![]() Then when it felt nothing happen, a brief moment of bewilderment followed. It was as if every part of me tried to brace for that impact, and when it entered, my mind created the briefest sensation of faux-pain in anticipation. This sensation overwhelmed me in full force when Jack stabs Ethan in the eye, a scene that my brain visually translated as my body actually about to be stabbed in the eye. Considering it was my first time playing in VR, my brain had trouble processing if what I was seeing was real or not. I’ll never forget seeing through the eyes of Ethan as he’s captured by the Baker family, strapped to a chair and senselessly tortured by Jack. Fleshy monstrosities with frozen, disfigured faces leapt at me as I traveled between rickety wooden platforms in this dark pit. I think back to Upper Latria, when I innocently stepped into a cage hooked onto a chain before swiftly plummeting thousands of feet from the top of the world into the swelling pits of a crimson swamp. There are specific sequences in Demon’s Souls that instilled a deeper sense of dread within me than most other horror games. Much of this game relies on making the player feel powerless in face of the terrors that inhabit each world. Soulsborne is scary, but Demon’s Souls has its deepest roots in horror. But Alien: Isolation subverts those expectations and makes the player feel the full force of the Xenomorph’s wit. It can be easy for a horror game to feel too on-rails, directed by specific enemy placements or a monster that only appears at key moments. Consciously understanding that the Xenomorph directly responds to your actions makes each moment a fight against something that feels alive. Instead, every moment is coupled with uncertainty. (Image credit: The Creative Assembly / Sega) The Xenomorph boasts its own artificial intelligence that’s meant to learn from and adapt to the player’s actions, focused on pitting players against a real pursuer rather than a villain that’s used just for jump scares or scripted chase scenes. Alien: Isolation revolves around this core concept, and although there are moments where the chase is put to a pause, “Where is it?” never stops being the question at the front of the player’s mind. Encouraging the player to use the in-game voice chat to heighten immersion is great, and it adds a great deal of cooperative terror to the experience. And even then, it’s strongly encouraged that they don’t speak or the monster will know where to travel during its hunt. When an apparition begins its hunt, the flickering of a player's flashlight and the static coming over the radio makes it impossible to hear other players besides from the ones beside you. Coupled with a complete lack of music and a focus on the constant atmospheric hum interrupted by occasional bangs and whispers turns this into a goosebump-inducing trip. This is a game that knows to utilize overwhelming darkness to its advantage even when every light in a building is on, the game has a dingy, decrepit aura that makes even the average living room look like the hunting grounds for a monster. An apparition getting you isn’t particularly scary, yet for some reason, every step up to that point is spine-chilling. Those lights turn out to be little bulbs emitting from gigantic angler fish mixed with lights coming from other little wormholes that can transport you to different parts of Dark Bramble.Īnticipation is Phasmophobia’s greatest source of tension. All the player can see are faint glowing lights, but as they fly further and further through, they’ll suddenly hear the growling of a creature that wants to devour them. When the player flies into Dark Bramble, which is a bizarre wormhole-esque phenomenon embedded within the branches of a planet’s core, they’ll appear in a foggy realm with a heavily limited view distance. Outer Wilds isn’t a horror game, and most of the journey isn’t actually scary, but there’s one sequence that instills inexplicable cosmic terror. Combined with strict resource management and the zombies trying to impede your path at every moment, this game is a stressful trip. X is nearby, the player has to try and utilize the station’s winding paths to get him off their trail. RE2’s design is especially potent due to the maze-like nature of the police station, as every corridor and room can be committed to memory. X’s footsteps from behind the corner of a hall sends the player into panic mode.
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