Terrifying Moments In Non-Horror Games

The immersive nature of video games can make them incredibly terrifying, which can lead to horror games feeling scarier than any movie. Rather than just watching a horrifying scene play out on the screen, players are involved and have to actively progress through those scary moments. Hearing a bump in the dark of a space station is scary enough in "Alien," but it is even worse when players have to actively walk towards that bump in a game like "Dead Space." 

While there are many great horror video games that take advantage of this interactivity, there are also plenty of non-horror games that follow the same concept to create memorable and downright nightmarish scenes. 

When that happens, these moments are particularly impactful, since they stand out from the rest of their respective games, allowing them to give players a tonal whiplash that leads to some of the most striking sequences in gaming. Here are some of the most unsettling, terrifying, creepy, or just downright disturbing moments in non-horror games.

"Majora's Mask" is a disturbing E-rated game, as well a massive tonal shift from what most fans expect from "The Legend of Zelda." The extremely dark tone of "Majora's Mask" comes mostly from its time-loop structure, which sees Link trying to stop a moon from crashing into the world and destroying it. To make it even worse, the moon has a horrifying face with peeled-back lips and burning red eyes that bore into the player whenever they look at it.

As players adventure, they also have to watch the moon get bigger and bigger in the sky as a foreboding reminder of their limited window of time. Unless the player has memorized the game, it is also inevitable that they will fail at least once, meaning they have to watch the moon crash with a massive explosion.

As noted by Syfy, other games in the series definitely have dark moments or lore, but "Majora's Mask" players have the constant pressure of knowing the world could end any moment. No wonder plenty of "Majora's Mask" fans can't help but get a shiver down their spine whenever they see that sneering moon.

"Batman: Arkham Asylum" has plenty of nightmarish imagery, particularly thanks to the toxic gases of the villainous Scarecrow. None of the scenes are quite as terrifying, however, as when Batman takes a detour to Arkham Asylum's morgue. After being dosed by Scarecrow, Batman witnesses commissioner Gordon being dragged away from a vent by some unseen entity. Shortly after, Batman finds him apparently dead. That is only the beginning, though, as Batman then walks through crooked hallways covered in roaches to reach the morgue.

Once he's there, Batman is greeted by slamming doors and ominous whispers telling him to leave. Leaving and re-entering the room will reveal three covered bodies at the center of the room. The first two bodies are revealed to be the corpses of Batman's parents, each of which animated and chastise him for allowing them to die.

The third corpse is Scarecrow, who then takes Batman to a nightmarish realm made up of broken pieces of the Morgue suspended in a terrible circling storm. The sequence is all set-up for a fight with the Scarecrow, but fans have pointed out that its biggest strength is in unsettling the player out of nowhere.

"Fable 2" has a number of Demon Doors spread across the land of Albion, each of which can be opened by solving a riddle. Once they are opened, they reward players with powerful items for their trouble. The Demon Door outside the town of Bloodstone, however, delivers its reward along with a shocking scene.

When players first enter the door, they are transported to a tranquil realm known as the Winter Lodge, complete with a quaint cabin. At first, the realm is an idyllic rendition of a peaceful winter day, but when players walk through the front door, the cabin's real form is revealed.

The change in scenery is accompanied by a shrill noise as it transforms into a dilapidated torture chamber. An iron maiden appears in the corner of the room, stocks are placed in another corner, and what was once a dining table gets is replaced with a torture rack. The horrible scene is furnished further with the skeletons of former victims that are spread throughout the house. And now, dead bodies line the path outside, making fans point to it as one of the creepiest moments in "Fable 2."

The first expansion released for "The Witcher 3," titled "Hearts of Stone," follows the story of the immortal bandit Olgierd von Everec. Eventually, in the expansion's main questline, Geralt of Rivia has to deal with a golem-like creature summoned by Olgierd, known only as The Caretaker. There are many creepy monsters that call "The Witcher" universe home, but some fans on Reddit think The Caretaker may be one of the scariest, tipping the fantasy game into full-on horror territory.

The scene starts with Geralt arriving at the von Everic estate, the wind whipping past him under an overcast sky. The manor is deathly quiet at first, then the sounds of grave-digging draw him to a row of headstones. The sound comes from a hooded figure that is digging next to the mutilated corpse of a thief. The figure does not respond to Geralt's calls at first, but eventually pulls down its hood as he approaches.

The Caretaker is then revealed to have a horrific face comprised of only a mouth and a ring of stitches around the outer edge. It makes only bestial groans as it tries to strike Geralt with powerful swings of its mangled shovel, and it only gets stronger as it takes damage. The Caretaker is also capable of summoning spirits to aid it in the fight, seemingly indicating that it is capable of controlling the souls of those it buries – which would mean the horror doesn't end if the Caretaker kills you.

The first two "Max Payne" games have a recurring element of the title character enduring terrible nightmares as reflections of his previous traumas, such as the murder of his family. In the first game, these frightening nightmares can be shocking for new players, especially considering how they pop up in what is otherwise an action-focused third-person shooter. The first (and possibly scariest) of these occurs after Max is drugged and falls unconscious.

The sequence starts with Max navigating a seemingly endless procession of long hallways accompanied by the sounds of a woman crying and repeatedly apologizing to him. She begins to scream as Max treks through the maze of identical hallways. Eventually, Max arrives at a ransacked living room with turned-over furniture and broken pictures. The player then goes up a staircase — only to find themselves in another long hallway lined with children's wallpaper. Somewhere, the jingle of a baby's mobile ominously plays.

Eventually, a dark abyss lined with chalk leads Max to the bedroom of his child, complete with a blood-splattered crib. The next room brings him to his wife's body, showing that his guilt may never go away. It's incredibly dark and horrifying, especially for game full of over the top bullet time action scenes.

The first hours playing "Subnautica" are a relatively peaceful time, during which players explore their interesting new surroundings, gather resources, and craft useful upgrades and pieces of equipment. This all quickly changes, however, once players have their first encounter with the game's massive Reaper Leviathan, a carnivorous species that is even larger than the biggest submarine available in the game. A zillion terrified player reactions can't all be wrong.

Players first come across the Reaper Leviathan when they go to explore the wreckage of their spaceship that crash-landed on the alien planet. After getting close to the ship, players can notice the lumbering silhouette of the monstrous creature in the distance as it snakes its way through the water. The sheer size of the creature makes it stand out from everything else players have seen in the game up to that point, made all the worse by the massive mandibles jutting from its face.

The Reaper Leviathan can also use those mandibles to grab the player and eat them in one large bite if the player's below 80% health, and it can even hold the player's submarine in its jaws. When it has the submarine in its grip, the Leviathan can shake it until it is destroyed before eating the player as well. As noted by Mike M at LNGFRM, this sequence stands out for being as "cool" as it is terrifying.

"Spec Ops: The Line" is all about the horrors of war and the massive impacts it can have on the lives of those who survive it. Players follow an elite squad of United States soldiers named Walker, Adams, and Lugo as they travel to Dubai after a devastating sandstorm to help quell an insurrection. The game is filled with many heart-wrenching and memorable moments, but there's one horrific sequence that's sure to stick with players.

The moment comes just after the player is pushed to use a devastating white phosphorus weapon on a group of advancing enemy soldiers. The choice to use the weapon is presented as the only way to survive the coming attack, and players aren't given a chance to refuse. After doing this, it is revealed that the "soldiers" were actually just civilians, many of them being women and children.

Once the phosphorus has cleared out, the player then has to walk through the crowd of scorched civilians, some of whom are still in their final agonizing seconds of life. It's an incredibly gruesome and somber scene, one that fills the player with the guilt of having accidentally becoming the bad guy of the story. As PC Gamer noted, it's a "troubling scene" that puts the ugly side of modern warfare at the forefront.