Scary/Disturbing moments from non-horror game

[Voidrunner]

One of my bugbears in any form of media is when a character is caught by surprise and rendered unconscious, especially if it's slowly from a drug or something. Just seeing the vision get darker while the assailant looms overhead gives off this feeling of utter dread and powerlessness. Then when they slowly wake up all tied up in some dark place and that's even worse because you don't know what's happened while they've been out or what's coming next.

Life Is Strange was the most recent game to do it to me, even knowing Max had rewind powers that was stressful.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

I was pretty young at the time but I remember Warcraft 3 really throwing me for a loop. I was perfectly happy fighting orcs and building bases but then Arthas goes genocidal maniac and everyone is zombies.

Halo 1's The Library was certainly a big tonal shift that took me by surprise. I found it genuinely creepy and well done my first time around.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Persona 5 had a number of disturbing moments that earned its M rating in my eyes. The biggest one for me was the point where the God of Control demonstrates its true power to control people's cognition. This comes right after it kicks your ass because it is subconsciously supported by millions of people, all of them willingly locked up in cells and howling madly for your defeat- the exact opposite of what usually happens in these kinds of games.

Sure you're eventually able to turn things around, but damn it's spooky hearing everyone talk like that, and then ignore the city transforming around them and blood raining from the sky as all the free-thinking people start getting erased. It inevitably reminded me of the Blind God from the Acts of Caine books, which does some similar things but exists in a far grimmer setting than P5.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

Don't mind me, just passing through to mention Shalebridge Cradle in Thief: Deadly Shadows.

 

[CaitSeith]

Spoiler: Persona 5

When Mementos fused with the real world, the cutscene with the main characters vanishing was unexpectedly creepy.


And the people didn't even notice...

*shivers*

Well done, developers!

Persona 5

Damn, ninja'd again!

 

[Redneck Gamer]

The Metro Redux games. I don't remember which game it was, but there was a whole abandoned hospital room in the one section that if you kept the camera to just off to the side you saw black shadows of people laying or writhing on beds, one hanging from the ceiling, and as you went further in the room you could hear more sounds. In fact all the shadow ghosts in those damn games were creepy.
There was also the spider filled tunnels and ruins that were just freaky as hell.
In Metro: Last Light there was one level I just was in that if you walked up to a pair of skeletons washed against a grate that suddenly come to life and sit up, just staring at you.
Come to think of it, yeah for not being a horror game, those games were seriously creepy and scary in a lot of parts.

 

[PFCboom]

I was an itty-bitty boy when Zelda: Link's Awakening came out for the big damn brick called Game Boy; I'm not even gonna try to cover for the fact that some of the music and situations scared the hell out of me, at first. I made my brother play against the bosses because the themes... Okay, normally, a boss theme will be daunting, but have a small element of "you can do this, you are the hero!" LA's boss theme did not have that, only absolute terror and inevitable, agonizing death. Shoot, even the mini-boss theme signaled one thing: you are in trouble, be afraid.
Thankfully, I got over that quickly enough, so I could enjoy the best portable Zelda game properly.

Little Ninja Brothers for the NES. I was, like, 5, with an imagination so overactive I swear I used to hallucinate characters. Again, looking at some gameplay footage now, it's not scary in the least, but way back then, I about lost my damn mind over some of the imagery. For some reason, I only vaguely recall how, sometimes, during combat segments, the regular mooks would run away and a massive, unkillable minotaur would rush in with a sudden shift in music.
Yeah, I was kinda a coward when I was little. Other kids imagine monsters under their bed, I imagined big hecking minotaurs that wanted to stomp on my squishy self.

Gobliiins! Yes, 3 i's. It's a puzzle game in a fantasy setting, but some of the visuals were terrifying to, you guessed it, itty-bitty me. Zombies that could frighten you to literal death (game over) just be waving their arms around, voodoo dolls that made a guy scream with pain, death traps of all shapes and sizes around every corner... yeah, let's just say I stuck to more conventional platformers for a good long while.

 

[Kyrian007]

I could go all the way back to the 80's for mine. I remember the flashing lights reflected in my brother's glasses and seeing his face the moment he "got it." When the message finally really hit him. He backed away from the game cabinet, and we left the arcade early. I thought it was weird, we still had quarters to spend but we left. Why would this

Spoiler

affect him like it did. I was just a kid, he was a teen. But he understood, he explained it to me. That was the moment I first faced the possibility of global extermination. Not "game over... continue?" But instead "The End." The end of a game where winning is an impossibility. A game doesn't have to be particularly complex to convey horror more effectively than anything made in the last 2 decades.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

This Fucker right here.

Bah, the fuckin Piano from Mario 64 gave me Nightmares as a kid.

 

[the December King]

Serious Sam Second Encounter:

Clearing a room of enemies but being able to hear one last Kleer and having no idea where it is. Then deciding to just go collect ammo and suddenly hear that fucker running at you and when you turn its already jumped and you get face boned.

Absolutely! Also, hearing the headless bomb assholes screaming as they approach, but being unable to get a visual immediately... gets the heart rate up, for sure.

What's even worse is when you grab an item or important key and a group of kamikaze spawns behind you and you barely have any ammo left. I always found that scary at the age 13.

Gaaaaw, ninja'd

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

I get creeped out by the attempt to overly-cutify humans using traits found in baby animals. Not furries, nonono, they're fine (probably). But when humans are made small, given big heads, eyes and ears. Fuck that. What the hell is that about? That isn't cute...it's lazy, manipulative and has the opposite effect (for me). Also digital babies trying to appeal to human brooding are bloody awful and I psychologically and physically reject them like perhaps an arachnophobe would reject pictures of ugly spiders. Like there is this tightening nauseous knot in the stomach that something's not right and that doesn't happen with animals. Normal reality babies don't do that either, they just annoy me or briefly suppress an eternal hunger.

Well, to conform to thread expectations, I'd have to go back to being young enough to not know better and say that Half Life 1 intro first time in the dark when games weren't really a personal experience. Everything going to shit unexpectedly during a science experiment was effective at making my stupid asshole self get jittery and afraid.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

I was like...7 or 9 when I played it, so you'll forgive a child his fears, but the Spooky chapter in Conker's Bad Fur Day:


Come on, as a kid, coming off of Pokemon and Ed, Edd, and Eddy, that's legit nightmare fuel.

Its the sound effects dude. Those sounds are just perfect for terrifying us.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Little Ninja Brothers for the NES. I was, like, 5, with an imagination so overactive I swear I used to hallucinate characters. Again, looking at some gameplay footage now, it's not scary in the least, but way back then, I about lost my damn mind over some of the imagery. For some reason, I only vaguely recall how, sometimes, during combat segments, the regular mooks would run away and a massive, unkillable minotaur would rush in with a sudden shift in music.
Yeah, I was kinda a coward when I was little. Other kids imagine monsters under their bed, I imagined big hecking minotaurs that wanted to stomp on my squishy self.

I remember that one too. The sequel Super Ninja Bros. had a scary dragon to come along punish you for taking to long to finish a stage, Demon Sword had ghost tigers, and Rygar had this:

Spoiler: RAWR

All the predecessors of the Reaper in Persona.

 

[Dalisclock]

-Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: The ReDeads. Yeah, I was, like, 9 at the time, but...they were scary back then, okay?!

Considering the game up until that point there's nothing particularly scary and the game tends to be rather bright and kid friendly, suddenly coming across the redeads can be quite unsettling, either in the royal tomb or in the future castle town which adds to the unsettling nature of them.

On a similar note, in Space Quest 4, when you first arrive in the bad future at the beginning of the game, there's a weird looking dude wandering around the area. It's not immediately clear this person is someone to be avoided, until you get close enough to him, at which point you'll get a close up of his rather gross looking face, where he screams at you in a rather chilling way.

And then an armed attack drone shows up and outright murders you.

The first time it happens, it's quite disturbing.

And there's also the infamous "Continue?" screen from the Arcade version of Ninja Gaiden, where Ryu is strapped to table while a circular saw slowely descends towards his torso as the timer counts down to zero. And in the background a bunch of....things are looking on as it happens.

Yeah, that's a fun image to be treated to as a kid when you inevitably die in that game.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Any game where you?re on foot and playing cat and mouse with a big fucking truck or other monstrosity. Naughty Dog understand this fear pretty well, as they?ve put it in practically every game since UC2 with the tank fight. The Last of Us and Lost Legacy also nailed it.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Bah, the fuckin Piano from Mario 64 gave me Nightmares as a kid.

I'll 2nd that piano. And has no one mentioned the eel from Mario 64 yet? Maybe it was coupled with my long-standing, irrational fear of deep, open water, but that eel was pretty disturbing.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Bah, the fuckin Piano from Mario 64 gave me Nightmares as a kid.

I'll 2nd that piano. And has no one mentioned the eel from Mario 64 yet? Maybe it was coupled with my long-standing, irrational fear of deep, open water, but that eel was pretty disturbing.

OH MY GOODNESS HOW COULD I FORGET THE EEL!!!

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Don't mind me, just passing through to mention Shalebridge Cradle in Thief: Deadly Shadows.

"I've never robbed an orphanage before, and I can't say I'm looking forward to this visit. ...I'm used the dark, but this feels like a house... with bad dreams."