Whether it’s the a deserted mansion, police station or laboratory, Resident Evil forces players to explore tight, confined environments where evil could be lurking behind any door. The games also make excellent use of ‘haunted house’ type environments. Although the zombies are slow, plodding enemies, they keep advancing even when they are riddled with bullets. To this day, the first instalment is a master class in horror, and it never lets the player feel like they know what’s coming next.
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Resident Evil Series (1996 -)Īlthough the Resident Evil series gradually ditched its horror roots in favour of more action orientated gameplay, the series has produced some of the most disturbing moments in gaming. Fake error messages pop up saying that the memory card is corrupt or that the television’s video signal has been lost, and players are constantly kept on edge about what is real and what is just a trick. However, perhaps the most ingenious use of the insanity meter was tricking players into thinking that there was something wrong with the game itself. Weird sound effects or screams can be heard and the camera angle becomes increasingly distorted. When the meter depletes, the game uses disturbing tactics to create an escalating feeling of pure horror. Inspired by HP Lovecraft’s mythos, GameCube title Eternal Darkness featured a unique ‘insanity meter’ which affected the gameplay to reflect the character’s mental state. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (2002) Fans of the series have theorised that the character is Death or Satan, but the game never reveals his origins or intentions.ĩ. During the final encounter, the strange man points to the site where John Marston will ultimately be buried and says “This is a fine spot”. The ‘I Know You’ mission is simply a series of conversations with a man who wears a suit and a top hat, but the mysterious character reveals that he knows more than he should about the game’s protagonist John Marston. It’s definitely a disturbing moment, but it is topped by an even stranger set of side quests which run throughout the game. Shockingly, the old man is unaware that his wife is dead and acts normally. However, when all the flowers are collected, the old man takes the player back to his cabin where the rotting corpse of his wife sits at the dining table. At first, the mission feels tedious and is far removed from the game’s action gameplay. One of the game’s side quests requires players to help an old man pick flowers for his wife’s anniversary. It seems strange to think of western adventure Red Dead Redemption as a disturbing video game, but its seemingly normal, historical setting is what makes some of the strange encounters in the game so unsettling.