i finished the suffering a few months ago and that game really got me. i was even afraid to move sometimes. i am not a big fan of horrors but this one is great and was released for free recently. 

Yeh, surprisingly good thread.

Also, no-one seems to have mentioned the orphanage/asylum level from Thief 3. A masterpiece of fear inducing maliciousness, right down to the way it looms over the city for half the game before you get to the level (and is mentioned in various texts you find in preceding levels).

Also, The Carnival was not scary. It was based on the OTT glam stylings of Kiss. In fact, it's kinda the epitomy of the problem inherent in most 'scary/evile' games (at least when it comes to FPS) in that 70s/80s hair metal influenced demonology just isn't scary (see, skulls/rams/pentagrams/'cetra).

And yeh, Silent Hill 2 & 3, but that's a no brainer tbh (and outside the realm of FPS as Than so kindly pointed ;) 

*than = inertia


Well... Not actually =. That'd be slightly creepy (see GA discussion on cyclic solilaquating) 

thirdly (sorry);

D3 was a lot, lot scarier than Q4. I actually didn't think that Q4 was supposed to be scary, it's more akin to a war movie (standard one, not AN:R ofc ;) with vast amounts of gore. Sure it's bloody, but that's not the same thing as scary.

Fear comes from the perversion of the known. It is far, far more terrifying when something that is familiar (even in the abstract, a la a space station/base complex) is changed/corrupted in more or less subtle ways (see the slow break down of the base in D3) than an all out 'this is a completely different world and you should fear it' of a standard hell level.

Hell isn't scary, because it's not real. It can't hurt me. But this place? Where I live? Here they can hurt me. Twist reality. Nothing quite the same, but not sure how... Can hear them. Hear them in the walls while I type this... Oh god! They've come for me!


Oh, and did you guys not see the internets courts decided that IP addresses should be dynamically updated on sites to reflect the current IP of the individual user. That way everyone has their own number assigned and we don't have to worry about that messy brain stem chipping we were going for... 

This thread is cool. I saw Shadar Logoth mentioned above by a few people ... that was my level and Wheel of Time was my first professional level design gig. So weird, the interconnections that years of work and game playing form... 

That's what i like about it - it feels like there's some Dungeon Master, who designed the levels so they're as evile as possible ;-) 

I saw Shadar Logoth mentioned above by a few people ... that was my level and Wheel of Time was my first professional level design gig.

Willem I'm still not going to apologise for winding you up, but can I have your babies anyway?? 

Yeah I think the orphanage/asylum level from Thief 3 is the scariest I've played. The part where you go back in time and that little girl - so freaky! Thief 3 had a few moments actually. The clocktower was kinda spooky and claustraphobic.

Undying had it's moments as well, likewise with Alice. Can't think of anything else though. 

is pretty scary