A Scaredy-Cat’s Most Wanted List

By Claire Brownstone

I’ve always been a nervous person. If presented in the right way, almost anything can get a jump scare out of me. As a result, horror games have never been my favorite, and for the most part I don’t even try games that are marketed as such. Five Nights at Freddy’s? Nope, not going to happen. Slender Man? Ugh, no thank you! 

That being said, there are still plenty of monsters in other genres that have scared the living daylights out of me. So much so that I have stopped (or almost stopped) playing a game entirely. So, here are my “most wanted” scary monsters for ruining my enjoyment of an otherwise perfectly nice game. 

Game: Subnautica
Monster: Reaper Leviathans 

Thalassophobia means fear of the ocean, or of deep water in particular. Now, as an advanced open-water scuba diver, I have never been afraid of the ocean. It was the primary reason I picked up this game.  A survival game on an almost completely water-covered planet?  Sign me up! But this game will make you understand why the ocean is anxiety-inducing. While there are multiple leviathan-class predators in the game, the Reaper Leviathan is the first you will have the pleasure of meeting.  What makes these guys so terrifying? First, because it is the first giant predator you are likely to encounter, you have almost nothing with which to defend yourself. Secondly, they LOVE to hide in low visibility areas, so more often than not you will hear them coming before you see them. And there is nothing more terrifying than a threat you can hear but cannot see. In Subnautica’s three-dimensional ocean, you cannot tell if the threat is above, below, or in any particular direction. The developers knew what they were doing when they designed this creature - and it was to terrify the gamer. Pity the VR gamer - may they R.I.P.

Now, despite all this, I did actually manage to beat Subnautica. This was only with my fully powered-up Prawn Suit and Stasis Rifle, and with a guide holding my hand. And even then, there were some parts of this game that made me pause and think about whether all this pain and anxiety was worth it. Because there are even bigger threats than Reapers in the depths. 

Game: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice 
Monster: Your Mind 

When Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice was released in 2017, it was praised for its unique presentation of mental illness, mostly schizophrenia and psychosis. In fact, the developer Ninja Theory actually interviewed people who have experienced psychosis and utilized their descriptions while designing this game. This is originally why I picked it up. I love games that push boundaries, exploring new ways to help people understand what it’s like to suffer from mental illness. This is one game that I, unfortunately, will likely never see the end of. The “monster” in this game is so unsettling, the first time I tried to play it, I only managed to play the first 15 minutes before shutting it off. 

The enemies are plenty scary, but they’re not necessarily the terrifying part of this game. The real monster in the game is Senua’s mind. From the beginning of the game, you are inundated with voices in your head. Sometimes they can be helpful - telling you to dodge, or informing you if something is behind you. Other times, they make you question your own eyes by saying you’re wrong, or that something is a trick or illusion. The game’s masterful audio design makes the voices sound like they are coming from all around you, creating a constant unnerving backdrop. The visual design adds to the general anxiety, as shadows and hallucinations plague your vision. It is always unclear what is really a threat, and what is just in your mind. As you are walking through the game, shadows will overtake your view, the audio becoming a thunderous roar, making you want to stop and cower in fear rather than continue on in your quest. How easy would it be to just give up here? But the only way to escape the terror is to continue forward, against your every instinct.

And for the most part, these events are not real - you can continue through the distorted areas without harm. But with these visions specifically targeting the fear center of your brain, it is extremely difficult to make yourself continue on. That is also the beauty of this game. It makes you understand what it is like to feel so terrified of something that is not necessarily real. How can you trust anything if you cannot trust your own senses? Without spoiling too much, you cannot always believe what the game tells you about its own mechanics either. And just like with real psychosis, the monster of your mind never goes away; you have to learn how to live with it. 

Game: Alien: Isolation 
Monster: The Xenomorph 

Now, as a self-proclaimed scaredy-cat, one might wonder what led me to even attempt to play Alien: Isolation? It’s literally a horror game! Well, this game was hailed as a successor to the classic movie Alien, and combined with the unique AI assigned to the xenomorph, it seemed like if I was going to try a horror game it may as well be this one. Plus, there is only one alien, so how bad can it be?

It turns out the xenomorph is pretty awful. Like in the movie, it is unkillable, a “perfect predator.” It is a threat you will have to deal with the entire game. Nothing you have, whether a pistol, shotgun, or fire, will hurt it. You may be able to distract it enough to run away in a pinch, but you run the risk of just pissing it off more. As you are slowly creeping your way through the claustrophobic sci-fi corridors of the space station, you can hear the alien crawling through ducts, or sometimes even see glimpses of it’s tail. You need to be as quiet as possible to avoid drawing its attention, but some tasks require you to make noise. You are either turning obnoxiously loud machines on or off, or shooting the other enemies in the game. All of these extremely noisy activities draw the alien to your location.

And the alien’s AI is really inventive - the better you are at hiding, the better it gets at finding you. Sometimes, the alien uncannily seems to outwit you in ways that no game enemy should be able to think of. . You’ll be in a room, hiding in a closet, holding your breath as it searches. Then it leaves, seemingly foiled by your excellent hiding skills. But then, as you are creeping through the door to leave - it is actually there in the ceiling, waiting for you to come out. For extra challenge and immersion, you can even turn on sound detection so that if you actually make noise in real life (like screaming), the alien will hear you through the microphone. Needless to say, I elected to abandon this game rather than live with a constant fear of instant death. 

Game: The Last of Us Part 2 
Monster: The Rat King 

Perhaps surprisingly, I actually did manage to complete the original The Last of Us on my own. These games are technically classified as action-adventure, though they certainly have some elements of survival-horror. I did not find the original game all that terrifying. Sure, there were zombies, some dark areas that elicited minor terror, but nothing absolutely mind-shattering. 

I guess Naughty Dog was disappointed with that, because they really upped the horror factor in The Last of Us 2. I was only able to experience this game by watching a playthrough. If I had managed to play this game, the hospital section is definitely where I would have stopped playing. The Rat King is a grotesque, massive, surprisingly nimble conglomeration of flesh that is terrifying enough just to look at. But combine that with the arena in which you are forced to fight - flooded, dark, cramped corridors in the basement of a hospital - and it is a recipe for “noping” right out of the game. It will even crash through walls to get at you, meaning there really is no place to hide from it. A single touch from it will most likely get you killed, so there is no breathing room. Additionally, at some point during the battle, a couple of smaller creatures (the infamous “clickers”) actually split off from the main blob of flesh, adding additional enemies you must deal with as you are frantically sprinting around avoiding the main murderous mass. The Rat King is the most unsettling creature I have seen in a video game, and I only watched my boyfriend play it. 

So if you like the rush of adrenaline from being frightened this Halloween, definitely check out the games above. I will be in a corner playing Animal Crossing, actually having a good time, thank you very much!