What’s that? Notice anything? Smell something? Even though the last one isn’t likely, you can’t trust any of them in these games.
Video games use sights and sounds to take us to different times and places, from the fantastic to the real. Even though games are always made up or at least very different from real life, we expect them to be somewhat realistic, if only to help us feel like we belong in their worlds.
But a lot of games like to mess with our assumptions by giving us false or questionable information. They do this to get all kinds of effects, like messing with the player and making them do things that aren’t in their best interests, which is usually done to make the story better. At least this list is real, but you can’t always trust your feelings in these games.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Amnesia: The Dark Descent may have been the first horror game with a helpless main character. You play as Daniel, who has lost his memory, as he tries to figure out the secrets of Brennenburg Castle and his own past. Along with the real monsters in the castle who are out for blood, Daniel has to watch out for his mind, which is under attack from the more crazy parts of the game.
If you make him lose too much of his mind, usually by keeping him in the dark or making him look at enemies for too long, he can start having hallucinations. These hallucinations can make you hear and see things that aren’t there, like bugs crawling over your eyes, or worse versions of things, like twisted art. The worst of these is imagining that enemies are coming after you. Even if these enemies aren’t real, running away from them could lead you to real ones.
Superliminal
Superliminal is one of the few games where things aren’t what they seem to be, but you’re still in charge. The whole point of this first-person puzzle game is to show that what you see is what really happens.
Walk into a room where you can’t get out? Well, you can reach it by making something look bigger than it is and then putting it somewhere you can climb it. It will then be the right size for you to climb and get out. Trippy.
Dead By Daylight
Killers in Dead by Daylight come in many shapes and sizes, and they use different things to scare and kill Survivors. The Doctor is a Killer who uses the Survivors’ own senses against them. He does this to confuse, disorient, and finally corner his prey.
The Doctor can make the Survivors think they see him by using electricity in ways that don’t make sense from a medical point of view. With certain add-ons, he can use the Red Stain and the Terror Radius. Which Survivors use to find him, against them as well.
The former usually comes out of the Killer’s eyes. But the Doctor can make it come out from behind those who have been infected. The second is a heartbeat sound that gets louder as the Killer gets closer to the Survivor. However, the Killer can make the Survivors hear it even when he is not nearby. If Survivors act on either of these, they might get found and end up in the arms of the real Doctor, who has been waiting for them.
Blair Witch
Based on the source material, we knew that the 2019 Blair Witch game would be a scary experience for our thoughts. As you walk through a scary forest full of things that can’t happen, there’s plenty to do. You can take different routes and still end up where you started, or you can be on the phone with someone who is meant to be in the same place as you at a different time of day, but they can’t be found.
The game’s biggest trick, though, is to mess with your assumptions as a player. Without giving too much away, if you go with your gamer habits, you’ll probably end up in a bad place. Also, anyone who has seen the 1999 movie on which the game is based knows that those stick dolls are bad news…
Metal Gear Solid Series
The Metal Gear Solid games are postmodern marvels that are known for messing with us at least once per game. Along with the usual lies, secrets, and betrayals of spy fiction. The series also messes with players in a way that can only be done in video games.
Psycho Mantis from the first MGS game is the most well-known example. He could read your memory card and comment on the games you played, but he could also show you a black screen with the word “HIDEO” in the top right corner, which was meant to look like a disconnect error for your system. In MGS2, the mission control characters start acting strangely, and at one point. You get a Game Over screen even though you haven’t died and are still fighting. This is another famous case.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
If Psycho Mantis was walking with the idea of directly messing with you. Then Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem took that idea and ran with it. In Eternal Darkness, when you fight monsters, your sanity meter goes down, and when it gets low, strange things happen.
Even though the random sanity effects, like jump scares and weird things that happen, can be scary. The truly cruel stuff is aimed directly at the player. They can be pretty harmless, like making it look like there’s a bug on your screen, or really bad, like resetting Spacebar Clicker game and making it look like your save file was lost. Now that is real fear. Brr.
Spec Ops: The Line
Spec Ops: The Line may be one of the best examples of a game that tricks us (in a good way). Since even when you play it, it’s likely that you’ve been fooled. The game looks like a typical military shooter, but it’s not at all like that. Even though it plays like an arcadey third-person shooter, it is more of a scary game.
What’s interesting is that the game never really gets in the way or tricks you into messing up your own progress. Instead, it tells you things that aren’t true, but in a way that moves the story along. By the time you realize everything is wrong, it’s too late to stop. And what could have been fun turns into something that makes you feel strangely bad. Still, it’s a trip that you should take, especially if you’re not ready for it.
