The epitome of what I’m trying to refer to is the Playdead games (Limbo and Inside). Dark Souls and BioShock both hit on this idea but not quite so directly. The game BADLAND is also a great example of this, too. The mobile game The Silent Age also did this exceptionally well. Never quite knowing what’s going on, and maybe some tension without release, but again not straight up horror. A feeling of uneasiness is what I’m looking for.

When playing through Inside, there’s never any moments where you’re scared, but you’re never sure what’s going on and there’s always a level of unease. What are all the mindless zombie-like people? Why is everyone hunting the player? What happened to this city? What’s the goal of the character the player controls? What exactly is going on here? That’s what I’m looking for. If you know of any other games which do this, I’d greatly appreciate hearing about them. It’s a very specific niche so I’m not sure how many games do this, but the games that I’ve seen do this tend to be some form of post-disaster or dystopia. I’ve seen some great artwork do this too. Zdzisław Beksiński had done some stuff like this. Some great dystopian novels also do this quite well.

  • SamiA
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    1 year ago

    Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice kinda fits this description. It’s a game about a mentally ill viking(ish) warrior so it’s more “psychological” creepiness than zombies, but it definitely achieves what it seeks out to do as with its atmosphere without being outright horror. The game is not for everybody since the gameplay can be a bit offputting.

    • meteotsunami@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This is the most skin crawling game in the thread. In VR it’s super creepy, the voices are just downright harrowing.

      • SamiA
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        1 year ago

        Oof, I can only imagine VR. The voices with good headphones and a long play session gave me a headache the next day haha

    • cod@lemmy.worldOPM
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      1 year ago

      I’ve heard really good things about that one. Good to know it fits what I described, I’ll be checking it out for sure. Thanks!

      • kite@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        If you have issues with too-close FOV in games, you may want to make sure you play the PC version and not the console one. PC you can adjust the FOV. Console version is one of the few games I’ve played that made me straight up barfy. Dishonored 2 was another.

        • cod@lemmy.worldOPM
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          1 year ago

          Duly noted. I always play on pc anyway, so no big deal. Thanks for the tip