Some video game levels just creep us out big time, whether or not it was the creator's intention. Here are some surprisingly scary levels in non-horror games. Subscribe for more: ru-vid.com?su...
In the first Uncharted game, the environments and atmosphere got creepier and creepier as you go. A level towards the end of the game called "The Bunker" was pretty scary.
It does get creepier as you go through out the island it gets darker and it does feel like you’re being watched and when you explore the underground missions its creepy
I was playing Drake's Fortune a while back and as soon as zombies were introduced I taken aback (normally uncharted games are known for their adventure and action set pieces, zombies don't fit there but I loved it) and legit scared to explore the levels as they were damn relentless. The part where you have to go to the generator room is the toughest I think. I really enjoyed the tension in that level.
In the game Vampires: Bloodlines, the Masquerade, there was this one level with an abandoned hotel that was haunted. It was like a tip of the hat to The Shining, and even though you play as a vampire and aren't really in any danger, it was pretty unnerving because it's tone was so different from the rest of the game.
I was coming here to point it out as well. Should he on this list for sure. You turn around in the dark hallway and the guy with an axe is right behind you.
I've died on that level before. There ARE some parts that are potentially lethal even to a vampire (the falling chandelier in the lobby, the kitchen and the punishing bursts of pans being thrown and the gas fire coming off the stove, the falling elevator in the shaft). Mostly the level design punishes you for going too fast in areas where you're meant to soak in atmosphere, and for lingering in areas where you're meant to feel hostility and tension.
Farron keep in ds3 was dark, poisonous swamp where need to eat purple moss like it's candy, and the tree monsters with basilisks all combine to make it less horror but more intimidating.
Well, the first THIEF game, back in 1997-8, had zombies and other supernaturals but the horror element came mainly from the ambient music and sounds. In the second game, they cut it down a bit and the 3rd one has a bit of both, normal enemies, such as guards and supernaturals. I dislike horror in general but in those games, i have to admit that it was rather pleasant. They are stealth games so basically, you are the one stalking everyone and everything else and you decide when and how to strike. So, it's not really scary, rather suspenseful.
Horror within the context of non-horror genre is more effective because the unexpected event inherently creates more _unknowns_ than a horror game could. While it is a horror game's job to create unknowns to scare the player with, a horror game can't, by the nature of being categorized as a horror game, _betray_ the player's trust. It can jump scare ya, but it can never achieve full guerilla warfare on your mind. That's where a non-horror game has the advantage. Horror within a non-horror game creates a layer of meta-horror, wherein the game breaches the absolute comfort zone it had granted you. It's a kind of emotional betrayal, and it makes you feel extra helpless to be left so suddenly unsure of what you THOUGHT you understood. The game showed you that it had gloves, and now they're off. And there are claws beneath. So, on top of dealing with the literal extrinsically scary asset/audio the game dished at you, you're also dealing with the stress of not knowing wtf this game is capable of. And a reason this feeling continues to be effective in retrospect is because of the lack of context you're given. The horror parts of a non-horror game are never part of the big narrative, and even when context is given, you're not immersed in any of it long enough to understand the full gravity of the situation. So it continues to be mysterious and compelling even after it's all over.
@@JonatasAdoM I watched my uncle play it too, and I think me shitting myself every 3 seconds helped him progress without shitting himself at the same time Guess I took one for the team
it had me shook till about the 5th time i fell off one of the sharp corners or messed up the jump then it just got aggravating, i both love and Hate that level so much
The Deep Roads in Dragon Age Origins. Starts off as being pretty rote, fighting your way through Darkspawn in a series of not-the-nicest caves, but nothing too bad. The further in you go you feel more and more isolated and cut off from the surface (even though in reality you can quick-travel back almost any time you want). You then get closer and closer to a darkspawn nest, and hear a woman chanting in monotone the gruesome way in which they transform people into Darkspawn Broodmothers... You find the woman who is obviously both sick with blight and just mentally shattered after her and her companion's time in captivity, and the whole thing is just HORRIBLE.
@@FelipeKana1 Yeah I used to shit myself playing the croc level and to this day it still fills me with dread playing it, just shows rocksteady did a fantastic job
I was waiting for “343 Guilty Spark”!!!! The build up was incredible, the blood splatter all over the walls, the bodies, the fact that the grunts and jackals run out of the facility and through out the level until the reveal were huddled together in areas instead of patrolling. Thank you Gameranx
Yup, but the classic edition is the best one. The anniversary version isn't really scary anymore. It made some weird changes to the atmosphere in general; like the place looking more like a rainforest than a swamp, the entire place being way brighter than the original version, and toning down some of the details like the blood splatters over the elevator's walls, which are supposed to imply that the flood is throwing bodies down there to collect biomass.
@@DanielQuan97 is so true, it’s a shame that the anniversary really missed all of those awesome details. I hope if they ever do another anniversary that they stay true to the original
Even though it can be seen as a horror game in a way, I think the Blindness Shard Trial in Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (specifically the section with the obscure monsters) is one of the more unnerving experiences I had.
The first part of the ghost ship in star wars republic commando always scared me when I was a kid. Just wandering around on a seemingly empty ship constantly seeing things out of the corner of your eye while you hear your squad mates go down one by one.
@@petahoee8281 near the end of AK when Scarecrow gives Batman the Fear gas and Joker goes crazy in his head and gets scared of people forgetting him, then you go around in 1st person in a smoky church with a shotgun
@@sdb2968 ahhhh, ok lol my memory is sometimes shit lol. Yeah that part was dope. I knew he was going to get gassed and RockSteady couldn't have executed it any better imo.
Agreed, it is the only bit of the game where I "speedrun" through to get out of there as fast as possible......I'm 47 btw and love horror films but I find some games far more scary than films. Games can do horror so well, even when they don't mean to haha.
@@proffessorX I loved every bit of it, until that point you are the terror in the darkness and you watch goons become terrified of you. Croc's lair mission switches the game from action adventure to survival horror. agreed some games encapsulate horror in a way that film never could.
@@proffessorX Don't forget the first time Man Bat appears when you are traversing the rooftops, that ish made me want to walk everywhere in the game from then on 😂
Batman Arkham asylum scarecrow encounters, wasn't paying attention to the gas so caught me by surprise. Still think thats why its my favorite entry in the series, its sad knight butchered it so much
Ravenholm is legendary. The lighting, level design, enemies, one badass ally, sound design, music, all just perfect. Also, pretty much any X Laboratory in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games.
I remember finally finishing the level ass a kid and right when I was about leap from the window (or roof, my memory's a bit fuzzy ), Garret says something about not being able to progress. After doing some digging I found out that since I had the game on hard difficulty, I had to get 80% of a level's items to progress through it, (AND I WAS ON 79%!!!). A then, already defeated, me realised that he had to descend towards those depths once more to find the last piece of treasure. I ended up not being able to find it and I had to lower the difficulty and RE-DO THE ENTIRE LEVEL. Good times
Wow! The moment I saw this video's title, I immediately thought of Thief: Deadly Shadows' Shalebridge Cradle. I didn't expect you'd actually include it especially at no.1. Great job, gameranx.
The bunker level in uncharted is a good example too. Very dark and the “descendant” zombies very tense and scary my first play through. I was not expecting that to happen lol
Yeah that was incredibly unsettling also the music was creepy the way I got through it was shouting ahhhhhh the whole time and grabbing every bit of ammo I could and blasting anything that moved instantly, it worked
Dude, MGS2; there's a section where you have zero gear (not even clothes) and your commander and your girlfriend start telling you to turn the console off because you've been playing for too, long among other really creepy things.
@@MS-ru5gp Thats just the tip of iceberg, the shit the Colonel says during the last codec call before Solidus fight is prophetic, it is ahead of it’s time, scary how that codec call told us the modern society and the laws that work around it. It’s simply breathtaking
If you had never played or heard about then I can totally see how it would be weird lol. I thought it was a military game when I was a kid too until the shape shifter and the insane cyborg ninja showed up lol
The Thief 3 level freaked me out the first time I played it. I ended up running across a table and jumping out the window just to complete the level. Great level in an OK game. The earlier ones are so much better
I remember the final mission of batman arkham knight as the most scary mission on an already spooky game, the statues of batman just apersing behind you and overwhelming you was terrifying.
Even though this isn't necessarily a level (more like a unlocked place) in a video game, when you open the demon door in Bloodstone in Fable 2 that takes you to a place called Winter Lodge, it was a fairly big jump scare for me and most players. You are running down this path at night lit by old street lamps in the snow. Peaceful music is playing as you come upon the Winter Lodge which is lit up and looks warm, inviting and cozy. As soon as you walk through the front door, a loud "DUN" in the music plays which has now turned creepy sounding while at the exact same time, all the lights shut off and now there are skeletons laying around. Some of these are on medieval looking torture devices and one is laying in the fireplace. It continues to get worse as when you walk back outside there is now a skull with an ax through it sitting on a stump in the front yard as well as a big bloody bag hanging from the front tree. It happens so fast and the false sense of security/peacefulness that you have while walking to the lodge, makes it very unexpected and scary. Would love to see you guys cover this in a video!
I would make the case for quite a few areas in Mass Effect 2 & 3. Off the top of my head ME2 the derelict collector ship, the Reaper IFF. ME3 The Mars area Sur’Kesh and a few others that seriously skirt the sci fi/horror line, admittedly they don’t always go whole hog which is a pity but it does make for some very tense and atmospheric build up
YES the ardat yakshi temple was very creepy. Especially in the dorms near the beginning. Mass effect has quite a few missions where I was like "When did this become a horror game?!"
Agree with the first time meeting the Flood in the OG Halo. Up until then everything was run and gun. Suddenly you are in a temple that is quiet. Everything is quiet. It’s like going from a whole day at Disney to a sensory deprivation tank. Then you watch what looks like the main scene in Aliens where the Marines first encounter the Aliens down near the thermal core and then BAM! FLOOD! And it’s a run and gun fire fight with them coming from everywhere. I have played all these levels and games save the HAT one and yeah, this was number one for me because I easily remember where I was when I first played the temple that introduced THE FLOOD.
The Become as Gods section of Nier Automata was seriously scary when you first got to it. The visibility constantly shifts from being good to being very dark. Exploding enemies can attack you out of nowhere and there is a hauntingly scary music in the background. The entire sequence was quite scary since it was a serious change from the regular tone of the game until then which was mostly just action.
Yes! Find them batteries to keep your flashlight working or else the ghosts are gonna get you and try to get to the fridge coz light stays inside the fridge! Very nice.
Yes! I knew there was something like that from New Vegas, but it’s been years since I played it so I couldn’t remember. It totally deserves to be on here.
The Geothermal Caverns in TR: Reboot were definitely a shock to the system. I had never played the original Tomb Raider games, so this made me legit fall in love with Lara Croft. 1st time through, I'm like "what the fuck did I just get myself into?!".
Something else I forgot to mention: If you were paying attention during some earlier sections in the game, Lara has a legit open wound in her side. I mean yeah, she did manage to close it when she got to the Shantytown, but still..... I wouldn't want to be in a BLOOD POOL with a wound like that.
Also it wasn't necessarily a horror level but the Mad Max mission where you have to turn off the gas in Gastown was pretty eerie. You had to navigate through the tunnels of this massive oil refinery and you see less and less people the deeper you go till you're completely alone, you then get to this section where you have to turn off all the gas valves before becoming intoxicated. If you succeed you simply escape through a door, but it's a generally tense and creepy mission.
Better yet, when you play as joker when the collectors attack the Normandy Thats the worse mission, in a good way, in the trilogy because you play as shepard for almost the entire game, a badass except for this one time
I recently replayed Half Life 2. All was going fine until I got to Ravenholm and from the very first image, I felt my heart just sink to the bottom of my stomach. Exactly the same feeling I got when I was 12 years old and playing for the very first time. Love that level.
@@HappieDima I mean,my first uncharted was uncharted 4,when I play uncharted 1 I did not expect to find a Nazi zombie in a jungle on an island somewhere near panama
The only scary thing in the geothermal caverns in Tomb Raider, was finding those 5-6 sacks, hanging somewhere high, in the darkness, containing who knows what. Shalebridge Cradle is indeed scary, i love the first 3 Thief games and that level has been featured in a lot of videos as one of the MOST scary levels in any game ever.
@@charliewhelan9488 Haven't played SOTTR yet , so.....no opinion but thanks for the input, much appreciate it, now i am looking forward to play it, I did love the first reboot TR, still playing it :)
I am thrilled to see Deadly Shadows on this list! I highly recommend nabbing the game on GoG, and modding it with the Sneaky Upgrade mod whether you are a first time player or a Thief veteran. Modding it on steam should be fine as well(?), but I know the GoG versions of the series (we don't talk about the fourth entry though...) are the preferred versions nowdays.
When I was younger, Fable's 2 Wraithmarsh always creeped me out. It was always dark, foggy, and eerie music, and was filled with the two toughest monsters/longest ones to fight in the game. Just didn't match with the rest of the otherwise jovial and funny tone of the game
And near in the caves with the dark in fable 3,when I forgot his name who's with you gets the torch blown out and then he lights it up again to see that things face right next to him, that made me jump
Was not expecting to see SWAT4 on this list. What people don't know is the entire level and dialogue builds up to that point as you try to clear out threats and save people only for it to end up like that. I think there's some nice lines that are said there. For me the scariest part of this game was actually right at the beginning when you rescue a woman who had literally been held in a dungeon, kept as a torture/rape toy for a psycho and treated worse than an animal. Absolutely horrifying, and mostly because this is all happening in an average suburb looked over by his kindly old mother...
A game moment that really creeped me out in a non horror game was the mental asylum in Indigo prophecy, controling the breathing of the girl and try not to encounter the psychopaths running all over the place
I was hoping to see Max Payne on here. That scream when you fall of the trail... I remember playing it at night when I was younger and my heart would drop every time
I personally think in Tomb Raider 2013 Himiko's Grave was much more scary for two reasons: 1. Lara is still very inexperienced in this level and 2. it is the first time the game throws that level of gore and gruesomeness at you. Also the worst part for my personal primal fear of heights was the climb of the radio tower. It might have been the most intense moment for me in the entire game.
Will never forget my first time playing Ravenholm.. absolutely immersed and scared as hell, always skipped the level during playthroughs. Now it's revered as one of my favorites
idk why people think Ravenholm is scary, specifically, or even HL2 is scary as a whole. Half Life 2 is a great game, maybe even the best game ever existed, but tbh it almost didn't scare me at all. Disgusting monsters? Absolutely! Horrifying? Nah. The only really scary part for me was under the bridge passage. I'm afraid of heights.
I was about to comment that! I didn't expect it to turn horror ambiance and the worst (best) is that I went out of the house. Then the game Turns red and keeps making a low sound like an alarm until you go back to the house!
@@cookieinhaler i played it myself a while back. I loved it. The game itself is absolutley amazing (coming from someone who hates puzzle and platform games) but that level is something else.
I remember playing Half-life 2 and going through Ravenholm, and something that made it really scary for ME that you forgot to mention Falcon, is that there's NO MUSIC playing the WHOLE TIME! THAT, above EVERYTHING ELSE, is what made the level so scary to me.
The Shalebridge Cradle in thief 3 literally terrified me. All the horrible experiments on the patients and the notes just add to the atmosphere. When you realise it was an asylum and an orphanage at the same time also provides a deep unnerving. The flickering lights when a puppet was near crippled me though.
The underground areas of shadow of the tomb Raider, those demons I call them (because what else do I call them) terrified me. To be fare a scare easily but still...
Nah your right I just started playing like a week ago bc it was free on PlayStation but I was scared af tryna figure out the puzzles and try and watch my back the whole time...
Once you know how and where you'll get jumpscared and hurt, it's not so bad though. I've tust taken to running through it and ignoring the sounds. Because the sound design is maybe 70% of what's scary about it.
There's this one particular building in CP2077 where one of the rooms upstairs looks like a room of a mental hospital with blood all over, I don't know why but that very building creeps me out through and through. Also, about SWAT 4's cult quest: I'm not really sure if it's base or inspired from a real documentary of a cult acting as a child daycare where in reality, they are explicitly abusing these children to every horror you could possibly think of. The only reason why it got exposed is because at one point, children seems to be missing consecutively near this place.
The Silent Cartographer might be the single best video game level I’ve played. In the course of that one level the entire game shifts tones and you have to learn how to fight all over again. Hasn’t thought about the Thief games in forever. Thanks for the reminder.
The Elderscrolls IV: Oblivion - the suspiciously good deal house you buy, that turns out to be haunted! When you sleep in that bed, and get woken up by violent ghosts...
I know that the video was posted 2 years ago, but if it had been posted today I would have added the sewers from stray. They’re not particularly disturbing or anything, but when you spend the entire game playing as a cute cat trying to find its way home, in what’s a nice, short story about humanity and our legacy, that place catches you completely off guard. It’s not even a hard level, it just feels like it belongs in resident evil far more than stray.
The Ardat-Yakshi mission in Mass Effect 3 is personally my favorite creepy mission in any game. took me completely by surprise, the tension was awesome, and the final cutscene genuinely creeped me out. Damn Bioware really nailed that mission!
It took about about an hour for me to build up the courage to swim into the mouth of that giant metal shark in Bango Kazooie. Remember lining myself up and swimming through with my eyes closed, because I just knew Bango would be torn to bloody shreds when I got close enough. These are the moments that strengthened us as kids. Also the eels in Mario 64 was the fuel to my nightmares lol
The flood in Halo combat evolved was an insane twist! didn't expect it one bit.. i remember it being 3am playing co op on legendary difficulty when we first came face to face with them.
Ill never forget my first introduction to the flood as a kid. It was thier first appearance ever, and it was so tense, I was scared shitless and had no clue what was in store for be behind that door.
