I’ve mentioned several times (like just last week) that I love when something that isn’t part of the Horror genre leans into a bit of scariness for a while. These moments in games don’t tend to alst long, but the sudden and jarring genre-shift can make them some of the most memorable parts of the game. Well, in the spirit of spooky month, let’s take a look at the Top 10 Scary Moments in Non-Horror Games (that I’ve played).
Grab your candy (but please not candy corn), and let’s dive in!
10) Chemical Plant Staircase ~ Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Scariness doesn’t have to come from spooky monsters jumping out at you, or a creeping feeling of foreboding aura. It can also come from the crippling tension of helplessness and impending death via drowning! Anyone who has played this classic Sonic game knows that this infamous underwater staircase is guaranteed to trigger the “Drowning Music” that all Sonic players fear. And when one small slip will send you tumbling back to the bottom of the stairs and your assured death? Oh, it’s indescribably nerve-wracking! Makes me wonder sometimes if the old Sonic games ever actually gave any fears of deep water to impressionable young kids…
9) The River Twgyz ~ Super Paper Mario
Super Paper Mario is certainly not afraid of going off the deep end (like the part where a little girl breaks her own neck and turns into a demon spider, or the part where an innocent world is purged of life and you get to explore the ruined emptiness that remains). Most of this at least stops at being “creepy”, “unsettling”, and “why is this in a kids game”. But then you have to dive into the murky dark depths of the River Twygz, which, pun aside, involves slipping into darkness as the music distorts and starts playing backwards, and skeletal hands reach from the walls and floor to grab you and pull you to your death. I’m pretty sure the people who rated this game “E for Everyone” stopped about an hour in!
8) The Death Wall ~ Kid Chameleon
Kid Chameleon is a brutally tough platformer, but you don’t realize just how much this game was pulling its punches until the first level to introduce “The Death Wall”. Loading into yet another seemingly innocuous level, your eardrums are instantly assaulted by the loud, grating heart-pounding beat of the musical track that only plays in the three “Death Wall” levels in the game. Hesitate for even a second, and you’ll soon see the titular wall rush in from the left of the screen. Unceasing, unstoppable, and without mercy. A single touch spells death, so you better run, because there’s no way to escape except to touch that finishing flag and end the level! Thankfully, Kid Chameleon is designed to encourage exploring alternate paths through the game, so there are ways to skip all three “Death Wall” levels! Thank goodness!
7) Traverse Town Heartless ~ Kingdom Hearts
This is a silly and extremely personal one to me, but as a kid I hated not feeling safe (and I still do, but I’m more mentally able to differentiate between real life and a fictional video game, obviously). So imagine my shock upon stumbling across an innocent bystander get his heart sucked out of him in the seemingly benign Traverse Town hub world. THEN, imagine my utter horror when I backtracked to the previously safe town square, only to find it now devoid of NPCs, filled with evil heartless shadows, and all the happy music replaced with tense enemy motifs! I actually stopped playing the game at that point, and proceeded to have very vivid nightmares about it for the next week. It would be over a year before I came back to this game and beat it for real, though I can still recall ten-year-old me’s fear from back then.
6) Space Pirate Laboratory ~ Metroid Prime
They say that in space no one can hear you scream, but I think my parents probably heard me scream at least once or twice while making it through the Space Pirate Laboratory. The whole place is tense, with low droning music that jarringly blares loudly whenever a creepily designed space pirate appears to attack. And, of course, there’s the one-two punch of a metroid breaking out of containment to jump scare you followed IMMEDIATELY by a pirate leaping through the glass window. Then the moment which struck me the most, where you obtain the heat vision visor, only for the power to immediately shut off in the facility, plunging it all into total darkness. You’re forced to backtrack out of the place, and the way you can just hear the enemies shifting around in the shadows as you frantically look for them with your new visor…yeesh!
5) Doctor Emil Hartman ~ Control
From start-to-finish, Control is definitely a weird game that isn’t afraid of veering into uncanny territory, so I suppose that a full-on stealth-horror DLC mission shouldn’t have been too surprising. Still, the moment I first entered this hidden sector of the Federal Bureau of Control and the lights broke as this invincible shadowy beast appeared…was certainly nerve-wracking. And then it stalks you throughout the entire DLC, necessitating you slipping between thin little (sometimes faulty) overhead lights, looking for an escape. It’s a bit less terrifying when you view it more as a puzzle than a chase, but my tension level was still sky-high for this entire area. The creature’s jerky and erratic movements didn’t help either!
4) Killer Croc’s Lair ~ Batman: Arkham Asylum
There’s actually a plethora of frightening and tense moments in this incredible game (like the nightmare sequences and just the general vibe of an old asylum), but this segment in particular is terrifying. Story-wise, I can’t even remember why you have to trek through this nightmare sewer, but for some reason it’s vital to your mission. Also for some reason, the only weapon you have to defend yourself is a simple stun attack that only holds Killer Croc off for seconds at best. The same Killer Croc who, of course, can silently swim underwater undetected, only to burst out in front of you with a loud orchestral sting, and charge to eat you with only seconds to react in time. What’s worse is when he jumps out from behind, and you have to waste a second spinning the camera back around and hope his jaws aren’t already closing on you!
3) Queen Vanessa’s Manor ~ A Hat in Time
This is such a strange one, but an extremely memorable one too. Aside from the occasional mild swear word (like you’d find in a PG movie), or some surprisingly humorous dark comedy, A Hat in Time is a bright and pleasant family-friendly game. And then you get to this level, where a terrifying shadow woman stalks you through her home as you search for the treasure she stole, and she sucks your soul out of your body if you get caught! There’s absolutely zero humor or happiness in this level, and the haunting musical score (that goes crazy alongside some shaky screen effects when the monster spots you) doesn’t help. You can even find scraps of lore notes that detail how this single woman morphed into the beast she is now, which is as sad as it is additionally scary.
The single saving grace is a secret exit you can discover that skips the whole affair, which I almost have to feel was added in so the horror-averse could complete this scary level in a game that contains not a single other one!
2) Lara’s Nightmare ~ Rise of the Tomb Raider
Rise of the Tomb Raider has a very touching, tear-jerking, wholesome DLC adventure known as “Blood Ties”, which sees you exploring Lara Croft’s dusty, cluttered childhood home after the events of the main story. It’s an amazing DLC pack…but it comes in two parts. The second part tasks you with exploring the same house, only this time the lights have cut out, spooky foreboding music has kicked in, and there’s an invasion of frighteningly silent zombies stalking the halls! With limited ammo and uncomfortably sparse room to maneuver, you have to trek all over the halls to escape the manor and tackle the source of the invasion (canonically, of course, this is all a nightmare sequence).
The roughest part is easily the basement, which along with being pitch-black and filled with nooks and crannies for zombies to hide in, was far too similar to my own basement for comfort! I might not be afraid of “monsters in the dark” anymore, but I definitely looked over my shoulder for a few days after playing this DLC whenever I was in my basement!
1) The Bunker ~ Uncharted
I’ve mentioned this one before on an article from a while ago (the one about gaming twists), but no words or screenshots can really do this unsettling and jarring genre pivot justice. A lighthearted adventure movie in the same vein as Indiana Jones switches entirely into survival horror as you have to explore an abandoned WWII bunker and survive against the zombified creatures that stalk its halls. Uncharted may chiefly by an action-adventure shooter, but apparently its developers know how to ratchet up the intensity for horror too (and hey, they did go on to make The Last of Us). It’s some genuinely frightening stuff, complete with dark corners, flickering lights, subtle creepy droning music, and more jump scares than you can shake a fist at.
It’s so paradoxical, because this is my favorite and least-favorite area of Uncharted to come back to on repeat playthroughs. I just can’t help it! I really like short-form horror like this, because I can appreciate being spooked while also knowing it won’t last too long (this section is only twenty-thirty minutes, from start-to-finish). Still, I feel my hackles rise and my goosebumps kick in on each playthrough. Even though I know its tricks, that little thought in the back of my mind wonders if maybe this time will be the time a zombie pops out from somewhere it never has before!
But hey, that’s just my opinion!
The Contrarian Corner 