Scariest and most intense games

What have been the scariest and most intense PC games you've ever played? I'm talking about games that actually made you jump out of your seat or that stressed you out!

My top 3:


1. Alien Isolation

2. FEAR

3. Prey (the one from Bethesda)

--Thief series, especially the Cathedral levels and Shalebridge Cradle
-- System Shock 2
-- Outlast
-- Headcrabs in Half-Life. Damn things!
-- Darkwood
-- FEAR. Little girls can be so creepy
-- STALKER. Any subterranean level playing for the first time, and the whole Misery mod


Lots more. I never played games like Silent Hill or Resident Evil or I am sure those would be on the list.

I've actually avoided Alien Isolation despite the praise, simply because I don't want it to scare me

I think it would be Thief The Dark Project, Amnesia The Dark Descent and Dead Space.

In no particular order...

Alien Isolation.

Resident Evil 7.

Any one of the Penumbra series.

To add to the list of already mentioned good and scary games:

Clive Barker's Undying

and (to a somewhat lesser scary degree IMHO) :

SOMA

System Shock 1 and 2
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl
Dark Souls (and by proxy, 2 and 3 as well, but start with 1)
Half Life 1

Life

Soma really #%&*$# with my head. I thought it was just a plot hole they missed and then I got to the end... nope they didnt miss anything.

Parts of Metro Last Light, like the underground cathedral area...

Alien Vs Predator - the Colonial Marine campaign. I dreaded going into any new area and suddenly hearing something loudly (and visibly) scurry through air vents. My entire body would jerk involuntarily and my finger would press on the mouse as I emptied half a clip of ammo into thin air.

SOMA had a couple of interesting parts but overall I found the story and the gameplay to be pretty boring. I dumped it after about 10 hours of game time.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein (2001) demo


Seriously.



I knew nothing about the game, just downloaded and started playing the demo. So I start my escape from the castle, shot a few nazi guards etc. and then at some point I find myself in catacombs. And I hear an odd growling noise. And something coming toward me in the shadows. And the hair stands up on the back of my neck. WTF is that????? I start shooting, there's more of them, I keep shooting. I'm running low on ammo and more of these unholy, evil looking THINGS keep coming. Finally I killed the last one with my remaining number of bullets being in single digits. And I am shaking.

Never experienced anything like that before or since. If I had known there was an "undead" aspect to the game I would have been expecting it and laughed it off, but it happened so quickly that it flipped a switch in my brain and scared the $#!^ out of me!

+1 That was seriously creepy back in the day and haven't played anything like it since. Those howlers.... <shudder!>

Also,

Outlast 2

You guys are scared by cartoons? LOL

The scariest I've ever played was Diablo 2. Many of the dungeons were very dark and had rooms that you wouldn't know what was inside ...even after opening the door in some cases. Sometimes a lit candle would reveal people hanging from hooks on the dungeon walls that were splattered by their blood ...victims of some creature or demon from hell ..... and it was down there, somewhere - waiting for you !



the cinematics alone were scary enough

one night while in a large and creepy cathedral a voice in the game spoke to me ...... to this day i remember it ....."not even death will save you from me !".

Daggerfall. A difficult game where you (or at least I) spend time getting lost in dark, winding, twisting dungeons while listening to horrible monsters. It helps that the sound design for the time was great.

Alien Isolation. I'm still stuck in a cabinet listening to prowl about.

LOL!!!! It's just AI coding so once you learn the xenomorphs "patrol route" you can move along pretty well as long as you stay quiet. Use crouch a lot and don't use the motion tracker too much. If the xeno is close when you use the tracker, it can hear the beeping!

3d Monster Maze. ZX81, about 30 years ago.

FEAR
Stalker

That first headcrab in Halflife made me fall out of my seat.

Dungeon Master, circa 1987. First example of stereo sound in a video game, early in the game I could hear something shuffling around somewhere in the dungeon. I moved forward & turned 90 degrees left and was presented a ghoul who, right at that exact same instant triggered the animation to lunge and give a moan. Trouser change.

Undying. Saw some shotgun shells on a table by a wall mirror, just as I approached it I saw a spooky floating guy appear behind my reflection reaching for me, I spun around just in time to see him disappear.

Black & White. During a late night session I hear the game whisper my name. Literally whisper my name.

Still trying to get through metro 2033, stupid air filters don't last long before the heavy breathing blocking out the bowls of mutants chasing you.

The REmake of Resident Evil on Gamecube. Only played in daylight and with music off to hear the zombies better (and I'm a wimp haha)

FEAR: Think I only made it to the demo, those jump scare kinda games I just can't do. The AI was great in it however.

Any Alien game. Just creepy.

The original Resident Evil on Playstation. I don't recall there being anything like it before.

That first time you see the zombie hunched by the sofa, eating the unfortunate Umbrella Corp employee.

Oh and the dogs in that corridor, Jeebus!

And the crows...

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl - the underground levels were scary. I recall in one level a Snork ambushed me. He came out of the darkness, jumped right into my lightspot. I frantically emptied a full clip of ammo from my AK into him, jumping around it like mad. Then I emptied another clip into it for good measure, and I think while all this was going on I shouted expletives at the display. The first encounter with a Controller also wasn't too good for my blood pressure...

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky - the Red Forest there was an entirely different experience compared to the Red Forest in Shadow of Chernobyl. While walking around in it you could here...things...scuttle through the leaves. Right next to you. You'd turn and see...nothing. But then there was this wreck of a T-72 were you had to get or do something. I don't recall what it was, but I recall very well how a whole bunch of Snorks (Those again! I hated those *******!) jumped at me while I was at the wreck.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat - the entire city of Pripyat just gave me goosebumps. I shouldn't have listened to the call. Most scary was the Kindergarten, that was eerie.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Not because it is terribly scary or horrific per se, but because it shows how fragile the world we see can be. The entire game is immersed in delusional visual and aural effects, with most of the narration and story telling coming from the other voices that reside along side the player 'in' Senua's mind.