Horror games that don't rely on jump scares. An earlier version of this article originally appeared on this site on October 3. Say goodbye to "Gotcha!"With the megahit popularity of movies like Paranormal Activity and games like Five Nights at Freddy's, some recent horror experiences have tried to recreate those iconic successes by falling back on repetitious jump scares. ![]() You know the ones: a big scary ghost face suddenly pops up in front of you, accompanied by an ear- piercingly loud scream or violin chord. Some gamers get a kick out of these startling moments; others find them stressful, tedious, or laughably dumb, particularly when they're overused. There's a distinct difference between being surprised and being scared, but plenty of horror games mistake one for the other. Luckily, there are those games that understand the value of suspense and atmosphere, able to pull you into their deeply unsettling worlds without opting for a cheap 'OOGA BOOGA!' moment every 1. The Witcher: Enhanced Edition DRM-Free - PC Game - Full Download - Gog Games Title: The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Genre: Role-playing - Action - Fantasy Wo. Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for. Tabtight professional, free when you need it, VPN service. With the megahit popularity of movies like Paranormal Activity and games like Five Nights at Freddy's, some recent horror experiences have tried to recreate those. That's not to say that the following games have absolutely zero jump scares - but they use them sparingly, reserved for satisfying payoffs sandwiched between long stretches of tension as the game slips under your skin. If you're not a fan of cheap scares that rely on your pre- programmed evolutionary instincts to be effective, these games might be your style of horror. ![]() Siren: Blood Curse. Specializes in: A chilling, voyeuristic version of hide- and- go- seek. Zombies are creepy enough as it is - but what's even scarier than a reanimated corpse is a flesh- devouring Shibito ghoul that's still clinging to a semblance of its original personality. This pale- skinned twist on your typical walker - many of whom are infested with insect parasites - serve as the basis for Siren: Blood Curse, an episodic, thoroughly Japanese horror series that's easy to find on PSN. You'll play as seven different characters trapped in the misty Hanuda Village, some of whom have the capacity to fight back against the legion of chanting stalkers. But eventually, you'll be forced to use Siren's most intriguing mechanic: the "sight jack" system. This ability lets you see from the perspective of your undead pursuer, praying that they don't find your hiding spot as you catch a glimpse of yourself through their eyes. Instead of banking everything on fleeting, one- note scares, Siren: Blood Curse is all about the almost unbearable build- up of anxiety, until you just can't take it anymore and decide to flee in terror. Check it out here. Bloodborne. Specializes in: Traditional Hammer horror, plus a persistent need for self- preservation. Sure, Bloodborne's got the heart of an action RPG - it follows in the hallowed footsteps of the Souls series, and it certainly requires more mechanical skill and dexterity than any other game on this list. But once you've acclimated yourself to your Hunter's nimble movements and weapons of choice, you'll be able to see past the intense combat to really appreciate just how spooky the city of Yharnam really is. Every enemy design is bristling with macabre details like disgusting mandibles or bits of rotting flesh, and the environment reveals some intensely disquieting secrets once you've built up enough Insight (cleverly designed stat representing your deeper understanding of the world). Of course, there's always the fear for your own survival keeping you on the edge, knowing that a mid- fight misstep could cost you an hour of hard- fought progress. Trust me when I say it's a good kind of afraid. Check it out here. Ib. Specializes in: Classic haunted house spookiness, with artistic anime flair. Ib (pronounced 'eeb') is the perfect introduction to world of creepy, classy RPG Maker horror games (which, by the way, are almost always free). It's plenty eerie wandering through a museum that may or may not be haunted, but Ib treats its frightening crescendoes with a soft touch, terrifying you just enough so that you're constantly giddy at the thought of whatever clever scares might await you around the next corner. The story can also be touching or morbid depending on your choices, and you never have to worry about combat - it's just you and your aesthetically pleasing, increasingly distressing surroundings, which you're free to explore at your own pace. Also, the scene with the room full of dolls will stay with you forever. Check it out here. System Shock 2. Specializes in: Claustrophobia, and the distinct feeling that you're being watched. The precursor to Bio. Shock is arguably just as ingenious, set on a futuristic space station rather than an undersea dystopia. As one of the few survivors on a ship full of hideously infected crewmembers, you have to figure out just what the hell is going on and how you're going to survive your rude awakening from cryosleep. There's a distinct sense of place to the eerily quiet, corpse- ridden hallways on the Von Braun ship, but your apprehension will quickly turn to terror whenever you encounter the gruesome mutants that run rampant throughout its corridors. You don't know fear until you've desperately tried to hide from a gang of screaming psychic monkeys (which shoot plasma from their exposed brains), with only a wrench and the cover of darkness to protect you. Check it out here. Sanitarium. Specializes in: Pure psychological strangeness, with a lot of heart underneath the ugly exterior. Deformed children. That's close to the first thing you see in Sanitarium, an early, incredible example of psychological horror in games. You see through the eyes of Max, an amnesiac who's struggling to piece together his identity after a nasty car crash (and sounds vaguely like Hank from King of the Hill). The only thing you're certain of is that your face is covered in bandages, and you're trapped in an insane asylum with no concept of what's real and what isn't. It's nearly impossible to find Sanitarium's aging graphics scary these days, but that doesn't mean you won't be disturbed by the twisted scenarios Max is torn between. A small town where kids play hide- and- seek with dead bodies, a dilapidated circus, the strange, intestine- like inside of an alien ship - you're never quite sure what kind of creepiness awaits you next, or how you're supposed to interpret it. Check it out here. Yume Nikki. Specializes in: Mild unease, deep- set confusion. There are so many RPG Maker horror stories to choose from: games like Ao Oni, The Witch's House, and Mad Father, to name a few. But Yume Nikki stands out from the crowd for its incredibly bizarre ambience and totally abstract gameplay - if you can even call it gameplay, because the whole thing boils down to exploring and basic puzzle solving. You're primarily wandering through the dreamscape of the reclusive main character Madotsuki, encountering bleak expanses and psychedelic mazes in equal measure. A lot of the amusement of Yume Nikki is derived from figuring out what you're supposed to be doing at a given time, if there's even anything you can do. It's a positively ethereal game, with hours of unsettling entertainment for the curious. BibMe Free Bibliography & Citation Maker - MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard.Check it out here. Silent Hill 2. Specializes in: Intensely disturbing content (and not just its monsters)Silent Hill 2 is the master class in atmospheric horror. The Silent Hill franchise has always excelled at captivating you with themes that are just as unsettling as its otherworldly monstrosities, and this is, without a doubt, the best Silent Hill game of all time. Its story centers around our mild- mannered protagonist James Sunderland and his nightmarish search for answers after he's somehow contacted by his dead wife. The entities James encounters in Silent Hill's foggy streets are terrifying at first sight, but it's what they really mean about James' psyche that makes them truly unnerving. And if you've never introduced yourself to Pyramid Head, with his colossal, rusty blade and grimy apron, there's no time like the present - just make sure you've got some spare trousers handy. Check it out here. Theresia. Specializes in: Apprehension of the world and all its cruelty. This is about as obscure a horror game as they come (not counting the actual Obscure series, mind you). But it's still readily available on Amazon, provided you don't mind paying a little extra for a haunting rarity of a game. This first- person DS thriller is actually an import from the Korean mobile gaming scene, meaning it's probably unlike anything you've ever played before. It revolves around two interweaving stories of a woman and a man trying to get by in a war- torn nation. With elements of claustrophobia, hypochondria, and psychological horror, Theresia tackles a wide array of emotions that few games do. Just be ready when the tears start flowing. Check it out here. Lone Survivor. Specializes in: Dementia and emotional distress. Take I Am Legend, remove the dog, and make the protagonist a nameless everyman. That's the simplest description of Lone Survivor's premise, though there's so much more to it than that. As you struggle to maintain your sanity and ration basic necessities, you can try to fend off hordes of spindly mutants or use stealth to stay unnoticed. The choice is yours, but no matter what you do, you'll find that going it alone in a post- apocalypse can wreak serious havoc on a fragile psyche. Hallucinations are everywhere, until you're completely unsure of what's actually happening. All you'll know for certain is that the music is amazing. Check it out here. Kotaku. Luke Plunkett. Luke Plunkett is a Contributing Editor based in Canberra, Australia. He has written a book on cosplay, designed a game about airplanes, and also runs cosplay. Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a survival horror video game developed by The Chinese Room and published by Frictional Games. The game is an indirect sequel to Amnesia: The Dark Descent, developed and produced by Frictional Games. While set in the same universe as the previous game, it features an entirely new cast of characters and time setting.[1] The game became available to pre- order on 1. August 2. 01. 3, and was released on 1. September 2. 01. 3. A Machine for Pigs was also released on 2. November 2. 01. 6 for the Play. Station 4 as part of the Amnesia Collection, including Amnesia: The Dark Descent and its Amnesia: Justine expansion. The game features several interlocking storylines. Some take place in the past, some in the present, and some are overtly real while some may be imagined.[2] Set in London on New Year's Eve, 1. Oswald Mandus, a wealthy industrialist and butcher who is implied to be the great grand- nephew of Daniel, the protagonist of the first game. At the beginning of the game, he awakens from a fever that has lasted for several months, after returning from a disastrous expedition to explore Aztec ruins in Mexico. Throughout the game, he hears the voices of his sons, Edwin and Enoch, calling for him as they lead him through the different areas of the game. Mandus receives a call on the telephone from "the Engineer", who tells Mandus that Edwin and Enoch have been trapped far below them, in the "Machine" which Mandus created beneath his house. Even worse, the Machine has been sabotaged, putting his sons in danger. The Engineer tasks Mandus with clearing the floodwaters and bringing the Machine back online, providing ongoing guidance through telephones throughout the facility. Mandus is opposed in his tasks by the Manpigs, deformed swine- like monstrosities that patrol the depths through which he descends. Mandus eventually reactivates the Machine, but the Engineer betrays him, taking control of the Machine and unleashing Manpigs out into the streets of London to round up unsuspecting victims with which to feed itself. Mandus regains his memory, recalling the recent past: after returning from Mexico, Mandus was consumed with obsession over a vision of the future from a device he and his children found in an Aztec temple known as "the egg," hinted to be an Orb, in which both of his children are killed at the Battle of the Somme. Driven mad by the vision, Mandus decided that he could not allow it to come to pass, and he built the Machine to create a godlike being via mass ritual human sacrifice to save humanity from its own carnage. He then sacrificed Edwin and Enoch to the machine to spare them their fate at the Somme. From there, Mandus then began a one- man vendetta against all of mankind, holding massive parties where he would capture and grind up rich socialites into sausage to sell, and killing hordes of child workers to feed the captive Manpigs. Mandus, however, soon came to realize the error of his ways and in a bid to stop the Machine, he attempted to sabotage it, before he was hindered by the onset of amnesia and sickness. Now remembering everything, Mandus vows to finish what he started by destroying the Machine once and for all. Despite the pleas of the Engineer, who believes the world would be better off if the Machine is allowed to consume it, Mandus succeeds in recreating most of the sabotage. He then reaches the inner chamber, where the Engineer himself dwells - a deranged fragment of Mandus's soul which has bonded with the machine and was given life by the sacrifices; it now plans to wipe the world clean of life after apparently witnessing even more future atrocities such as the Holocaust, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, and the massacres perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge. He manages to reach the core of the machine, a massive pyramidal structure referred to as "The Temple" by the Engineer, and forces the Engineer back into his soul. Mandus sacrifices himself to the Machine, putting an end to both it and the Engineer, and ending the horrors above as the 2. Gameplay[edit]The game is a survival horror game played from a first- person perspective.[1] Players explore the environments using a lantern, with diary entries and notes providing information on the lost memory of the title character. Some elements of The Dark Descent have been removed, while new elements have been added.[1] One of the reasons for this is to provide a fresh gameplay experience to veteran players of The Dark Descent.[1] The inventory has been removed,[4][5] along with the oil and tinderboxes.[6] Most of the puzzles that occur in the game are based on physically interacting with the environment because of this change. The sanity mechanic of the first game has been removed as well, meaning that the darkness and looking at the creatures no longer causes any drawbacks. Health lost when Mandus is injured, will regenerate after a certain period of time; thereby eliminating the need to find vials of laudanum to restore health as in The Dark Descent. The game's level design has been touted as "significantly different" from that of The Dark Descent, with larger areas and outdoor environments included. AI was also adjusted to ensure players are unable to predict enemy behavior based on their experiences with the original game. However, the core of the game remains the same as in The Dark Descent, so as not to disappoint fans who want more of what they loved in the original.[2]Development[edit]"How come a game meant for Halloween 2. Originally we thought it would be a short, experimental game set in the universe of Amnesia, but The Chinese Room had a vision that was bigger than that. As their work progressed, the potential for a much greater project emerged. What we ended up with is no longer what we had first imagined, but a fully fledged Amnesia game. A different kind of Amnesia, but definitely not a short experiment."– Frictional Games on the delay of the game.[7]In 2. The Dark Descent, Frictional Games wanted to further the Amnesia franchise, but had no time for it. Later, they met Dan Pinchbeck of The Chinese Room at GDC Europe 2. It was originally intended by The Chinese Room to be a small mod, but it was expanded to a larger scale project when "the two companies realized what could be achieved with a larger game."[6]Development for the game began in December 2. The Chinese Room, while Frictional Games was producing and publishing the title.[1] The game was originally set to release before Halloween 2. In February 2. 01. Frictional Games announced a status update about the game in which they announced they would release the game in Q2 2. In late May 2. 01. Jens Nilsson, the co- founder of Frictional Games, stated in a forum post that: "We know we will not make Q2 (2. We have not set the exact day yet. You can however make good use of the weather outside this summer and look forward to gaming with the piggies as the summer comes to an end."[8] Dan Pinchbeck stated, "Frictional's take is, release it when it's done."[6] In August 2. The Chinese Room confirmed on their Twitter feed that the final release date for the game was 1. September 2. 01. 3. The game was available to pre- order since 1. August.[1. 0][1. 1][1. A Play. Station 4 version was included in the Amnesia Collection, released on 2. November 2. 01. 6 via Play. Station Network, containing Amnesia: The Dark Descent and its expansion Amnesia: Justine.[1. Just two days after its release on PS4 Frictional Games posted a tweet stating that the port managed to recoup all costs and "more".[1. Marketing[edit]Initially code- named "game. B" by The Chinese Room,[1. Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs was preceded by a viral marketing and alternate reality game campaign that began when Frictional Games updated their website Next Frictional Game,[1. The website featured a heavily blurred image, the Amnesia logo and a caption reading "Something is emerging..".[1. The blurred image was hyperlinked to Google Maps with the search field set as "China".[1. The website was later updated with a slightly less blurred image, and hyperlinked to Google Maps with the search field set as "Boreray."[1. It was updated for a second time, with a non- blurred image (a piece of concept art), redirecting to Google Maps with the search field set as 5. Avenue in Seattle.[2. The three hyperlinks were hints towards The Chinese Room's involvement in the game (a previous game by The Chinese Room, Dear Esther, was set on an Hebridean island like Boreray, and the address in Seattle pointed towards a restaurant named 'The Chinese Room').[1][2. Examination of the site's source code led fans to a webpage that resembled a computer console with usable commands and a countdown. After the expiration of the countdown, a message on the page read "A machine for pigs coming fall two thousand twelve."[2. The game was formally announced via video game blog Joystiq.[1]On 1. June 2. 01. 2, the first teaser trailer was released on Frictional Games' You. Tube channel.[2. 2][2. It showed various scenes from the game, from industrial settings to more studious rooms. In the final shot, the character wakes up to the sound of an enemy breaking down a door making pig- like grunts and squeals. An unseen creature enters the room, its shadow is cast against the back wall as the player hides under a set of stairs. On 3. 1 October 2. Halloween, a second trailer was posted on Frictional Games' You. Tube channel.[2. 4][2. Many new features were shown, such as the updated lantern and the new voice for the main character. The trailer also shows the protagonist being confronted by one of the enemies in the game. On 3 September 2. Eurogamer released a video of the first 3. Reception[edit]Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs received mixed to positive reviews from critics. It has an aggregate score of 7. Game. Rankings[2. Metacritic.[2. 8]Eurogamer gave A Machine for Pigs a score of 7 out of 1. Game. Spot gave the game a score of 8 out of 1.
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