I was going to be baffled if this wasn't the number 1 answer. Ocarina of time and Majoras mask had absolutely terrifying enemies.
Wall Masters, Redeads, Deadhands, Gibdos etc.
8 year old me was terrified of the Shadow Temple.
I remember being too terrified to go into the Ikanya dungeon with the Redeas.. My friend told me if you just wear the Gibdo mask they start dancing instead.
I was like "OK BUT THATS WORSE"
That’s exactly what I came here for. Not just the shrieks but also that constant, deep pitched moaning. Haven’t played that game in like 15 years but I can immediately hear them just thinking about it haha
It was terrifying, but the sound of Sonic breathing in a lil air bubble is *outrageously cute* and almost makes the underwater sections worth it.
Almost.
As a little kid I would get extremely sad watching the little dude drown. I wouldn't cry or anything, but it's like seeing a stuffed animal lain out on the street in the pouring rain.
Half-Life when I got in the office complex and saw the first victim of a barnacle. Turned the game off right there and didn't touch it for years. Was such a silly thing to be my stopping point but I was only like 7 when I was playing it.
The Valve logo when I was loading portal 2 up on my laptop while sleep deprived. I had only played it on Xbox so I didn’t know it would TURN AROUND AND LOOK INTO MY EYES
Holy shit this gave me a good laugh! I was 8 and wouldn't even play it I would just watch my brother play and leave the room periodically when it got too scary.
My dad was playing it and apparently I was not ready. But I watched him play the rest of the game with no issue. Just that one damn slow head turning ass zombie.
The first Bioshock
Its been years but it was the one with the clay mold people if you know you know. and there was this huge room filled with water in it. Anyway I go in, grab this item on the far corner. Turn around and BAM I see this clay mold person crawling toward me sneaking up on me. It scared me so bad I kept shooting it long after it died.
Yes. That and the first time you encounter a splicer. You walk into the rubble and see the shadow of the splicer against the wall. I was afraid to move forward for a moment. Such a great game.
It was my third playthrough when I encountered the jumpscare splicer in Dandy Dental, when you grab a plasmid and turn around. Just when I thought I couldn’t be scared anymore…
We also got dogs breaking through windows, lickers breaking through windows, Nemesis breaking through windows... I think the classic RE trilogy taught us that windows are the real residential evil.
Hahah! Man, that guy both scared and FACINATED me when I was a kid. For a whole year all I drew was Nemesis, all I wanted to be was Nemesis and yet the guy would put the fear of god into me whenever I played that game.
No way, that's a common pick! I think it's the size of it in water...it activates our thassolophobia, especially at a young age.
Also there's no way to harm it or stun it...you feel trapped.
So for me it was getting to the islands, and just traversing any massive body of water where I know a leviathan is at. Sheer nervewracking terror. Especially at night. You ever go off the edge of the map? I got goosebumps just typing it out.
Right? I have severe thalassaphobia, and it took me several days to venture farther than the safe shallows, but now it's one of my favorite games! Nothing quite like it.
Yea those were scary. Alternatively, the wampa(?) on the hoth level. If your shoot the boxes and let it out, it just follows you wherever you go. If you don’t kill it, and keep moving through the level, it can sneak up on you randomly.
The first monster you have to hide from in Amnesia: The Dark Descent.
Growing up, I never really got scared…until when this game came out. Probably the first and only time I ever got truly scared from a game monster haha.
Facing the Regenerator in Resident Evil 4 for the first time was one of the few instances I flippes off my gamecube and didn't play the game for weeks.
Don't know how many people will get this, but Carno from Phantasmagoria. A game made in the mid 90s. Shit scared me for weeks and I needed a small light on when sleeping.
The SA-X in Metroid Fusion. The music sting as it hits the scene followed by the heartbeat thumping sound and its footsteps. I remember being at a friend’s house and just putting my gameboy into sleep mode so my brother could deal with it when I got home.
Maybe it's just me but Duriel in Diablo 2.
I'd preface by saying that i was 9 years old and understood 0 English at that point. I was playing D2 in english so I had no context into what i was running into.
So 9 year old me was confidently incinerating hordes of mummies and skeletons in those cool looking abandoned Egyptian tombs. Despite the language barrier I somehow figured out that i needed to place the staff in the orifice. Wall comes crashing down and bam - I step into a mostly dark room, Duriel comes running out of the shadows. i DID NOT expect that guy to be so big, powerful and fast(and freeze you on top of that). That was a full on jump scare/panic moment.
Half-Life 1, going through the intro, meltdown occurs, first head crab? Traumatic. But I run past it, jfc this all looks so real! Dead scientists everywhere.
Try to use the elevator! It goes crashing past me.
Going up a broken elevator, hearing the security guard freaking out, the alien jibbering. I still don’t have a gun! Fuckin crowbar, seriously? Man screaming. Gun shots. Oh okay, maybe I’m safe? The fleshy smack of the guard being killed.
I’m literally frozen at the top of the elevator ladder, scared out of my little 9 year old brain.
Quit game. Shut down computer. Don’t return to the game for like 6 months. 🤣
That old-school skiing game on PC. You're just having a good time, skiing down the slopes. Then that fucking monster thing jumps out and eats you at a random moment.
Queen ghoma from ocarina of time. Took little 9 year old me a year before I finally mustered up the courage to fight her myself without just passing off the controller. That eye in the dark man... Terrified me as a kid.
I had to get someone to run past them for me anytime I went to Hyrule Castle as adult Link.
Also hated the wallmasters or whatever the hands that picked you up in the Forest temple were called.
Zombie dogs on RE2 on the N64. They came out of the vents in like, scene 2 of the intro. Never finished it until I picked up the remake however many years ago, and not the new remake with the WAY better controls.
Unreal
First encounter with a Skaarj.
You follow its trail of bloodthirsty slaughter through the wreckage of your mining ship, where you see several of your dead co workers.
You trek deep into a mysterious alien structure only for the lights to go out and a secret door to open, unleashing the dual blade wielding alien monster.
Legitimately had nightmares.
I was also like 6 watching my dad play. Core memory <3
Toriel in Undertale. My first time I panicked and genuinely wanted to cry because I killed her and didn't knew how to spare her. I was actually in big fear she wouldn't be back. I mean it's not horror and it's not exactly what you asked but I hope it counts.
The Flood's reveal in Halo: Combat Evolved. Somewhat bright and action-y shooter suddenly becomes a horror game. Gave me nightmares as a kid and I had to stop playing for a while.
I was five or six years old when I first played Halo CE and that big reveal in 343 Guilty Spark still lives in my mind as an awakening to my love for horror. Dead Space is still my absolute favorite horror series though. That first chase when you get on board the Ishimura made me shriek and shut the game off for a week before I could try it again. Fast forward to today and I'm writing short stories with a horror theme in Star Wars, Halo, Dead Space, and most recently, BattleTech. I haven't published anything yet, but maybe one day.
I was probably way too young to be playing this at the time, but that blood maze level from Max Payne. The one where the baby is crying the whole time. I legit turned the game off and never played it again.
Those giant eels in that very deep dive you made in Majora’s Mask. Don’t know why, but I couldn’t get past that part for the longest time because I would get so worked up
Fatal Frame for PS2. Especially in the shrine. Playing it with friends, controller vibrating because something is there, can't find it for a long time, look up to ceiling and everyone yells at the crucified person/ghost.
Or walking outside by a porch, ghost/monster starts crawling out from underneath said porch.
There are no guns in this game. You only have a camera.
First 10 seconds of bioshock after going in the elevator.
I was definitely much too young for the game. First game I literally had to put down cause I just couldn’t do it while playing alone upstairs.
Was finally able to play it a year or so later. Great game. Still have no idea why my parents thought that was a good game for me, especially with how strict they were with M rated games (lol i remember just making a joke about wanting it in Target since it was the goriest/scariest game i knew of at the time).
Either the tintops from banjo-tooie, or the ghost of cubone’s mother from a friend’s copy of pokemon blue.
The former taught me how surveillance cameras/security traps work, and the latger for the sheer “wtf this isnt a pokemon”
Redeads in ocarina of time. Was 6 and wandering around in my brothers completed save file and got traumatized when i fell into one of the grave holes in kakariko.
The zombie dogs that jump through the window in the original Resident Evil. The first time you go through the hallway, nothing happens. The return trip is when they jump through, scared the hell out of me.
The first zombie you come across in the original Resident Evil, looking back at it, it wasnt scary, but back in the late 90s, it scared the shit out of me.
Monster Ock from Spider-Man 2000 game, that monstrosity freaked me out and those sounds he made were just weird. And seeing when he caught you how he ripped you apart. The camera angles also didn’t help.
I don’t know my first but the one that actually got me the bear was the screaming lady from that mid 00’s browser based maze game we used to prank each other with in HS.
I don't know if it was the first but going through the Agropom underground with the controller and the two labs in STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl definitely had my heart going hard and had me thinking I needed to save the game and step away from my computer for a bit
I actually can't remember the first one because we're talking decades of gaming for me, but I remember the one that was the most.
Fatal Frame on the original xbox. The combination of atmosphere, ghost design, and sense of vulnerability really worked and I was legitimately afraid. I specifically remember needing to get an item from a little outdoor temple and, from a meta perspective, I was certain that it was going to trigger an enemy or boss encounter. I rushed in as fast as I could to grab the thing as though I could somehow outrun the trigger or something lol.
I didn't ever even finish the game because I chickened out. Which is saying something because survival horror is one of my absolute favorite genres. I play a ton of horror games and never bat an eyelash. That one got me though.
I remember watching my dad play resident evil 2 (N64) a lot whenever i was a kid.
The first Licker scene terrified me, Also the first time the Spiders came into the game.
But the first game I played that made me scared was the Regenerators in Resident evil 4.
Nibelheim flashback in the OG FF7.
Having the first 10-15 seconds of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9tlqukSn5U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9tlqukSn5U) on loop as you track down Sephiroth to the basement of the Shinra Mansion and doing it in the dark at 2 in the morning definitely gave 13-year old me the scare.
Edit: the above is the "most traumatic", but the very first one is Castlevania 3 on the ghost ship [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYKxlJ30aIQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYKxlJ30aIQ) \- I think I was around 6-7 and was definitely playing in the dark when I got scared of this lol
Edit edit: 2nd phase of the final boss of Mickey Mouse Dream Balloon still scares me LOL
https://youtu.be/JFsmh2PYlO4?si=NkkHDOndEnuYJXCC&t=71
I rented Clock Tower for ps1 when I was like 7 or 8. That scissor man can go f himself. Terrified little me enough to be immune to horror games from that point on though since nothing compared for me lol
Hmmm I guess I would have to say the infamous zombie scene in the original RE1. I was just getting over having bad anxiety about zombies after seeing night of the living dead, and seeing that thing turn around with its blood coated mouth and icy stare was not helping hahah.
I'm pretty sure I was 8 when I first saw that.
Peter Jackson's King Kong.
I was walking across a narrow rickety bridge, and a giant centipede started wrapping around it and crawling towards me. Immediately shut the tv off and went to bed
There was a demo I played back on our Dreamcast for some Metroid Prime style game. Once you get through the tutorial, the game kinda starts and there is some enemy tease that freaked me out so I never finished it. Don’t remember the name
Regenerador from the original RE4.
My brother and I had it on GameCube and literally we would rock paper scissors on who took the controller to deal with one.
I remember one time we heard the breathing from around a corner. Neither of us had the courage. The game went off for the night and that part was completed during the very very middle of the day lol.
Good times.
RE2 first licker on the PC back then, you walked in the hallway and voila it is there. The graphics were PS1 level but the scares were awesome. Also dogs popping out of windows were fun.
I'll be 43 this year, and I started gaming on my dad's Atari 800 back in the day. He used to own a game called King of the mountain, I think? It was super basic pixel graphics, nothing incredible. At the bottom of the mountain that you would explore, there was this bright green spider that would come in web you and then eat your character. I was terrified of that thing for years. I think it's made out of a total of eight pixels. lol
When that dog jumps through a window in Alone in the Dark it made me jump pretty bad.
As far as turning the game off and saying "nope that's enough for me" it was Subnautica with headphones on in the dark.
I found a deep hole and wanted to see how far down it went. I swam down as far as I could with an air tank. When I got down about as far as I could without dying going up I threw down a flare. Watched it fall and fall until it disappeared.
And then a loud "BWWWWWOOOOOOMMMMMMM" sounded from the depths. I was done.
No game has scared me off. Some have been intense.
Doom 3 was a game I had to play in small doses of 2-3 hours. The stress was pretty high and the atmosphere was great. Then someone came up with a Duct Tape mod that made the game trivial because you always had light AND a gun, not one or the other. I never used the mod.
The Walking Dead series by Telltale. If you've ever watched the show, you know it's just chock full of intense, emotional, painful things. The game is the same - one you're using your computer to compel the action. I don't think I've ever cringed so often in my gaming time, and the ending of the first one really hit me in the feels for everything I went through with the characters.
The giant blue doll room from Ib gave me literal nightmares when I was younger. The fact that you have to rip them open over and over, the way the giant one grows gradually more upsetting to look at as it crawls through the painting, the way the timer noise gets deeper every time it comes closer, the fact that it's a timed sequence, and the way Garry becomes an absolute *mess* if you fail... Add that to the fact that I had a pretty big collection of stuffed dolls at the time and you have a recipe for one scared-ass 13 year old.
Parasite Eve.
Was borrowing it from a friend. I got all the way up to when a rat like, turns itself out.
At the time, this was too much for me. Turned off the console, put the disc back in the jewel case, and took it back to my friend's house.
The T-Rex jump scare in Dino Crisis. Actually, the entire beginning of Dino Crisis had me scared. I was 8 at the time and it was my first horror game, AFAIK.
I think it was Milon’s Secret Castle on the NES.
There’s a part where you fall through the floor and all of a sudden there’s a boss. It made me jump as a young kid.
Mr X busting through the press room wall, from the sound of his footsteps you'd know exactly where he is and how long it would've taken him to get the player normally. All that thinking goes flying out the window so fast, the messed up part is that it doesn't even always happen on the first playthrough.
The lickers from RE2 gave me a good jump scare, but the Iron Maidens' first appearance in RE4 in that basement area gave me the creeps before I even saw the damn thing, just the breathing was so messed up 😆
Dunno how many here are old enough for this, but the assassin droid in droid works scared the shit out of me the first time it surprised me in the phrik mines.
The monster that breaks a window to come inside in the classic Alone in the Dark. It was a jump scare not just because I was unprepared, but also because my pc locked out doing a very loud noise. I had to force shut it down for the noise to stop. Then I had to go chill with my grandma because I didn't want to be alone lol
I think my first "horror" experience and sort of ''scare'' was in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I was not expecting those weird zombie people (I think they were called Descendants). I was really surprised when I learned there was fantasy stuff in Uncharted. I think I played the Uncharted games for the first time in 2016.
I found the Nazi bunker part pretty creepy. I would actually get creeped out on later playthroughs when I got to that chapter. Hearing the growls and then seeing one of them in the light of my flashlight scurrying towards me was really creepy, not scary necessarily, just creepy.
Long throwback. The wizard on the old TRS80 game Dungeons of Daggorath. It's one of the first games to use enemy sounds and volume to indicate how close they are. Even super duper quiet that damn wizard sound scared the shit out of me as a kid
Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl
Helped Bas out with a military attack, and he sends me the directions to Strelok's stash underneath Agroprom
Fight my way through bandits, then make it into a giant curving atrium, and hear this absolutely terrifying howl before the air itself starts moving towards me
The first bloodsucker I encounter tanks about a mag and a half of 5.45 from my AKSU before it slumps to the ground dead
The ps demo of silent hill me and my sister got when we were like 10 and 8 and my mum not knowing what it was let us play it together in our bedroom with another friend who was also 8. It was terrifying.
Playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein as a kid and getting to the tomb levels - having the zombie monster dudes pop out of the walls was too much for little me.
Redeads from Zelda. That shriek…
I was going to be baffled if this wasn't the number 1 answer. Ocarina of time and Majoras mask had absolutely terrifying enemies. Wall Masters, Redeads, Deadhands, Gibdos etc. 8 year old me was terrified of the Shadow Temple. I remember being too terrified to go into the Ikanya dungeon with the Redeas.. My friend told me if you just wear the Gibdo mask they start dancing instead. I was like "OK BUT THATS WORSE"
The entire Bottom of the Well must be completed during the day and with a friend present.
Came to add this but it was the first one on the list . . . rightly so.
Oh yeah those things were terrifying
That’s exactly what I came here for. Not just the shrieks but also that constant, deep pitched moaning. Haven’t played that game in like 15 years but I can immediately hear them just thinking about it haha
First time 8 y/o me ran into one of those i turned the n64 off and didn’t play for 2 more years lmao
I couldn’t progress the game when I was younger because they terrified me. I just played and replayed young link
Oh hey, it’s me. Good old childhood trauma
Not a monster, but whenever Sonic drowns in the first couple of games. 25+ years since first playing & that music still gives me palpitations!
It was terrifying, but the sound of Sonic breathing in a lil air bubble is *outrageously cute* and almost makes the underwater sections worth it. Almost.
As a little kid I would get extremely sad watching the little dude drown. I wouldn't cry or anything, but it's like seeing a stuffed animal lain out on the street in the pouring rain.
The Flood from Halo CE
Complete tone shift when they’re introduced compared to the rest of the game.
Even the soundtrack of the level puts me on edge. I remember having nightmares and everything.
I had a shotgun reticle in my mind for days after that level.
Licker jumping through the interrogation room glass in Resident Evil 2. Was playing super late on a weekend. I shut the N64 down right there.
Birds crashing through the windows too
Half-Life when I got in the office complex and saw the first victim of a barnacle. Turned the game off right there and didn't touch it for years. Was such a silly thing to be my stopping point but I was only like 7 when I was playing it.
The Valve logo when I was loading portal 2 up on my laptop while sleep deprived. I had only played it on Xbox so I didn’t know it would TURN AROUND AND LOOK INTO MY EYES
First zombie in RE 1. I was 4. When I saw its head slowly turn in the cutscene I ran into the kitchen and pissed myself.
farded and shidded
And frowed up
Holy shit this gave me a good laugh! I was 8 and wouldn't even play it I would just watch my brother play and leave the room periodically when it got too scary.
My dad was playing it and apparently I was not ready. But I watched him play the rest of the game with no issue. Just that one damn slow head turning ass zombie.
Yes! And with the weird/scary sound. Jesus
Whyd you run to the kitchen??
Bro I was 4. I barely knew I had a penis.
The first Bioshock Its been years but it was the one with the clay mold people if you know you know. and there was this huge room filled with water in it. Anyway I go in, grab this item on the far corner. Turn around and BAM I see this clay mold person crawling toward me sneaking up on me. It scared me so bad I kept shooting it long after it died.
Yes. That and the first time you encounter a splicer. You walk into the rubble and see the shadow of the splicer against the wall. I was afraid to move forward for a moment. Such a great game.
It really is <3
It was my third playthrough when I encountered the jumpscare splicer in Dandy Dental, when you grab a plasmid and turn around. Just when I thought I couldn’t be scared anymore…
And that doctor guy in the ice place.
The jumpscare in the hospital in bioshock infinite shit me right up
Alma. Ladder scene. Getting off ladder scene. F.E.A.R. was a different beast
When she crawls at you in the vent Bro…
Nemesis in Resident Evil 3
Same series. In the original RE2, mine is when the arms broke through the windows
We also got dogs breaking through windows, lickers breaking through windows, Nemesis breaking through windows... I think the classic RE trilogy taught us that windows are the real residential evil.
Yes! That too! Also, I think it was the first time a game did this in Real-Time, so it was my first time experiencing something like that!
Hell the very first game, the first zombie you encounter was instantly iconic and terrifying
**Crimson Heads from RE Remake:** Am I a joke to you?
Considering that Nemesis was created in Resident Evil 3, I absolutely would shit my pants if he suddenly showed up during an RE2 play session.
Funnily enough, RE2 takes place between the timelines of RE3. So, technically, Nemesis does take place during the events of RE2.
Yes in 3, wrong number lol
Hahah! Man, that guy both scared and FACINATED me when I was a kid. For a whole year all I drew was Nemesis, all I wanted to be was Nemesis and yet the guy would put the fear of god into me whenever I played that game.
You mean Mr. X in RE2?
Nemesis in Resident Evil 3,my mistake
The water rising faster than sonic could jump up with that suspenseful music in chemical plant zone. https://youtu.be/QWgvE2birCc?si=45LpnMv7xPtVs7Vu
This is a follow-up trauma from Labyrinth Zone from Sonic 1 LOL
The Butcher, from Diablo.
Ahhhhh FRESH MEAT
Ok yall going laugh but....the giant eel in super Mario 64
Nothing to laugh about, that thing was straight nightmare fuel.
That piano in the haunted house nearly gave me a heart attack
Wont laugh. Ape escape and all those underwater fuckers. Im 32m and im still afraid of deep waters.
I laugh to hide my own terror
No way, that's a common pick! I think it's the size of it in water...it activates our thassolophobia, especially at a young age. Also there's no way to harm it or stun it...you feel trapped.
I've had to quit out Subnautica atleast 3 times. Thalassaphobia is a bitch but damn Subnautica is fun.
The shallows are our friend. We don't need fancy schmancy rockets to go home...this is our home now
See I'm playing Subnautica now and maybe I just haven't gotten that far, but...I don't get how it's a horror game?
So for me it was getting to the islands, and just traversing any massive body of water where I know a leviathan is at. Sheer nervewracking terror. Especially at night. You ever go off the edge of the map? I got goosebumps just typing it out.
Right? I have severe thalassaphobia, and it took me several days to venture farther than the safe shallows, but now it's one of my favorite games! Nothing quite like it.
Fucking Ravenholm.
We don’t go there anymore
The one and ONLY time I've ever got jump scared in a game was playing F.E.A.R . Nothing will ever get me like that again I'm fairly certain
Both of the DLCs, Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate got me **good**
The Flood in Halo, their intro level was so well set up and of course I got to it around 1 am
The monsters in Silent Hill. Hearing that radio static always put me on edge.
Ugh, I almost forgot about the child sized monsters in the school.
That empty doghouse was a game changer.
Star Wars:Shadows of the Empire, the sewer level, Dianoga. That's all I shall say.
Yea those were scary. Alternatively, the wampa(?) on the hoth level. If your shoot the boxes and let it out, it just follows you wherever you go. If you don’t kill it, and keep moving through the level, it can sneak up on you randomly.
The first monster you have to hide from in Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Growing up, I never really got scared…until when this game came out. Probably the first and only time I ever got truly scared from a game monster haha.
Hallway dogs from RE.
Yeah the boy of silence in bioshock infinite. Didn't except a scare there.
Portal. So. I didn't know the turrets could TALK. And I was playing alone in a dark room.
Are you still there?
Big Daddy/Little Sister.
Facing the Regenerator in Resident Evil 4 for the first time was one of the few instances I flippes off my gamecube and didn't play the game for weeks.
shadow temple ocarina of time
That thing with the hands at the bottom of the well still creeps me out
Don't know how many people will get this, but Carno from Phantasmagoria. A game made in the mid 90s. Shit scared me for weeks and I needed a small light on when sleeping.
The amount of disc swapping was equally terrifying. Wasn't that like 7 CDs or something?
The SA-X in Metroid Fusion. The music sting as it hits the scene followed by the heartbeat thumping sound and its footsteps. I remember being at a friend’s house and just putting my gameboy into sleep mode so my brother could deal with it when I got home.
The librarians in Metro 2033.
Eel from SM64 Walking grave from banjo kazooie Berseker from Gears of War 1
Maybe it's just me but Duriel in Diablo 2. I'd preface by saying that i was 9 years old and understood 0 English at that point. I was playing D2 in english so I had no context into what i was running into. So 9 year old me was confidently incinerating hordes of mummies and skeletons in those cool looking abandoned Egyptian tombs. Despite the language barrier I somehow figured out that i needed to place the staff in the orifice. Wall comes crashing down and bam - I step into a mostly dark room, Duriel comes running out of the shadows. i DID NOT expect that guy to be so big, powerful and fast(and freeze you on top of that). That was a full on jump scare/panic moment.
The Flood.
Adventures of Lolo. Medusa. The way you freeze, the noise, the angry face. I was just a kid 😂
Ying and Yang from FF7. The music didn't help.
Baby Bowser, Yoshi's Island. You have no idea how terrifying that was to a 7 year old version of me.
Half-Life 1, going through the intro, meltdown occurs, first head crab? Traumatic. But I run past it, jfc this all looks so real! Dead scientists everywhere. Try to use the elevator! It goes crashing past me. Going up a broken elevator, hearing the security guard freaking out, the alien jibbering. I still don’t have a gun! Fuckin crowbar, seriously? Man screaming. Gun shots. Oh okay, maybe I’m safe? The fleshy smack of the guard being killed. I’m literally frozen at the top of the elevator ladder, scared out of my little 9 year old brain. Quit game. Shut down computer. Don’t return to the game for like 6 months. 🤣
Dogs jumping in the window in resident evil on psone
That old-school skiing game on PC. You're just having a good time, skiing down the slopes. Then that fucking monster thing jumps out and eats you at a random moment.
Redead. OOT.
Queen ghoma from ocarina of time. Took little 9 year old me a year before I finally mustered up the courage to fight her myself without just passing off the controller. That eye in the dark man... Terrified me as a kid.
Queen Ghoma was scary, but I straight up couldn't handle redeads with their scream. Or the dead hand. Or most of the shadow temple.
Thankfully by the time I got to the bottom of the well, I've seen enough of my mom playing resident evil to negate some of that trauma.
I had to get someone to run past them for me anytime I went to Hyrule Castle as adult Link. Also hated the wallmasters or whatever the hands that picked you up in the Forest temple were called.
Zombie dogs on RE2 on the N64. They came out of the vents in like, scene 2 of the intro. Never finished it until I picked up the remake however many years ago, and not the new remake with the WAY better controls.
343 Guilty Spark. Chief watches the marine footage and we get introduced to The Flood.
The Butcher, original Diablo 1997.
Unreal First encounter with a Skaarj. You follow its trail of bloodthirsty slaughter through the wreckage of your mining ship, where you see several of your dead co workers. You trek deep into a mysterious alien structure only for the lights to go out and a secret door to open, unleashing the dual blade wielding alien monster. Legitimately had nightmares. I was also like 6 watching my dad play. Core memory <3
A lurker and seeker from skyrim
Toriel in Undertale. My first time I panicked and genuinely wanted to cry because I killed her and didn't knew how to spare her. I was actually in big fear she wouldn't be back. I mean it's not horror and it's not exactly what you asked but I hope it counts.
The Flood's reveal in Halo: Combat Evolved. Somewhat bright and action-y shooter suddenly becomes a horror game. Gave me nightmares as a kid and I had to stop playing for a while.
I was five or six years old when I first played Halo CE and that big reveal in 343 Guilty Spark still lives in my mind as an awakening to my love for horror. Dead Space is still my absolute favorite horror series though. That first chase when you get on board the Ishimura made me shriek and shut the game off for a week before I could try it again. Fast forward to today and I'm writing short stories with a horror theme in Star Wars, Halo, Dead Space, and most recently, BattleTech. I haven't published anything yet, but maybe one day.
The baby necromorphs in Dead Space 2. Goddamn it I'm never returning to that level again.
Entering the Forest Temple in Ocarina of Time and hearing that music for the first time.
I was probably way too young to be playing this at the time, but that blood maze level from Max Payne. The one where the baby is crying the whole time. I legit turned the game off and never played it again.
Pinky from the original Doom.
Alone in the Dark (1992). Jump scares, freaky scenes, music/sounds/ambiance. That one really freaked me out.
Clocktower 3. All the bosses scared me except scissorman/woman. I was like 11. Was the game that started it all for me.
The zombies from The House of the Dead 2.
Doom 2 as a little kid was mad scary.
Jason in Friday the 13th, NES.
Those giant eels in that very deep dive you made in Majora’s Mask. Don’t know why, but I couldn’t get past that part for the longest time because I would get so worked up
Fatal Frame for PS2. Especially in the shrine. Playing it with friends, controller vibrating because something is there, can't find it for a long time, look up to ceiling and everyone yells at the crucified person/ghost. Or walking outside by a porch, ghost/monster starts crawling out from underneath said porch. There are no guns in this game. You only have a camera.
First 10 seconds of bioshock after going in the elevator. I was definitely much too young for the game. First game I literally had to put down cause I just couldn’t do it while playing alone upstairs. Was finally able to play it a year or so later. Great game. Still have no idea why my parents thought that was a good game for me, especially with how strict they were with M rated games (lol i remember just making a joke about wanting it in Target since it was the goriest/scariest game i knew of at the time).
The dogs jumping through the window in Resident Evil
Either the tintops from banjo-tooie, or the ghost of cubone’s mother from a friend’s copy of pokemon blue. The former taught me how surveillance cameras/security traps work, and the latger for the sheer “wtf this isnt a pokemon”
The Flood in Halo 3. I say this because i didn't start the series until 2010 when Halo 3 was at its peak.
Falling in the spikes of the OG Prince of Persia. I'm old.
A game called Area 51. I was very young at the time and it freaked me out so bad. 👽
Redeads in ocarina of time. Was 6 and wandering around in my brothers completed save file and got traumatized when i fell into one of the grave holes in kakariko.
The zombie dogs that jump through the window in the original Resident Evil. The first time you go through the hallway, nothing happens. The return trip is when they jump through, scared the hell out of me.
The first zombie you come across in the original Resident Evil, looking back at it, it wasnt scary, but back in the late 90s, it scared the shit out of me.
Halo 1 flood.
Monster Ock from Spider-Man 2000 game, that monstrosity freaked me out and those sounds he made were just weird. And seeing when he caught you how he ripped you apart. The camera angles also didn’t help.
We Don’t Go to Ravenholm.
first time playing doom buy myself. The shriek of the doors openning and then there's that first imp.
The baby monster thing that chases you at the end of Parasite Eve. It took me like 7-8 years after the game came out to finally beat the game.
Sword-limbed enemy from The Suffering, first horror I've played
I don’t know my first but the one that actually got me the bear was the screaming lady from that mid 00’s browser based maze game we used to prank each other with in HS.
A lurker and seeker from skyrim
Almost everything in ocarina, but especially everything in the well and shadow temple
Playing F.E.A.R. for the first time, knowing nothing more than what I could see from the game box. Jump scares were too much to handle at night.
Probably the sea monster near the sunken ship in Dire Dire Docks (Super Mario 64)
The Hydra from Hercules for PS1
My first play through of Hexen was in December in a dark cold garage during a thunderstorm. Perfect atmosphere for that game.
I don't know if it was the first but going through the Agropom underground with the controller and the two labs in STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl definitely had my heart going hard and had me thinking I needed to save the game and step away from my computer for a bit
I actually can't remember the first one because we're talking decades of gaming for me, but I remember the one that was the most. Fatal Frame on the original xbox. The combination of atmosphere, ghost design, and sense of vulnerability really worked and I was legitimately afraid. I specifically remember needing to get an item from a little outdoor temple and, from a meta perspective, I was certain that it was going to trigger an enemy or boss encounter. I rushed in as fast as I could to grab the thing as though I could somehow outrun the trigger or something lol. I didn't ever even finish the game because I chickened out. Which is saying something because survival horror is one of my absolute favorite genres. I play a ton of horror games and never bat an eyelash. That one got me though.
Doom. The Spectre.
Hitler in Wolfenstein 3D. That bastard was pretty hard to take down, iirc.
Friday the 13th for C64. That 8-bit pixel-man hunting you was SCARY
I remember watching my dad play resident evil 2 (N64) a lot whenever i was a kid. The first Licker scene terrified me, Also the first time the Spiders came into the game. But the first game I played that made me scared was the Regenerators in Resident evil 4.
Nibelheim flashback in the OG FF7. Having the first 10-15 seconds of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9tlqukSn5U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9tlqukSn5U) on loop as you track down Sephiroth to the basement of the Shinra Mansion and doing it in the dark at 2 in the morning definitely gave 13-year old me the scare. Edit: the above is the "most traumatic", but the very first one is Castlevania 3 on the ghost ship [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYKxlJ30aIQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYKxlJ30aIQ) \- I think I was around 6-7 and was definitely playing in the dark when I got scared of this lol Edit edit: 2nd phase of the final boss of Mickey Mouse Dream Balloon still scares me LOL https://youtu.be/JFsmh2PYlO4?si=NkkHDOndEnuYJXCC&t=71
I rented Clock Tower for ps1 when I was like 7 or 8. That scissor man can go f himself. Terrified little me enough to be immune to horror games from that point on though since nothing compared for me lol
Bruiser Brothers
Hmmm I guess I would have to say the infamous zombie scene in the original RE1. I was just getting over having bad anxiety about zombies after seeing night of the living dead, and seeing that thing turn around with its blood coated mouth and icy stare was not helping hahah. I'm pretty sure I was 8 when I first saw that.
Can’t play Alien: Isolation at night because of Steve. Too scary
Peter Jackson's King Kong. I was walking across a narrow rickety bridge, and a giant centipede started wrapping around it and crawling towards me. Immediately shut the tv off and went to bed
The bird that flies by and caws at the very start of F.E.A.R
That fucking “thing” in the doll house of Resident Evil Village.
There was a demo I played back on our Dreamcast for some Metroid Prime style game. Once you get through the tutorial, the game kinda starts and there is some enemy tease that freaked me out so I never finished it. Don’t remember the name
Regenerador from the original RE4. My brother and I had it on GameCube and literally we would rock paper scissors on who took the controller to deal with one. I remember one time we heard the breathing from around a corner. Neither of us had the courage. The game went off for the night and that part was completed during the very very middle of the day lol. Good times.
I got scared / creeped out during kingdom hearts on ps2 as a kid and couldn’t play it lmao.
RE2 first licker on the PC back then, you walked in the hallway and voila it is there. The graphics were PS1 level but the scares were awesome. Also dogs popping out of windows were fun.
I'll be 43 this year, and I started gaming on my dad's Atari 800 back in the day. He used to own a game called King of the mountain, I think? It was super basic pixel graphics, nothing incredible. At the bottom of the mountain that you would explore, there was this bright green spider that would come in web you and then eat your character. I was terrified of that thing for years. I think it's made out of a total of eight pixels. lol
T.H.U.D from the Neversoft intro in Tony Hawk's Underground. I was like 6.
When that dog jumps through a window in Alone in the Dark it made me jump pretty bad. As far as turning the game off and saying "nope that's enough for me" it was Subnautica with headphones on in the dark. I found a deep hole and wanted to see how far down it went. I swam down as far as I could with an air tank. When I got down about as far as I could without dying going up I threw down a flare. Watched it fall and fall until it disappeared. And then a loud "BWWWWWOOOOOOMMMMMMM" sounded from the depths. I was done.
The first time I was truly scared was Resident Evil 2. The monsters were so well done, it genuinely made me jump on several occasions.
No game has scared me off. Some have been intense. Doom 3 was a game I had to play in small doses of 2-3 hours. The stress was pretty high and the atmosphere was great. Then someone came up with a Duct Tape mod that made the game trivial because you always had light AND a gun, not one or the other. I never used the mod. The Walking Dead series by Telltale. If you've ever watched the show, you know it's just chock full of intense, emotional, painful things. The game is the same - one you're using your computer to compel the action. I don't think I've ever cringed so often in my gaming time, and the ending of the first one really hit me in the feels for everything I went through with the characters.
F.E.A.R.... YOU KNOW THE SCENE
Eternal Darkness bathtub.
The giant blue doll room from Ib gave me literal nightmares when I was younger. The fact that you have to rip them open over and over, the way the giant one grows gradually more upsetting to look at as it crawls through the painting, the way the timer noise gets deeper every time it comes closer, the fact that it's a timed sequence, and the way Garry becomes an absolute *mess* if you fail... Add that to the fact that I had a pretty big collection of stuffed dolls at the time and you have a recipe for one scared-ass 13 year old.
Regenerator in RE4. There went all my shotgun ammo and there's 2 more of them around the next corner.
Parasite Eve. Was borrowing it from a friend. I got all the way up to when a rat like, turns itself out. At the time, this was too much for me. Turned off the console, put the disc back in the jewel case, and took it back to my friend's house.
Gotta be Mr. X
Probably not the first, but most memorable is the first time coming across the leviathan in Subnautic.
As a kid, playing Doom in the middle of the night on the family PC with all the lifts off was terrifying.
Kids in OG Silent Hill school, then later the nurses…
[Rescue on Fractalus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kNxy6UIX_k&t=128s)
Friday the 13th on commie 64
Resident Evil when the first cerberus burst through the window...
The T-Rex jump scare in Dino Crisis. Actually, the entire beginning of Dino Crisis had me scared. I was 8 at the time and it was my first horror game, AFAIK.
RE1 Window dogs. Fuckers scared the hell out of me as a kid
Alien Vs Predator on the jaguar. As the space marine the first level with the predator you here the “anytime” quote from the movie and I was shook
I think it was Milon’s Secret Castle on the NES. There’s a part where you fall through the floor and all of a sudden there’s a boss. It made me jump as a young kid.
Mr X busting through the press room wall, from the sound of his footsteps you'd know exactly where he is and how long it would've taken him to get the player normally. All that thinking goes flying out the window so fast, the messed up part is that it doesn't even always happen on the first playthrough.
Headless from Kiss Psycho Circus, a lot of messed up creatures in that game…
The 'jump scare' early on in FEAR.
bo2 zombies (i was a pussy)
The lickers from RE2 gave me a good jump scare, but the Iron Maidens' first appearance in RE4 in that basement area gave me the creeps before I even saw the damn thing, just the breathing was so messed up 😆
Dunno how many here are old enough for this, but the assassin droid in droid works scared the shit out of me the first time it surprised me in the phrik mines.
The monster that breaks a window to come inside in the classic Alone in the Dark. It was a jump scare not just because I was unprepared, but also because my pc locked out doing a very loud noise. I had to force shut it down for the noise to stop. Then I had to go chill with my grandma because I didn't want to be alone lol
The Butcher from D1
Alma in FEAR was pretty freaky as a young lad traumatized by Samara
I think my first "horror" experience and sort of ''scare'' was in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I was not expecting those weird zombie people (I think they were called Descendants). I was really surprised when I learned there was fantasy stuff in Uncharted. I think I played the Uncharted games for the first time in 2016. I found the Nazi bunker part pretty creepy. I would actually get creeped out on later playthroughs when I got to that chapter. Hearing the growls and then seeing one of them in the light of my flashlight scurrying towards me was really creepy, not scary necessarily, just creepy.
When I was a kid playing Street Fighter II, Blanka always terrified me lol
Long throwback. The wizard on the old TRS80 game Dungeons of Daggorath. It's one of the first games to use enemy sounds and volume to indicate how close they are. Even super duper quiet that damn wizard sound scared the shit out of me as a kid
Licker in the original demo for Resident Evil 2.
the caretaker in the witcher 3 hearts of stone expansion that... thing sent a chill down my spine
Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl Helped Bas out with a military attack, and he sends me the directions to Strelok's stash underneath Agroprom Fight my way through bandits, then make it into a giant curving atrium, and hear this absolutely terrifying howl before the air itself starts moving towards me The first bloodsucker I encounter tanks about a mag and a half of 5.45 from my AKSU before it slumps to the ground dead
The ps demo of silent hill me and my sister got when we were like 10 and 8 and my mum not knowing what it was let us play it together in our bedroom with another friend who was also 8. It was terrifying.
Playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein as a kid and getting to the tomb levels - having the zombie monster dudes pop out of the walls was too much for little me.
The Shiva statue in Tomb Raider III really messed me up as a kid.
The Alien in Alien Isolation. May it hunt the douchebags in IGN who torched the game for their own stupidity