The Scariest Game You've Ever Played

[TheBigMan0706]

Doom 3 on the original Xbox

 

[Cherrim]

Maybe P.T. because iirc it's the only game I've ever had to hand off a controller to someone because I couldn't play it, but I got through most of it and honestly, nothing bad even happened? We never screwed up enough to even get attacked so it was kind of underwhelming. And I may actually have handed off the controller so I could start researching how to beat it and give instructions. I can't remember.

I think the scariest game (for me) that I do remember the details of was probablyyy... Dead Space? I don't play a lot of scary games because I simply don't like anxiety-inducing suspense, so I don't have a lot to pick from. But every scary game I've played always gets to a point where I realize nothing will actually happen to me if I screw up and once I cross that threshold of getting bored inching through a hallway and learning the writers' scare tactics, I always end up barreling through the end with no regard for how they want me to feel. So by the end they never seem as scary when I go to talk about them, oops.

 

[Kameken]

Alien: Isolation.

I've never been scared enough in a game to actually hide in fear of a single enemy for as long as I've hid from the Xenomorph in this game. The way a xenomorph kills its victims is just horrifying to me, and I'd rather die of starvation in a locker than get chestbursted.

 

[Rosehip]

omg i love bioshock! i only have played bioshock infinite.

oh i also say i think fallout 3 is pretty scary. those zombies >.<

I love Fallout 3, but those feral ghouls and the general atmosphere of constant loneliness throughout the game...yeah, better keep that Pip-Boy light on during the night. I also got scared while traversing Vault 22 in New Vegas. Damned plant monsters.

Those are games that don't classify as horror, too.

 

[Shhwonk]

Never played any horror games besides maybe Dead Space, but I found it less scary than gross and gory.
However, as a Nintendo kid growing up, I had a few games that scared me when I least expected it... For example, in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and reaching Twilight Town, hearing the super eerie music, the dark and sad atmosphere, the backstory of the town, etc. etc. That section of the game must have taken the longest for me to complete because I would dread turning on my GameCube to jump into the sorrow that was Twilight Town.
Another part of Paper Mario 2 that scared me was when I read that ghost Toad's diary on the train and got this horrifying death sequence. At least for a 7-year-old dude.

But as for entire games that were scary, I can't really think of any. I always strayed away from Silent Hill and Resident Evil because I would tell myself they were too scary for me! I'm also one of those pansies that constantly lowers the volume when I can sense a scary thing is gonna happen. Oh man.

EDIT: I just remembered: Twilight Princess scared the shizz out of me.

 

[pkmin3033]

I think I'm going to have to go with Eternal Darkness here too, for the sanity effects. It was difficult to know what was actually real and what wasn't, which made for a fantastic atmosphere, but also one that scared the hell out of me. Vanishing inventory, giant/small enemies, scenery changing, EXPLODING when you try and do certain things, and of course the numerous screen warps...damn, that game was all kinds of messed up. Without sanity, it was just creepy. With it, it was just plain terrifying.

Alan Wake gets a special mention for keeping me on my toes through foreshadowing, though. Picking up a novel extract talking about hearing a chainsaw, and then hearing one a few minutes later, had me jumping at literally EVERYTHING that followed on from that. Most of the time it was also foggier than Silent Hill 2 and the enemies were blurry shadow men that moved very quickly a lot of the time. Freakin' HELL.

Also, Regenerators in Resident Evil 4. I don't need to go into detail here.

 

[Vendily]

For me, It has to be Majora's Mask. I started playing, then the first cutscene freaked me out so much, I stopped for months afterwards. I came back to it though.

 

[Zakariya]

The scariest video game I know of happens to be SCP Containment Breach, as it's most iconic antagonistic character is one of the few things to cause me to almost wet my pants. I could not contain the blatant fear that the abomination had filled me with, and it was a fearful sight that rivals the Proto-Gravemind (the disturbing cocoon-like monster from Halo that features a mutated corpse hanging out of it).

To this day, I have not played anything that provides me the same amount of fright, and I haven't experienced that level of fear until I saw the redesigned moon in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D. Although I will say that I do not find the game itself to be frightening, and certainly doesn't instill the same amount of dread that SCP Containment Breach carried.

 

[Leviathan]

Jak 2 originally scared younger me upon its first release with that huge tonal shift. After that, nothing''s really been too scary for me to play, though Darkness 1 & 2 still creeps me the heck out.

 

[LatiasSoulDew]

Fatal Frame III: The Tormented, and actually I stopped playing not long after trying the game, I was scared.

 

[Cariad]

Dead Space 2. Apart from that fact that necromorphs are bloody terrifying, the entire premise of the game is harrowing in itself. Then there's the extremely well-done ambiance and sound in the game comboed with the jump scares and atmosphere. I spent the entirety of the game screaming and jumping at every little sound.