Dead Space keeps finding ways to make you jump out of your seat (or at least keep you on the edge of it), and nothing exemplifies the effectiveness of its brand of horror than your first encounter with the Hunter. Created as the result of a twisted experiment, the Hunter serves as a stalker enemy for brief sections of the game, and is, to say the very least, the stuff of nightmares. Watching it burn to a crisp later on in the game is quite a cathartic moment.
MARGUERITE BAKER – RESIDENT EVIL 7
Resident Evil 7 delivers more potent horror than any other game in the series has ever managed to do, thanks in large part to how intimately terrifying it makes every single one of its encounters feel. The Marguerite section is a great example of just that. Creeping through the old, decaying house while she roams its halls is scary enough as it is, and things only take a turn for the worse once she takes her hideous, spidery form. She’s also quite fond of jumping out at your out of nowhere when you least expect it, when is never pleasant, to say the very least.
GHOSTS THROUGH THE CAMERA – FATAL FRAME SERIES
Fatal Frame games hinge around one central concept- they force you to look directly at their scariest enemies in order to even know where they are. As a series, Fatal Frame has been inconsistent, but that one idea never quite loses its luster. Using the Camera Obscura to see what ghosts are in your vicinity is always terrifying, and it’s made even more so when you’re faced with the particularly gnarly foes.
CYNTHIA AND THE NURSING HOME – ALAN WAKE 2
Alan Wake 2 is brimming with sequences that can get your pulse racing (including plenty of jump scares), but no part in the game is as chilling as the nursing section. From the palpable atmosphere to the eerie environments you go through to how things progressively get more and more twisted as you progress further, this is where the game is at its absolute peak. Encountering Cynthia serves as an appropriately horrific crescendo for this sequence.
DON’T TURN AROUND – FROM THE DARKNESS
From the Darkness is another game that you may not have heard about, but boy can it get you to scream in terror when it really wants to. Throughout its short runtime of an hour and a half, it delivers plenty of those moments. One that stands out in memory sees you walking through dimly lit environments in search of tools, and just as you start believing that there might not be anything too dangerous around you for the time being, you turn around and are faced with a horrifying creature staring you right in the face. It’s… not pleasant, let’s just leave it at that.
LUCY ENCOUNTERS – VISAGE
Visage really came out of nowhere when it launched a few years ago, but was instantly recognized by many as one of the scariest games you’re ever going to play. That’s abundantly clear even in the very first chapter, which focuses on Lucy, a girl who died when she ripped her own jaw off after being tormented by a demon. Her backstory is a chilling one (which is putting it mildly), and encounters with her even more so.
KITCHEN SCENE – HELLSEED
Another lesser-known game, and one that’s probably more flawed than the vast majority of titles in this feature- but one that can surely get you to jump up in terror from time to time. One particular moment that is hard to forget sees you exploring a kitchen in the calm darkness, only for the music to suddenly grow startlingly intense out of nowhere. As soon as you turn around, you spot a ghastly, decrepit woman slowly walking in your direction, only for lights to completely go out for a second, before coming back on and showing you the scene of a calm and empty kitchen once again.
THE JEFF SEQUENCE – HALF-LIFE: ALYX
Despite not being a horror game, Half-Life: Alyx can be scarier than the scariest horror games out there. The sequence where you’re shuffling through cramped corridors while the undead monstrosity known as Jeffs lumbers around is probably the best example of that. This entire chapter is filled with moments that can make you jump right our of your skin, because no matter how many times you lay your eyes on him, nothing dulls the sheer terror of watching Jeff angrily advance in your direction.