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Legion
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In this thread I will explore the scariest PC game I have ever played, followed by why I believe so, as well as include a couple honorable mentions.
But before that, let's examine what causes us fear in a gaming setting. Shock or "jump" scares are simply not enough to creep the living shit out of me. A game also needs to possess an overall atmosphere of dread, which stems from both story and soundtrack. Good graphics simply cannot override a lack of atmosphere. A game's story doesn't necessarily have to be innovative to be scary, there are plenty of movies and games that work within genre conventions yet function as a montage of "best of" moments. A great example of this in horror films is The Conjuring franchise. The original Conjuring borrowed the best parts of possession films and rolled them into one seamless viewing experience that I felt was truly frightening (if you like this movie as much as I do, I highly recommend 'The Demonologist,' a non-fiction book about the careers of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren).
So, what is the scariest PC game I've ever played? VISAGE, which was released in 2020. The game's graphics are extremely dated, by at least a decade if not more. Certain parts of the game are woefully incomplete, such as a total lack of hand animations and brain dead character models that seem shoved in at the last minute to make the release deadline. There is also the blatant problem of repetitiveness. Flickering lights and exploding bulbs lend some initial tension yet are a total pain in the ass by the time the credits roll. 90% of the game takes place in the main character's home, and even with it's labyrinth passages and entire areas that can only be unlocked through playing each individual chapter, it gets monotonous very quickly. The ending is awfully generic and doesn't make sense within the context of the story, yet it doesn't sink the game due to its relative brevity. It's also worth mentioning that Visage shamelessly rips off Cry of Fear, as well as P.T. and Silent Hill in general. Ironically, it's also these flaws and general lack of polish that help Visage standout in comparison to other PC horror games released by established studios with much larger budgets.
Now onto what Visage gets right... For starters, the opening sequence establishes a serious sense of dread that sets it apart from every other horror game I have ever played. The main character suffers a nervous breakdown and shoots his whole family before turning the gun on himself. All of this is shown using the in-game engine, and while not impressive from a visual standpoint whatsoever, sets the tone for everything that follows. Our playable character, Dwayne Anderson, wakes up in a puddle of blood, and stumbles into the afterlife via a limbo version of his mortal home. He's now trapped in a house bursting with paranormal activity, revealed through individual chapters where Dwayne must relive horrifying elements from the lives of previous residents. He accomplishes this solely through solving puzzles, as Visage features no combat at all. This might be a turn-off to gamers who lack the patience that puzzle-based walking sims require.
When I first started playing Visage, I uninstalled it after an uninspiring first hour. I figured the entire game would play out within the physical structure of Dwayne's house itself. It wasn't until I gave the game a chance that the extremely well-done nightmarescapes revealed themselves and are arguably what the game does best. These parallel dimensions filled with oversized crucifixes, monsters lacking fully formed faces, as well as several outdoor representations of the game's real world, create a serious ominous diversity. This constant mental bludgeoning takes a toll on Dwayne's fragile sanity: if he stays in the dark for too long or gets attacked by one of the game's demonic specters, he "dies" or restarts from an earlier checkpoint since Dwayne is in fact, already dead. The only way to make progress is to solve each chapter's puzzles, which I found very challenging, even as a veteran player of these types of games.
Not every character arc works. For example, the way Rakan dispatches Dwayne once he has him in his clutches is laughably stupid. The eyes for Dolores' character model don't match her actions (neither do the eyes of Dwayne's wife and two children shortly before he shoots them in the game's intro). Lucy's Demon, the game's most shocking jump scare, is a bland combination of Wolverine-like claws with the face of a porcelain doll. The game's best chapter is by far the Mirror Mask and can't be accessed until the three previous-resident’s chapters are completed. This chapter is also undoubtedly the most difficult and required a walkthrough for me to beat it. I'm not sure what collecting all the matryoshka dolls accomplishes; I was never able to do so during my first playthrough.
The soundtrack for Visage is minimalist yet foreboding. Three tracks stand out to me above the others: “Phantom,” “Waiting Room from Hell,” and "333," which reminds me of the opening track of John Carpenter's The Thing. Further small touches, such as a common Kit-Cat Klock and the number 333 which Dwayne encounters all throughout the game, accentuate the original score. The crushed cigarette butts and smashed beer cans are lifted straight from P.T., and paint a realistic picture of Dwayne’s mental collapse. Overall, I rank Visage as the scariest PC game I have ever played, even with its repetitive gameplay and unfinished visual assets.
IGN ran a poll of The Twelve Best Horror Games on PC at the beginning of 2022, and Visage towers above the competition, nabbing 50% of the votes out of 600+ participants:
Coming in at second place is Amnesia: The Dark Descent, another puzzle-based waking sim featuring a sanity meter and absolutely zero combat. Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Visage were both developed by indie gaming studios, an aspect I believe makes for excellent gaming since they are created by actual people with their own individual tastes and ideas rather than large teams working to appease the demands of corporate overseers. Indie gaming studios are also typically not afraid to experiment, something AAA titles tend to steer away from.
Beyond Amnesia: The Dark Descent is Dead Space, a game so excellently crafted that it could be adapted into a great horror film in its’ own right. Dead Space contains a gripping story, original combat, numerous jump scares, and a terrifying setting that alternates between a claustrophobic space shuttle and the pitch black void, zero-gravity, and silence of outer space. However, because Dead Space is a AAA title from EA, it also suffers from much of the same problems as other blockbuster horror shooters such as Doom 3, mainly its overall sterileness that detracts from its true creepy potential.
Now that I’ve shared what PC game I feel is scariest, please post what game you consider to be so and why.
But before that, let's examine what causes us fear in a gaming setting. Shock or "jump" scares are simply not enough to creep the living shit out of me. A game also needs to possess an overall atmosphere of dread, which stems from both story and soundtrack. Good graphics simply cannot override a lack of atmosphere. A game's story doesn't necessarily have to be innovative to be scary, there are plenty of movies and games that work within genre conventions yet function as a montage of "best of" moments. A great example of this in horror films is The Conjuring franchise. The original Conjuring borrowed the best parts of possession films and rolled them into one seamless viewing experience that I felt was truly frightening (if you like this movie as much as I do, I highly recommend 'The Demonologist,' a non-fiction book about the careers of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren).
So, what is the scariest PC game I've ever played? VISAGE, which was released in 2020. The game's graphics are extremely dated, by at least a decade if not more. Certain parts of the game are woefully incomplete, such as a total lack of hand animations and brain dead character models that seem shoved in at the last minute to make the release deadline. There is also the blatant problem of repetitiveness. Flickering lights and exploding bulbs lend some initial tension yet are a total pain in the ass by the time the credits roll. 90% of the game takes place in the main character's home, and even with it's labyrinth passages and entire areas that can only be unlocked through playing each individual chapter, it gets monotonous very quickly. The ending is awfully generic and doesn't make sense within the context of the story, yet it doesn't sink the game due to its relative brevity. It's also worth mentioning that Visage shamelessly rips off Cry of Fear, as well as P.T. and Silent Hill in general. Ironically, it's also these flaws and general lack of polish that help Visage standout in comparison to other PC horror games released by established studios with much larger budgets.
Now onto what Visage gets right... For starters, the opening sequence establishes a serious sense of dread that sets it apart from every other horror game I have ever played. The main character suffers a nervous breakdown and shoots his whole family before turning the gun on himself. All of this is shown using the in-game engine, and while not impressive from a visual standpoint whatsoever, sets the tone for everything that follows. Our playable character, Dwayne Anderson, wakes up in a puddle of blood, and stumbles into the afterlife via a limbo version of his mortal home. He's now trapped in a house bursting with paranormal activity, revealed through individual chapters where Dwayne must relive horrifying elements from the lives of previous residents. He accomplishes this solely through solving puzzles, as Visage features no combat at all. This might be a turn-off to gamers who lack the patience that puzzle-based walking sims require.
When I first started playing Visage, I uninstalled it after an uninspiring first hour. I figured the entire game would play out within the physical structure of Dwayne's house itself. It wasn't until I gave the game a chance that the extremely well-done nightmarescapes revealed themselves and are arguably what the game does best. These parallel dimensions filled with oversized crucifixes, monsters lacking fully formed faces, as well as several outdoor representations of the game's real world, create a serious ominous diversity. This constant mental bludgeoning takes a toll on Dwayne's fragile sanity: if he stays in the dark for too long or gets attacked by one of the game's demonic specters, he "dies" or restarts from an earlier checkpoint since Dwayne is in fact, already dead. The only way to make progress is to solve each chapter's puzzles, which I found very challenging, even as a veteran player of these types of games.
Not every character arc works. For example, the way Rakan dispatches Dwayne once he has him in his clutches is laughably stupid. The eyes for Dolores' character model don't match her actions (neither do the eyes of Dwayne's wife and two children shortly before he shoots them in the game's intro). Lucy's Demon, the game's most shocking jump scare, is a bland combination of Wolverine-like claws with the face of a porcelain doll. The game's best chapter is by far the Mirror Mask and can't be accessed until the three previous-resident’s chapters are completed. This chapter is also undoubtedly the most difficult and required a walkthrough for me to beat it. I'm not sure what collecting all the matryoshka dolls accomplishes; I was never able to do so during my first playthrough.
The soundtrack for Visage is minimalist yet foreboding. Three tracks stand out to me above the others: “Phantom,” “Waiting Room from Hell,” and "333," which reminds me of the opening track of John Carpenter's The Thing. Further small touches, such as a common Kit-Cat Klock and the number 333 which Dwayne encounters all throughout the game, accentuate the original score. The crushed cigarette butts and smashed beer cans are lifted straight from P.T., and paint a realistic picture of Dwayne’s mental collapse. Overall, I rank Visage as the scariest PC game I have ever played, even with its repetitive gameplay and unfinished visual assets.
IGN ran a poll of The Twelve Best Horror Games on PC at the beginning of 2022, and Visage towers above the competition, nabbing 50% of the votes out of 600+ participants:
Coming in at second place is Amnesia: The Dark Descent, another puzzle-based waking sim featuring a sanity meter and absolutely zero combat. Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Visage were both developed by indie gaming studios, an aspect I believe makes for excellent gaming since they are created by actual people with their own individual tastes and ideas rather than large teams working to appease the demands of corporate overseers. Indie gaming studios are also typically not afraid to experiment, something AAA titles tend to steer away from.
Beyond Amnesia: The Dark Descent is Dead Space, a game so excellently crafted that it could be adapted into a great horror film in its’ own right. Dead Space contains a gripping story, original combat, numerous jump scares, and a terrifying setting that alternates between a claustrophobic space shuttle and the pitch black void, zero-gravity, and silence of outer space. However, because Dead Space is a AAA title from EA, it also suffers from much of the same problems as other blockbuster horror shooters such as Doom 3, mainly its overall sterileness that detracts from its true creepy potential.
Now that I’ve shared what PC game I feel is scariest, please post what game you consider to be so and why.
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