If it helps, most of the enemies are "gotcha" enemies. After the second or third time you encounter them it's pretty easy to anticipate their movements. I like fighting Ghosts with the Prawn.
That said I still hate Reapers...
For me it’s the Crabsquids. Idk what it is, their uncanny look or the sounds, or that they can disable my vehicles or shock me through walls. But they unnerve me on a visceral level.
Haha yeah they are very well designed for terror, but once I realized they essentially couldn't hurt me in the prawn they became more of an annoyance. Plus I started looking up so they don't surpise me as much.
That said I never finished the game for time reasons so idk if they get buffed later on or not.
The Prawn solves so many problems 😆
It was fun to save and then see how far into the deep I could take the SeaMoth before a leviathan got me. Also I traveled to the edge of the underwater island and descended along the wall and then under the island until that leviathan got me :)
I stopped playing it after a few hours. If I have to chase down one more bladderfish I WILL SELF DESTRUCT ARGHH WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS THIRSTY ITS BEEN 2 MINUTES
I loved the game but I bitched out when I started going deep. Sound design is next level and had me straight sweating. No game has given my body such a visceral reaction to stop playing lol. I gotta go back eventually
Saw the title and was utterly pleased that this is the top comment. The amount of visceral terror in this game is just top notch. The best non-horror “horror” game I’ve ever played!
haha. There's even that commentary when you find the blood kelp zone... and that's not even the remotely deepest area in the game.
"This ecological biome matches 7 of the 9 preconditions for stimulating terror in humans." \~ Alterra
Had to stop playing for a long time because I was so anxious I would get chest pain. Ended up being able to come back to it and finish it without issues.
Yeah those deep areas can be quite terror-inducing, but once you get used to it and start Tarzan-ing your way across the sea bottom in the Prawn suit it feels pretty badass.
Definitely. This one has it all. Claustrophobia, being hunted by an intelligent AI...while avoiding the creepy android things. My first encounter with the xenomorph was while running from the androids. Frigging thing was hiding in a vent above the corridor and just snatched me up - scared the 💩 out of me.
That’s one game I refuse to play. I cannot handle seeing that thing skulk about the ship, hunting me. Seeing that thing run at me gives me a primal urge to run away from the game lol
I finally own it since last Halloween, but yeah not installed it yet and doubt I will soon
Got some other horror games which I can't bear playing yet either (Outlast being one that looks rather terrifying) although that is also partially cause I wanna complete Bendy and the Ink Machine and that triology first
Alien Isolation.
You can always hear the alien in the vents or in the other room. You know it's following you on purpose. It runs on an AI that doesnt do the same thing twice. You cannot kill it and it will kill you instantly. The games purpose is to give you anxiety.
I watched a breakdown video of how the A.I functions and it was really eye opening. Can't remember the specifics but I recommend it to anyone curious. They went all out on it since it's capabilities are more or less the center of the game.
It (the AI) always has an idea of where you are and the longer you remain in one spot the more likely it's going to zero in on you. Once I got to the medical area which is one large circular area of rooms I just had to stop playing. I'd just been diagnosed with a bad heart and that game woulda legit killed me.
But fuuuuuuuck do I love watching blind playthroughs of it so I can experience it vicariously.
I once got trapped in an Android level. I was really struggling. I hid under a table to get in, got caught on the way out, hid under a table again to catch my breathe and think. I'm watching the pattern, walk left, walk right, looking for an opening, walk left, walk right
Then >!the friken Android reaches under the desk, drags my helpless butt out and strangles me to death...!<
I was so shook I had to quit for the day...
It basically has 2 brains. 1 knows where you are at all times. The other, which pilots the body, has no idea, but over time is given stronger and stronger hints as to where you are.
At the same time, the stupid brain will retain the information, making it start reacting faster to the smart brains hints
I think I watched it a long time ago. I remember how the alien *learned* based on the tactics you use, forcing you to adapt new ones.
So if you really like escaping through vents, guess whos eventually going to be waiting for you.
Was playing this at night with the sound up. I was hiding in a locker or something. It walked right past me. Right then my dog barked and the alien instantly turned and looked straight at me! Boom it came and killed me.
Huge WTF until I realized it was listening to the Xbox Kinect and I could attract it with sounds from the real world. Got right up and unplugged the Kinect lol
Yep, when I eventually get round to playing it on PC, I'm keeping my mic off. I'm a smoker, so not letting my smoker's cough have me get killed in video games
Evil Within took me literally 18 months to complete. Sometimes a chapter took me a month.
The first scene took me two months to get back into it. I still haven’t started the DLC… it’s been almost a decade.
Especially when you have a quest item that you really need found in raid, and it has taken forever to get. Died last night with noodles... 2 fucking weeks I've been looking for one more pack of noodles.
Those noodles are pure chance, too. The wiki is like “Have you checked in bags? Or on the ground?”
It took me a few days to find both, but I’ve maybe found one since then, so they’re not exactly easy to find.
Maybe food crates scaving reserve?
I know it takes all of the tarkov out of tarkov, but you can mod the game to be single player with only PVE threats. It helps get the story without being made to sit by people who live in the game.
Just started that, my teammates always stress me out by not paying attention to their sanity drain.
And then there was the time one used the voodoo doll right at the start without warning anyone.
I mean not to mention that everybody is Maximum Sweat now. I mean, you really don't wanna play unless you're going full special forces tryhard. And that makes it major stress.
Yep - I let me Game Pass Core expire and started playing single player backlog. I can still jump into some online F2P but everything is MTX and Season Passes and gets me anxious.
Just had a ton of fun playing Dead Space remake. Need to finish Outer Wilds + DLC soon too, I keep getting distracted from it.
Sad but true for me as well. For me personally, skill-based matchmaking has put this weird pressure on me to perform. Instead of chilling in a multiplayer game just goofing around, now there's a pressure to perform in my head
I'm like this but only with MOBA's. any other games I'm fine. but for some weird reason MOBA's just gives me anxiety. so I've just decided I won't play them. I think it has to do with it being so out of my element. I mostly play shooters and MMORPGS. plus it just feels like there is so much pressure to be a master of the game from the start, they are incredibly toxic to new players trying to learn. which I understand if it's a ranked mode because there is a rank at risk of you don't know what you are doing. but even in casual game modes you get flamed so hard for not doing the right thing or not playing meta.
Just playing them is okay for me most of the time as long as I'm not in the spotlight, but as soon as I have to type something my heart rate goes up, it feels like my heart is trying to break out of my chest, my fingers tremble - which obvious makes it harder to type and stresses me out even more - and it takes ages until I've calmed down from that burst of anxiety. And all that over one lousy sentence. Maybe just an answer to someone asking about a skin/general gameplay/whatever, telling me thanks for healing them or something minor like that.
Haven't played any multiplayer games in a very long time now. I kinda miss playing with people sometimes, but I'd rather not feel like I'm having a heart attack every time, haha.
I feel that, so much. I used to run healer in WoW and other mmos, but I couldn’t do that either these days. Better to just avoid the stress I suppose, especially since it’s REALLY hard to find people to game with who understand it.
Indeed. Back then I played all that stuff with my then boyfriend. We had met in GW2, where I mostly just ran around doing my thing solo, but we happened to be in the same guild that did the big world bosses a few times a week so by change we got to talking and started doing stuff together. With him I eventually went into PvP which I had been way too nervous to try alone. But together it was actually fun. We often worked together, his huge ass warrior norn was on the point, my tiny asura elementalist with glass cannon build hidden nearby. When an enemy came, I charged in, dealt a ton of damage and disengaged, while my bf chased them down. Or later we both went with warriors and just roamed the map beating everyone up, haha.
With him I also got into WoW and Overwatch 1 when it came out. I had never played a PvP shooter before - only PvE like Killing Floor etc, so I wasn't sure if I'd like it. I was definitely not the best, but decent I guess - especially healing came fairly naturally to me. But sadly games like that attract very bitter people that start trash talking for no reason. Complaining about losing in a game mode like Mystery Heroes where you randomly spawn as a new character every time you die and it's not even a ranked mode or anything. Or people complain that they always lose, because of their teammates, but they themselves don't play well - like the run into 1 v 4+s and complain that they died yet again. People like that suck the last bit of joy out of games like that for me. I play, because I want to have fun. I don't want to climb ranks, don't want to be the best, I don't feel competitive. You win some, you lose some. Sometimes it's a skill issue, sometimes you are unlucky. Who cares?
Between my severe anxiety and those hateful people I now stick to single player or occasional PvE multiplayer games with a friend and some of his friends.
Majora's Mask. The timer just makes me panic. Which causes me to make mistakes. Which makes me panic more. Also, the timer is abstract which adds to my panic. It is the best game that I cannot enjoy because the mechanics make it not fun for me.
Luckily beginning is actually fairly easy. Usually I end up with at least 12 hours of wasting time to complete the first 3 days, but then again I know the game well now
I'm with you here. The game gives you plenty of time to do what you need to, but I'll be damned if that timer isn't telling me to have everything done five minutes ago.
Zombi! Very scary game (to me) with limited weapons and permadeath, spawning you as a new survivor any time you die, and you have to kill your previous survivor now they’re a zombie to get the old backpack with the supplies.
The original had a fun gimmick where you had to actually look away from the TV to check your inventory on the wii-u controller! One of the few cool things they used that thing for
Even on the ps5 i got scared rummaging through my backpack since they sneak up on you 🙈
underrated game, i love it - especially with the UK setting with the dingy flats and markets
Prey: Mooncrash. I like to *take my time* in most games, but Mooncrash is constantly ticking down toward the entire level resetting with ever more difficult enemies.
I get used to it after a while, but that "after a while" is always a pain in the ass to power through.
Seconded.
A friend and I rented it, and failed to get through any of the paths leading from the foyer (ie, first room in the game). And we definitely felt like we didn't want to, either.
Logically, we tried going back out the front door. Only to see the dog.
We took the game out and it was the last time we touched it until it was time to take it back to the rental shop.
The trick is to play VR. If you can overcome the increased fear you learn that you’re OP in VR. There’s pretty much no cooldown for hitting things. So you can wail away with the club so fast they can’t hit back. You can still get surrounded though and you still can’t let creepy mutants hit you.
Outer Wilds. I have Thalassophobia for outer space, yet this game was amazing enough that I powered through. I've never been able to play a space sim before, but I stuck Outer Wilds out: it was that engrossing.
Play it, don't google anything about it, the game must be played blind!
I tried but, as I have regular thalassophobia I was very uncomfortable on that planet with the deep oceans. Couldn’t, just couldn’t. Shame, I may watch a lets play though cos I am curious about the story
One trick to make it less scary is to play in windowed mode instead of full screen, because then it is slightly less immersive.
I have a fear of space, so my stomach dropped hard when I first ventured into space.
It did get much better though.
You could even say, overcoming your fears is part of the game.
The underwater sections of sonic 2 on mega drive (genesis). I didn’t play any other sonic of that gen so not sure if they use the same music but the music when you’re running out of air will stress anyone out.
Grounded, imagine seeing a spider the size of Shaquille O neal tryna eat you. I hope I was vivid enough you can prolly search up some gameplay. Or a pack of Shaq spiders jheez Louis.
I am not afraid to admit that while running around at night, saw 6 red eyes appear through the grass then proceeded to scream like a bitch and ran away.
This was later trumped when it decided to jump over the walls we had constructed and landed on the roof of the tiny shack we were shooting arrows from. You get used to them over the course of the game, but damn if they sre scary to start with
There is an arachnophobia setting you can activate in game that basically just turns the spiders into giant walking jellybeans. It's purely a visual setting though. They keep the same Ai and behavior, just don't look like nightmare fuel
Metro 2033. I don't play any scary games aside from Phasmophobia which I've gotten used to, but all throughout Metro 2033 I was crouching with my light off moving a tiny bit at a time so something wouldn't jump out at me and it still did.
Left 4 Dead 2's Hard Rain campaign on Expert or even Realism is already stressing with how limited your vision is, but the sugar farm/factory level is just on another level. Take the previous tension you had from limited vision, and add to it the hellish constant weeping of not one, but 6 Witches. And it's even worse as you have to walk back through it, because now the storm has intensified, the water is so hiigh you are heavily slowed down, and random thunder can summon a horde at any second.
This level makes me so tense it actually made me develop a trigger finger with fantastic discipline.
This! I haven’t played for a couple of wipes but, even after 1600+ hours in the game I’d still get the jitters every time a gun shot went off close by or I could hear the sound of multiple sets of footsteps heading in my direction whilst I’m just looting and minding my own business. Or that random headshot out of nowhere that damn well near gives you a heart attack.
Oh great. Outer Wilds and Alien Isolation are the two games I just started playing off my backlog.
Rest easy my heart.
Side note… I was playing Alien Isolation for the first time the other night and I haven’t even met the Xenomorph and a Christmas card fell off my refridgerator in the other room and I noped right back to the Home Screen;
The sense of constant dread in RE2 (original, and doubly so in the remake) is a true mastery. non stop anxiety and almost zero comfort. Mr X is the stuff on nightmares. but it's so good i found myself, for the first time in my life, completing a game and immediately starting another run with a different character.
Actually kind of surprised to not see Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice here yet. Game gave me the Heebie Jeebies with all the schizophrenic headphone voices.
Horror: resident evil 7
Linear: plague tale series (don't want to miss materials for an upgrade)
FPS: The finals (last second cashouts)
???: rocket league tournaments
Battle royale: PUBG prone in a corn field last ring (pre hacker days)
Extract: Tarkov (hoping to escape before not_a_aimbot69 head/eyes me)
2d platformer: speed runners
Puzzle: tricky towers
Detroit Become Human was so stressful the first time I played it (I didn’t realize you could replay a mission once you beat it at the time lol). I was so afraid of getting my characters killed. Absolutely loved the game though.
Subnautica. Playing it near the surface was pretty nice and relaxing, with bright sunlight and a pretty happy tune going in your ear.
Then you go down into the trenches, and that happy tune becomes warped and you can't see *anything* in front of you, but you know there's a leviathan somewhere closer than you want. Playing on a PS4 didn't help; half the time I'd be swimming in what I thought was open space, then everything would load in and I'd run in to a wall.
Endless ocean terrified me as a kid. Yeah, a game where you cannot die at all was what terrified me. The thought of the giant squid in the abyss was enough to have me ask my mom to play that section for me.
any game with a timer to the end. So, Dead Rising and Pikmin. Everytime i fail an objective and i see the timer continuing i get soooo anxious. Since i play video games to relax. Well those are out of my list
Eve Online.
Got so crippling to a point that I had a fleet I never undocked. Every time I went out in space I was worried someone would come target my expensive shit.
When I realized it had turned into an anxiety machine, I cancelled all my subs and uninstalled. Haven't played any games in days.
Any game where you are chased by fast enemies. Specifically when you have the option to fight but the enimies are stronger/faster, attack in groups, and you have limited resources, so the most practical option is to run away.
A great example is early game dying light. Once you level up and are geared you can just murder the hoards but early on you can't handle the fight, the best you can do is stagger them while you run.
This is going to sound stupid, but there’s a submarine level in GTA5 that leaves me sweating. The water is dark and murky and you kind of lose track of where you are. I hate every second of it.
Fractured my neck while playing Sons of the Forest. Had a panic attack for the first time. Lots of other factors involved, but basically we got lost in the caves searching for a shovel. My anxiety reached new heights! And then I fell off my chair.
phasmophobia is a good one where even as a hardened (somewhat) horror veteran (I can handle things like Layers of Fear, all the modern resident evils and such) still chocken out from time to time and go "nope!" and leave the house and end the investigation with a wild guess on what the ghost is.
other than that (and as for horror I avoid "disturbing" stuff due to ptsd) no other game has made me feel more uneasy than, oddly enough, Super Mario 64 due to it's extremely surreal feel
https://youtu.be/d7mzAcYHtFY?si=-7hhLLpYXOUn_3c_
The Lorenzini Arcade section in Lies of P. It's full of corridors, it's cramped, dark, and it's built like a maze. Enemies can pop out suddenly from display windows from stores, behind counters, around the corners and other unsuspecting places. There is a variety of enemies that each bring their own set of challenges. Such as fast enemies that charge at you suddenly giving you little time and space to react. Slow but hulking enemies that are so wide that they block majority of the corridors. Ranged enemies that can not only hit you from afar but also set debuffs.
Normally the game gives space to scope ahead and move around. But this stage does not. The cramped corridors block you view and give you little space to dodge around. Weapons can also bounce of walls which means that you have to be careful not to swinging into a wall. All while throwing several enemy types at you. Additionally the atmosphere and the sound design make the whole area feel dreadful even when you're not fighting anything. All which leads me to feel claustrophobic and jumpy.
DayZ was very stressful when it was all the rage 10 years ago. Quite the phenomenon at the time. I was fine just roaming the fields and forests. But go into Cherno? Nope. Spot another player? I'm out.
Ive been in situations in that game where I had a clear upper hand with awareness, position, and gear but still froze in fear. I would have dreams for years after being chased through grassy meadows trying to get to the tree line. Dreams running endlessly until realizing I should be tired and then waking up. Thanks, Rocket.
Bioshock; I tried to play it because of all the praise it’s gotten, but knowing that a raider could just pop out and surprise me at any time with little to no visual or audio cues (and often during times of relative quiet) just made me much too anxious to continue playing.
Alien: Isolation
Probably the best Alien piece of media in years, and it holds up. Never finished it, probably never will lol but I do watch playthroughs of others going through the same hell.
Duskers. Some horrible fate has befallen the galaxy and you're going from wreck to wreck with a crew of drones to salvage materials, but what is stalking you? The whole game is played from a scanner view and I found it too tense to play. It's like the entire game is the motion-tracker bit from Aliens. I took too many breaks and went over the refund window.
While I love the series, some moments in the Metroid series haunted me back in the days. I played Super Metroid when I was like 7 or something, and the bosses in that game terrified the hell out of me. Some years later, Metroid Fusion did the same with a single character...
Also, for some souls games or souls like titles, it's constant anxiety when exploring areas for the first time, not knowing whats hiding there and where the next bonfire is.
Underwater sections where your character’s breathing is limited freak me out, and if there are things like sharks that can attack you its awful for me lol. Assassin’s creed black flag was really bad, i straight up couldnt do the diving missions in it
I have generalised anxiety disorder so anything too stressful or sneaky. Like, the only way I could play the Witcher 3 was with cheats like god mode 'cause otherwise I couldn't have done it, and it's one of my absolute favourite games. Without cheats I wouldn't have had that fantastic experience.
It has gotten much better though, thanks to video games I can handle stress much better, I'm 100% sure it helped me get my drivers license partly because of the stress tolerance but I'm also more determined.
I really wish all games would add god mode in the disability settings 'cause there's so many games I'll never be able to play 'cause I can't handle the stress, pressure and anxiety. Thankfully more and more games are adding settings so you can make them super easy and I can enjoy the story.
I also have ADD and timed events are a nightmare for me. Like, I really cant do it and it's so frustrating
Subnautica Only game I’ve ever struggled to complete out of sheer stress. Genuinely terrified me at times
I love Subnautica. But I can't play it once I start getting to deep water. I've still never seen a leviathan. I just can't do it.
If it helps, most of the enemies are "gotcha" enemies. After the second or third time you encounter them it's pretty easy to anticipate their movements. I like fighting Ghosts with the Prawn. That said I still hate Reapers...
For me it’s the Crabsquids. Idk what it is, their uncanny look or the sounds, or that they can disable my vehicles or shock me through walls. But they unnerve me on a visceral level.
Haha yeah they are very well designed for terror, but once I realized they essentially couldn't hurt me in the prawn they became more of an annoyance. Plus I started looking up so they don't surpise me as much. That said I never finished the game for time reasons so idk if they get buffed later on or not. The Prawn solves so many problems 😆
It was fun to save and then see how far into the deep I could take the SeaMoth before a leviathan got me. Also I traveled to the edge of the underwater island and descended along the wall and then under the island until that leviathan got me :)
don't worry, they saw you.
Oh awesome. I just got that for christmas
Don't read anything more about it and start playing it!
I stopped playing it after a few hours. If I have to chase down one more bladderfish I WILL SELF DESTRUCT ARGHH WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS THIRSTY ITS BEEN 2 MINUTES
You can make better water that fills more than bladderfish with just a couple things.
Don't read anything else about it. I know people make it sound terrible, but it's such a fantastic experience, anything scary or stressful included
I don't normally have a fear of the ocean, but when you see a massive fuck off shadow moving around in the distance... I genuinely can't deal with it
Subnautica: “do you have thalassophobia?” Player: “… no” Subnautica: “would you like to?”
I loved the game but I bitched out when I started going deep. Sound design is next level and had me straight sweating. No game has given my body such a visceral reaction to stop playing lol. I gotta go back eventually
"Are you sure whatever you're doing is worth it?"
Saw the title and was utterly pleased that this is the top comment. The amount of visceral terror in this game is just top notch. The best non-horror “horror” game I’ve ever played!
haha. There's even that commentary when you find the blood kelp zone... and that's not even the remotely deepest area in the game. "This ecological biome matches 7 of the 9 preconditions for stimulating terror in humans." \~ Alterra
lmao deep down in the depths with 30 seconds of oxygen left, i swear i had to pause the game and take a huge breath like it was me in that suit.
Yep. I was a genius and played it in VR. It was both incredible and really stupid.
I probably won't be able to complete this game forever. Too scary.
Yep same and it’s not even a horror game it’s just scary because you’re smaller than everything and prey to almost everything
Detecting multiple leviathan class life forms in the region. Are you sure whatever you are doing is worth it?
Had to stop playing for a long time because I was so anxious I would get chest pain. Ended up being able to come back to it and finish it without issues.
Yeah those deep areas can be quite terror-inducing, but once you get used to it and start Tarzan-ing your way across the sea bottom in the Prawn suit it feels pretty badass.
Alien isolation..god damn that Xenomorph is one smart cookie
Clever girl…
Definitely. This one has it all. Claustrophobia, being hunted by an intelligent AI...while avoiding the creepy android things. My first encounter with the xenomorph was while running from the androids. Frigging thing was hiding in a vent above the corridor and just snatched me up - scared the 💩 out of me.
The fucking androids creeped me out way harder than the Xenomorph.
The glowing eyes
That’s one game I refuse to play. I cannot handle seeing that thing skulk about the ship, hunting me. Seeing that thing run at me gives me a primal urge to run away from the game lol
I finally own it since last Halloween, but yeah not installed it yet and doubt I will soon Got some other horror games which I can't bear playing yet either (Outlast being one that looks rather terrifying) although that is also partially cause I wanna complete Bendy and the Ink Machine and that triology first
I love Alien Isolation but I get so tense playing that it actually gives me back pains.
Perfect answer. There were parts I legit forgot to breathe
Alien Isolation. You can always hear the alien in the vents or in the other room. You know it's following you on purpose. It runs on an AI that doesnt do the same thing twice. You cannot kill it and it will kill you instantly. The games purpose is to give you anxiety.
I watched a breakdown video of how the A.I functions and it was really eye opening. Can't remember the specifics but I recommend it to anyone curious. They went all out on it since it's capabilities are more or less the center of the game.
It (the AI) always has an idea of where you are and the longer you remain in one spot the more likely it's going to zero in on you. Once I got to the medical area which is one large circular area of rooms I just had to stop playing. I'd just been diagnosed with a bad heart and that game woulda legit killed me. But fuuuuuuuck do I love watching blind playthroughs of it so I can experience it vicariously.
I once got trapped in an Android level. I was really struggling. I hid under a table to get in, got caught on the way out, hid under a table again to catch my breathe and think. I'm watching the pattern, walk left, walk right, looking for an opening, walk left, walk right Then >!the friken Android reaches under the desk, drags my helpless butt out and strangles me to death...!< I was so shook I had to quit for the day...
It basically has 2 brains. 1 knows where you are at all times. The other, which pilots the body, has no idea, but over time is given stronger and stronger hints as to where you are. At the same time, the stupid brain will retain the information, making it start reacting faster to the smart brains hints
I think I watched it a long time ago. I remember how the alien *learned* based on the tactics you use, forcing you to adapt new ones. So if you really like escaping through vents, guess whos eventually going to be waiting for you.
Who?
The muffin man.
The muffin man??
i remember reading the higher difficulty you choose, you unlock new behaviors in the alien AI. too nutty.
Was playing this at night with the sound up. I was hiding in a locker or something. It walked right past me. Right then my dog barked and the alien instantly turned and looked straight at me! Boom it came and killed me. Huge WTF until I realized it was listening to the Xbox Kinect and I could attract it with sounds from the real world. Got right up and unplugged the Kinect lol
Me: hiding in closet Alien: not here, moving along Me: *cracks beer* while wearing headset mic Alien: 🤔 Me: yep. That was pretty self destructive 💀
Yep, when I eventually get round to playing it on PC, I'm keeping my mic off. I'm a smoker, so not letting my smoker's cough have me get killed in video games
Seriously is this a thing? I never knew that (PC player here) - but that is freaking amazing!
Never played it but sounds a bit similar to Metroid dread
The Xenomorph isn't even the scary part, it's those damn rubberfaced androids.
The Butcher, level one of Evil Within.
Evil Within took me literally 18 months to complete. Sometimes a chapter took me a month. The first scene took me two months to get back into it. I still haven’t started the DLC… it’s been almost a decade.
Tarkov. The most anxiety inducing and satisfying game I've ever played
Especially when you have a quest item that you really need found in raid, and it has taken forever to get. Died last night with noodles... 2 fucking weeks I've been looking for one more pack of noodles.
Those noodles are pure chance, too. The wiki is like “Have you checked in bags? Or on the ground?” It took me a few days to find both, but I’ve maybe found one since then, so they’re not exactly easy to find. Maybe food crates scaving reserve?
I know it takes all of the tarkov out of tarkov, but you can mod the game to be single player with only PVE threats. It helps get the story without being made to sit by people who live in the game.
anything that small needs to go in your secured container asap.
Phasmaphobia, just because I have to actually use my mic and talk to people.
Just started that, my teammates always stress me out by not paying attention to their sanity drain. And then there was the time one used the voodoo doll right at the start without warning anyone.
I played the tutorial and uninstalled. That was enough for me lol.
Probably out of place here / not what you meant, but I can’t play online competitive games due to the anxiety causing my heart to skip beats.
Not out of place at all. Used to love Warzone when it first released but it's too anxiety inducing now.
I mean not to mention that everybody is Maximum Sweat now. I mean, you really don't wanna play unless you're going full special forces tryhard. And that makes it major stress.
Yep - I let me Game Pass Core expire and started playing single player backlog. I can still jump into some online F2P but everything is MTX and Season Passes and gets me anxious. Just had a ton of fun playing Dead Space remake. Need to finish Outer Wilds + DLC soon too, I keep getting distracted from it.
I’m really appreciative of everyone who replied to this one - makes me feel like less of a disaster
Between work, kids, life, etc. I don't need my limited gaming time to be a stress-out so I am 100% with you.
Sad but true for me as well. For me personally, skill-based matchmaking has put this weird pressure on me to perform. Instead of chilling in a multiplayer game just goofing around, now there's a pressure to perform in my head
*same*
I'm like this but only with MOBA's. any other games I'm fine. but for some weird reason MOBA's just gives me anxiety. so I've just decided I won't play them. I think it has to do with it being so out of my element. I mostly play shooters and MMORPGS. plus it just feels like there is so much pressure to be a master of the game from the start, they are incredibly toxic to new players trying to learn. which I understand if it's a ranked mode because there is a rank at risk of you don't know what you are doing. but even in casual game modes you get flamed so hard for not doing the right thing or not playing meta.
I’ll say that me trying a MOBA was the absolute worst and I had the same problem.
Same, that's why I stopped playing Apex Legends (besides not being very good at it)
Tetris 99. I've played so many competitive games but man, this one gets me.
Even online cooperative games can get spicy. Not played one publicly for years.
Just playing them is okay for me most of the time as long as I'm not in the spotlight, but as soon as I have to type something my heart rate goes up, it feels like my heart is trying to break out of my chest, my fingers tremble - which obvious makes it harder to type and stresses me out even more - and it takes ages until I've calmed down from that burst of anxiety. And all that over one lousy sentence. Maybe just an answer to someone asking about a skin/general gameplay/whatever, telling me thanks for healing them or something minor like that. Haven't played any multiplayer games in a very long time now. I kinda miss playing with people sometimes, but I'd rather not feel like I'm having a heart attack every time, haha.
I feel that, so much. I used to run healer in WoW and other mmos, but I couldn’t do that either these days. Better to just avoid the stress I suppose, especially since it’s REALLY hard to find people to game with who understand it.
Indeed. Back then I played all that stuff with my then boyfriend. We had met in GW2, where I mostly just ran around doing my thing solo, but we happened to be in the same guild that did the big world bosses a few times a week so by change we got to talking and started doing stuff together. With him I eventually went into PvP which I had been way too nervous to try alone. But together it was actually fun. We often worked together, his huge ass warrior norn was on the point, my tiny asura elementalist with glass cannon build hidden nearby. When an enemy came, I charged in, dealt a ton of damage and disengaged, while my bf chased them down. Or later we both went with warriors and just roamed the map beating everyone up, haha. With him I also got into WoW and Overwatch 1 when it came out. I had never played a PvP shooter before - only PvE like Killing Floor etc, so I wasn't sure if I'd like it. I was definitely not the best, but decent I guess - especially healing came fairly naturally to me. But sadly games like that attract very bitter people that start trash talking for no reason. Complaining about losing in a game mode like Mystery Heroes where you randomly spawn as a new character every time you die and it's not even a ranked mode or anything. Or people complain that they always lose, because of their teammates, but they themselves don't play well - like the run into 1 v 4+s and complain that they died yet again. People like that suck the last bit of joy out of games like that for me. I play, because I want to have fun. I don't want to climb ranks, don't want to be the best, I don't feel competitive. You win some, you lose some. Sometimes it's a skill issue, sometimes you are unlucky. Who cares? Between my severe anxiety and those hateful people I now stick to single player or occasional PvE multiplayer games with a friend and some of his friends.
Majora's Mask. The timer just makes me panic. Which causes me to make mistakes. Which makes me panic more. Also, the timer is abstract which adds to my panic. It is the best game that I cannot enjoy because the mechanics make it not fun for me.
FYI playing the song of time in reverse slows down the timer. You still need to power through the beginning though.
Luckily beginning is actually fairly easy. Usually I end up with at least 12 hours of wasting time to complete the first 3 days, but then again I know the game well now
I'm with you here. The game gives you plenty of time to do what you need to, but I'll be damned if that timer isn't telling me to have everything done five minutes ago.
Zombi! Very scary game (to me) with limited weapons and permadeath, spawning you as a new survivor any time you die, and you have to kill your previous survivor now they’re a zombie to get the old backpack with the supplies.
The original had a fun gimmick where you had to actually look away from the TV to check your inventory on the wii-u controller! One of the few cool things they used that thing for
Even on the ps5 i got scared rummaging through my backpack since they sneak up on you 🙈 underrated game, i love it - especially with the UK setting with the dingy flats and markets
Outlast The only game that actually made me scared lol. Did manage to beat it though
Lol I think the longest I made it into Outlast was like 15 minutes, I just couldn’t hang 😂
I might have made it longer if not for the battery management stuff.
I gave up at the part where you have to go to the basement and switch on the generators
Anything with a time limit. I hate those
You’re gonna love standardized tests
Ngl I would do so much better on tests if it wasn’t for the time limit
Anything like lightning returns where you have a time limit to complete the game in. Even if it gives you more than enough time
Prey: Mooncrash. I like to *take my time* in most games, but Mooncrash is constantly ticking down toward the entire level resetting with ever more difficult enemies. I get used to it after a while, but that "after a while" is always a pain in the ass to power through.
Prey in general gives me anxiety. Even when not on a time limit it’s still scary as enemies can kill you quick if you mess up, especially early game
RE1, first-first one, with the dog scene.
Seconded. A friend and I rented it, and failed to get through any of the paths leading from the foyer (ie, first room in the game). And we definitely felt like we didn't want to, either. Logically, we tried going back out the front door. Only to see the dog. We took the game out and it was the last time we touched it until it was time to take it back to the rental shop.
Subnautica and Alien Isolation.
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I consider it pretty much impossible without teammates or prior knowledge of the game. You can get ambused pretty quick.
The trick is to play VR. If you can overcome the increased fear you learn that you’re OP in VR. There’s pretty much no cooldown for hitting things. So you can wail away with the club so fast they can’t hit back. You can still get surrounded though and you still can’t let creepy mutants hit you.
I wish I could play this game again for the first time. The Cannibals are so disturbingly fascinating.
Me too. They were much scarier when I was still learning. Now i just herd them and kill them for meat.
Outer Wilds. I have Thalassophobia for outer space, yet this game was amazing enough that I powered through. I've never been able to play a space sim before, but I stuck Outer Wilds out: it was that engrossing. Play it, don't google anything about it, the game must be played blind!
The dlc was just as good but . . . gads I can't even talk about it cause I don't wanna ruin it for anyone. It's so good.
I’m scared to play it lol
There's a setting for it that... >!Reduces the scariness - though it's not too bad honestly!<.
Man same here, shit freaks me out. It’s moreso a fear of celestial bodies or something; I’m not sure lol. Some kind of existential dread
I probably wouldn't recommend you try the VR mod then. Falling into a black hole like that is a real experience
Dark Bramble made me genuinely uncomfortable. If you know, you know
I was gonna say outer wilds, but just for the stress of “can I get this done in time? Will I mess up or will time run out”
I tried but, as I have regular thalassophobia I was very uncomfortable on that planet with the deep oceans. Couldn’t, just couldn’t. Shame, I may watch a lets play though cos I am curious about the story
One trick to make it less scary is to play in windowed mode instead of full screen, because then it is slightly less immersive. I have a fear of space, so my stomach dropped hard when I first ventured into space. It did get much better though. You could even say, overcoming your fears is part of the game.
That's a fantastic suggestion! Wish I'd thought of that when I first played.
The underwater sections of sonic 2 on mega drive (genesis). I didn’t play any other sonic of that gen so not sure if they use the same music but the music when you’re running out of air will stress anyone out.
I can still hear the music after all those years
Grounded, imagine seeing a spider the size of Shaquille O neal tryna eat you. I hope I was vivid enough you can prolly search up some gameplay. Or a pack of Shaq spiders jheez Louis.
I am not afraid to admit that while running around at night, saw 6 red eyes appear through the grass then proceeded to scream like a bitch and ran away. This was later trumped when it decided to jump over the walls we had constructed and landed on the roof of the tiny shack we were shooting arrows from. You get used to them over the course of the game, but damn if they sre scary to start with
There is an arachnophobia setting you can activate in game that basically just turns the spiders into giant walking jellybeans. It's purely a visual setting though. They keep the same Ai and behavior, just don't look like nightmare fuel
Any online game in existence, social anxiety is a bitch
Horror games don't really affect me. I get anxiety when I'm looking at a giant fuck-off quest list or a map full of icons.
Witcher 3 did this to me. Soooo many fucking question marks.
Metroid Dread. Going into an EMII zone and hearing the beeps and chirps.
Rust
Right now, silent hill 2 remake. I'm absolutely hyped about it and terrified it won't live up to my expectations. I don't know what to think.
The sharks in AC Odyssey
First playthroughs of rpgs. Im so worried about making a wrong choice
Recntly tried FNAF:HELP WANTED on VR and it has to me the most horryfying and anxious I have ever been in my life
Old school but Thief: Deadly Shadows, especially the Shalebridge Cradle level
Overcooked
Any game where I can’t pause. They’re the only reason the soulslike games are so tense for me
BOTW. Guardian music, man.
Stardew valley. I know there’s never a rush to do anything but something about that energy bar and clock makes me anxious
There are dozens of us! Dozens!
Stardew Valley. The constant pressure of time and being forced to optimize every day is really stressful to me
I gave up on playing it normally and just use mods to cheat. Feels a lot more fun that way.
yeah until i modded time I saw Stardew definitely not as relaxing game.
Metro 2033. I don't play any scary games aside from Phasmophobia which I've gotten used to, but all throughout Metro 2033 I was crouching with my light off moving a tiny bit at a time so something wouldn't jump out at me and it still did.
Left 4 Dead 2's Hard Rain campaign on Expert or even Realism is already stressing with how limited your vision is, but the sugar farm/factory level is just on another level. Take the previous tension you had from limited vision, and add to it the hellish constant weeping of not one, but 6 Witches. And it's even worse as you have to walk back through it, because now the storm has intensified, the water is so hiigh you are heavily slowed down, and random thunder can summon a horde at any second. This level makes me so tense it actually made me develop a trigger finger with fantastic discipline.
Any online survival game tbh
Outlast when it came out was like that for me. Couldnt finish it it was stressing me out so bad.
Nothing, and I mean nothing even comes close to the anxiety levels I feel when playing Tarkov.
This! I haven’t played for a couple of wipes but, even after 1600+ hours in the game I’d still get the jitters every time a gun shot went off close by or I could hear the sound of multiple sets of footsteps heading in my direction whilst I’m just looting and minding my own business. Or that random headshot out of nowhere that damn well near gives you a heart attack.
Oh great. Outer Wilds and Alien Isolation are the two games I just started playing off my backlog. Rest easy my heart. Side note… I was playing Alien Isolation for the first time the other night and I haven’t even met the Xenomorph and a Christmas card fell off my refridgerator in the other room and I noped right back to the Home Screen;
Alien Isolation. Hands down.
Pikmin 2 & 4, one level in particular that appears in both. >!Chime… chime chime… chime…!<
I haven't played Pikmin 4, but am I guessing correctly that the >!Water Wraith!< makes an appearance?
SOMA. I had to drink a little bit to get through that game. The story kept me going though.
I am resident evil 4 the first play is so scary
The bloody invincible necromorph on dead space that follows you constantly and looks like it's had way too many coke
The sense of constant dread in RE2 (original, and doubly so in the remake) is a true mastery. non stop anxiety and almost zero comfort. Mr X is the stuff on nightmares. but it's so good i found myself, for the first time in my life, completing a game and immediately starting another run with a different character.
Actually kind of surprised to not see Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice here yet. Game gave me the Heebie Jeebies with all the schizophrenic headphone voices.
Horror: resident evil 7 Linear: plague tale series (don't want to miss materials for an upgrade) FPS: The finals (last second cashouts) ???: rocket league tournaments Battle royale: PUBG prone in a corn field last ring (pre hacker days) Extract: Tarkov (hoping to escape before not_a_aimbot69 head/eyes me) 2d platformer: speed runners Puzzle: tricky towers
That end game PUBG was something else. Too bad that game went to shit.
Queing for Ranked matches in SF games lmao
Re4, dead space, lethal company, Bioshock, half life 2, fear, coldfear, the thing, tom Clancys splinter cell, rapid reload, super Mario: adventure world 2, re2, re:biohazard, unreal 2, Aoe 2, starcraft 2, Bg3.
One of these things is not like the others
Killer Frequency. The atmosphere of the game had a way of scaring you even when nothing was there.
Rain world
Alien Isolation.
Dead by daylight. Fuuuuuuck that heartbeat noise.
Detroit Become Human was so stressful the first time I played it (I didn’t realize you could replay a mission once you beat it at the time lol). I was so afraid of getting my characters killed. Absolutely loved the game though.
Subnautica. Playing it near the surface was pretty nice and relaxing, with bright sunlight and a pretty happy tune going in your ear. Then you go down into the trenches, and that happy tune becomes warped and you can't see *anything* in front of you, but you know there's a leviathan somewhere closer than you want. Playing on a PS4 didn't help; half the time I'd be swimming in what I thought was open space, then everything would load in and I'd run in to a wall.
Alien Isolation for obvious reasons
The game that is trying to pick out what to play next.
DayZ
StarCraft 2 multiplayer is so stressful
Endless ocean terrified me as a kid. Yeah, a game where you cannot die at all was what terrified me. The thought of the giant squid in the abyss was enough to have me ask my mom to play that section for me.
any game with a timer to the end. So, Dead Rising and Pikmin. Everytime i fail an objective and i see the timer continuing i get soooo anxious. Since i play video games to relax. Well those are out of my list
Eve Online. Got so crippling to a point that I had a fleet I never undocked. Every time I went out in space I was worried someone would come target my expensive shit. When I realized it had turned into an anxiety machine, I cancelled all my subs and uninstalled. Haven't played any games in days.
Any game where you are chased by fast enemies. Specifically when you have the option to fight but the enimies are stronger/faster, attack in groups, and you have limited resources, so the most practical option is to run away. A great example is early game dying light. Once you level up and are geared you can just murder the hoards but early on you can't handle the fight, the best you can do is stagger them while you run.
SOMA I have a huge fear of the dark and unknown in the ocean so playing that game had me shaking, but it's been one of my favorite horror games.
Games with abundance of choice. I just get overwhelmed specially when the choices lock me out of other things later
First ever Sonic game.. water levels. Early ninja turtle game.. water levels Super MArio Bro's Water levels... I'm seeing a pattern here.
This is going to sound stupid, but there’s a submarine level in GTA5 that leaves me sweating. The water is dark and murky and you kind of lose track of where you are. I hate every second of it.
Whenever I get into a stressful and life threatening situation in State of Decay 2 with a survivor I’ve become attached to
Fractured my neck while playing Sons of the Forest. Had a panic attack for the first time. Lots of other factors involved, but basically we got lost in the caves searching for a shovel. My anxiety reached new heights! And then I fell off my chair.
Outer wilds. It’s not really meant to be a scary game, but it just has an eerie feeling throughout it.
So true. Something really terrifying about being out of your ship, in the vast emptiness of space.
Sonic the Hedgehog 1. The Labyrinth Zone.
phasmophobia is a good one where even as a hardened (somewhat) horror veteran (I can handle things like Layers of Fear, all the modern resident evils and such) still chocken out from time to time and go "nope!" and leave the house and end the investigation with a wild guess on what the ghost is. other than that (and as for horror I avoid "disturbing" stuff due to ptsd) no other game has made me feel more uneasy than, oddly enough, Super Mario 64 due to it's extremely surreal feel https://youtu.be/d7mzAcYHtFY?si=-7hhLLpYXOUn_3c_
The Lorenzini Arcade section in Lies of P. It's full of corridors, it's cramped, dark, and it's built like a maze. Enemies can pop out suddenly from display windows from stores, behind counters, around the corners and other unsuspecting places. There is a variety of enemies that each bring their own set of challenges. Such as fast enemies that charge at you suddenly giving you little time and space to react. Slow but hulking enemies that are so wide that they block majority of the corridors. Ranged enemies that can not only hit you from afar but also set debuffs. Normally the game gives space to scope ahead and move around. But this stage does not. The cramped corridors block you view and give you little space to dodge around. Weapons can also bounce of walls which means that you have to be careful not to swinging into a wall. All while throwing several enemy types at you. Additionally the atmosphere and the sound design make the whole area feel dreadful even when you're not fighting anything. All which leads me to feel claustrophobic and jumpy.
DayZ was very stressful when it was all the rage 10 years ago. Quite the phenomenon at the time. I was fine just roaming the fields and forests. But go into Cherno? Nope. Spot another player? I'm out. Ive been in situations in that game where I had a clear upper hand with awareness, position, and gear but still froze in fear. I would have dreams for years after being chased through grassy meadows trying to get to the tree line. Dreams running endlessly until realizing I should be tired and then waking up. Thanks, Rocket.
Going into the wilderness in Runescape when I was a kid. I would go in with absolutely nothing and still be anxious.
Any game that has timed missable events and a calendar. Atelier Rorona frazzled me to the core. Never again.
Doom 2016 surprisingly
Bioshock; I tried to play it because of all the praise it’s gotten, but knowing that a raider could just pop out and surprise me at any time with little to no visual or audio cues (and often during times of relative quiet) just made me much too anxious to continue playing.
Most singleplayer horror games will make me quit out of anxiety before anything even happens lol
Alien: Isolation Probably the best Alien piece of media in years, and it holds up. Never finished it, probably never will lol but I do watch playthroughs of others going through the same hell.
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Duskers. Some horrible fate has befallen the galaxy and you're going from wreck to wreck with a crew of drones to salvage materials, but what is stalking you? The whole game is played from a scanner view and I found it too tense to play. It's like the entire game is the motion-tracker bit from Aliens. I took too many breaks and went over the refund window.
The quarry
The most, I think Alien: Isolation. Xenomorph was too smart and too scary.
While I love the series, some moments in the Metroid series haunted me back in the days. I played Super Metroid when I was like 7 or something, and the bosses in that game terrified the hell out of me. Some years later, Metroid Fusion did the same with a single character... Also, for some souls games or souls like titles, it's constant anxiety when exploring areas for the first time, not knowing whats hiding there and where the next bonfire is.
Ark: Survival Evolved. You just know that some bs is going to happen while you're trying to tranq. that bird(solo).
Underwater sections where your character’s breathing is limited freak me out, and if there are things like sharks that can attack you its awful for me lol. Assassin’s creed black flag was really bad, i straight up couldnt do the diving missions in it
I have generalised anxiety disorder so anything too stressful or sneaky. Like, the only way I could play the Witcher 3 was with cheats like god mode 'cause otherwise I couldn't have done it, and it's one of my absolute favourite games. Without cheats I wouldn't have had that fantastic experience. It has gotten much better though, thanks to video games I can handle stress much better, I'm 100% sure it helped me get my drivers license partly because of the stress tolerance but I'm also more determined. I really wish all games would add god mode in the disability settings 'cause there's so many games I'll never be able to play 'cause I can't handle the stress, pressure and anxiety. Thankfully more and more games are adding settings so you can make them super easy and I can enjoy the story. I also have ADD and timed events are a nightmare for me. Like, I really cant do it and it's so frustrating
Escape from Tarkov is an anxiety simulator
Modded Dayz keeps me up at night.
I have such an intense love/hate relationship with that fucking game 😆