Things That Always Creep You Out

[Cfrock]

There are certain things that I encounter in video games that always creep me out. They make me feel uneasy every time, without fail, and I'm wondering if there's anything that creeps the rest of you out every time you see it.

For example, any time I have to get in a lift and there are doors on opposite sides of it I get creeped out. I put my back to the wall and try to keep an eye on both doors at once so nothing can take me by surprise. It feels so wrong not knowing which way to face, which side will open when I've gotten where I'm going, and expecting something nasty lunging up behind me if I guess the wrong door. Or, God forbid, both doors open together.

Another example of mine would be opening a door that doesn't lead anywhere. The door opens, and there's a brick wall in the way, or the doorway is concrete. Opening doors and finding a solid wall makes my skin crawl. I feel trapped and at someone else's mercy. Like someone is playing games with me and I'm like a rat in a maze, helpless and lost.

So... Is there anything that always creeps you out in games? Anything that never fails to make you uneasy?

 

[Spirit]

@Cfrock Another example of mine would be opening a door that doesn't lead anywhere. The door opens, and there's a brick wall in the way, or the doorway is concrete. Opening doors and finding a solid wall makes my skin crawl. I feel trapped and at someone else's mercy. Like someone is playing games with me and I'm like a rat in a maze, helpless and lost.

You must absolutely hate that one scene in The Matrix. Hahaha.


Personally, I don't like going in the water. At all. Ever.

I don't like it in real life but it is so much worse in video games because things are designed to come after you, the controls are designed to be sluggish and anything could be down there.

In real life you have an idea of what's going to be below the surface of the water, but in a video game you're at the mercy of whatever hellspawn the developers can conjure from their imagination.

 

[Spiritual Mask Salesman]

In my childhood, wells were never the same after Ocarina of Time. Dead Hand was so creepy! I'm also going to blame OoT again for making spiral staircases very stressful to me.

I have to agree with Spirit on swimming in some games, it leaves you vunerable most of the time, and your evasive speed is considerably lower. I'd rather not get in the water if I can avoid it.

This is rather simple, but literally any doorway in a game with dungeons, or some equivalent. There is never a more uneasy moment than the uncertainty of what could be behind the next door, is it a swarm of enemies? A mini-boss? Or maybe it'll be a nice room where there won't be a battle. You have to open the door to find out, though.

 

[Killjoy262]

Twilight Princess Gidbos, the great sword wielding mummies. Even though I've, for the most part, memorized their locations, I still tighten up, now to a very minor degree, when I enter the same room as them.

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

in Ys The Oath of Felghana, there's this underground section beneath the mines that I swear gave me anxiety, there's like a darkish filter around the screen and the music is overtly uncomfortable, and you have to go deeper and deeper w/ enemies coming at you at any point, I can't remember a time where a game has made me feel like that, but boy do I not like it

 

[Echolight]

First person games. I know it’s like seeing like we normally see, but in a game it just feels like I’m partially blind, because I’m used to games like Mario and Zelda. I’ve only played one game where it’s first person, a shooting game, but with paintballs, not bullets. I didn’t really like it. It always creeps me out.

Also, redeads in MM and OoT still slightly freak me out. When I was younger, I played my cousin’s OoT game, and I ran right into a bunch of redeads, creeped me out so much that I closed the ds and handed back to him. Still am scared of them lol

 

[TheGreatCthulhu]

Usually, it's games based in reality, or have extremely realistic things about them that give me the heebie-jeebies.

For example, I'm playing a dinosaur simulation called Saurian, and playing as a baby Dakotaraptor, you're vulnerable from everything, like giant venomous lizards, Acheroraptors, and when the game is finished, pterosaurs.

Being actively hunted in that game is definitely creepy, because despite being third person, the foliage is thick, so you don't really know where the predator is going to strike.

Plus the music, or lack thereof, is definitely creepy. It's almost too quiet.

Another game that's slightly unnerving is Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Not so much that the game is creepy, but the protagonist is actually suffering from legitimate psychosis, so seeing her suffering from such a mental disease is unnerving, to me at least.

 

[Fraxinus]

Probably not what the OP is asking per se, but when games go in a slightly anime-style direction and the female characters just look unhuman because of their horrifying facial proportions. I'm gonna go straight to Astral Chain to be honest because that's like such a concentrated example of it. The game gives the characters fairly realistic proportions but then all the female characters straight up look like monstrosities because of whatever waifu accident their faces got into. When games go the BotW Zelda route for character design, that creeps me out.

 

[TheGreatCthulhu]

when games go in a slightly anime-style direction and the female characters just look unhuman because of their horrifying facial proportions.

Don't play any visual novels, then, lol.

 

[Spirit]

Probably not what the OP is asking per se, but when games go in a slightly anime-style direction and the female characters just look unhuman because of their horrifying facial proportions. I'm gonna go straight to Astral Chain to be honest because that's like such a concentrated example of it. The game gives the characters fairly realistic proportions but then all the female characters straight up look like monstrosities because of whatever waifu accident their faces got into. When games go the BotW Zelda route for character design, that creeps me out.

Don't play any visual novels, then, lol.

 

[Echolight]

that pic is actually creepy, she doesn't look human, more like an alien lol

I get you, Fraxinus, some anime characters just look...weird. like this one

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

looks like a fish

 

[Fraxinus]

Don't play any visual novels, then, lol.

I don't play visual novels because I think the genre is dumb, but as far as I know, those typically are in a more solidified anime style, and when it's more stylized the ****ed facial proportions aren't as jarring. I'm not dissing anime art styles (in fact I play several games that utilize them that are not creepy at all), but there's certain uses of it that just do not work. It's like Wind Waker vs Twilight Princess character design but with anime. Wind Waker is less terrifying because they're further from normal human proportions in general. There are exceptions of course, but when you fuse pseudo-realism with anime facial proportions, thats's when it gets into the uncanny valley of character design. For some reason in the case of Astral Chain, it's only the female characters who suffer from it though. Women don't actually have bigger eyes than men. There's a different contour around the cheeks maybe but actually making their eyes bigger is terrifying.

that pic is actually creepy, she doesn't look human, more like an alien lol

Aliens are cool tho. umu Don't waifu up aliens either, they deserve to be monstrosities in the non-waifu direction. Xenomorphs are more aesthetically pleasing than Xenoblade waifus. #rekt

 

[TheGreatCthulhu]

I don't play visual novels because I think the genre is dumb, but as far as I know, those typically are in a more solidified anime style, and when it's more stylized the ****ed facial proportions aren't as jarring. I'm not dissing anime art styles (in fact I play several games that utilize them that are not creepy at all), but there's certain uses of it that just do not work. It's like Wind Waker vs Twilight Princess character design but with anime. Wind Waker is less terrifying because they're further from normal human proportions in general. There are exceptions of course, but when you fuse pseudo-realism with anime facial proportions, thats's when it gets into the uncanny valley of character design. For some reason in the case of Astral Chain, it's only the female characters who suffer from it though. Women don't actually have bigger eyes than men. There's a different contour around the cheeks maybe but actually making their eyes bigger is terrifying.


Aliens are cool tho. umu Don't waifu up aliens either, they deserve to be monstrosities in the non-waifu direction. Xenomorphs are more aesthetically pleasing than Xenoblade waifus. #rekt

Lol, I was mostly just joking. I do agree that if you're going for realism, maybe anime art styles ain't the right choice.

 

[el :BeoWolf:]

Little do you all know anime is how the Japanese government is normalizing extraterrestrials for their arrival

Spoiler