There was a game based on this concept, it was called "No Player Online" I think, the first part was really good, the atmosphere was unreal, but it dropped the ball on the second part. I think it was because the story involved someone's dead wife's haunting the game, ruined the atmosphere that it built imo
I remember seeing that on Alpha Beta Gamer IIRC, and its even more dissapointing: the dev's dead wife isn't just haunting it, he's trying to use it to resurrect her 🙄
yeah I watched a Nitro rad vid on it, the concept is really cool, but the dead wife? really? honestly would've been a really good horror game if they didn't put that in
IMO No Player Online just tried way too hard and went straight into the spooks way too fast.
for real though
Every time I see the deep colors that hint towards massive holes I get really uncomfortable to say the least
No Mans Sky's original release did this for me its also settle a sense of awe for the first 4 hours then i got bored until the VR update and boom same awe again
Fallout 3, Metro Tunnels.
They're the only way to get around DC completely and a huge set of dungeons in their own right.
They're full of enemies, labyrinthine, and dark. A ghoul will shriek, an ant will crawl out of somewhere or a super mutant will just be standing up ahead and I will jump every single time.
A lot of the time it's really hard to really know where the enemies are and some of the smaller choke points will be filled with traps.
Really sad they're gone though. NV has the sewers which are similar but not nearly as required for exploration, and 4 has metros exist as one-and-done dungeons rather than being interconnected, and 76 isn't a built up urban area.
People say they're difficult to use but there are maps and signs everywhere that you can use to get where you want. If I wanna go to Foggy Bottom I'll take the White Line from Metro Central. Easy.
God, I remember this lol. Before I read it again I seem to at least remember it had something to do with GNR if you kill Three Dog. Also I think it had to do with the Queen dying or something idk.
Numbers stations are a real life thing as well that really creep me out. I think it's the lack of humanity in the voice and the bad audio quality. That and their mysterious purpose.
This one in particular always spooked me. It's the song at the start that gives me bad vibes.
If I ever made a Fallout game I'd 100% put a numbers station Easter egg in there as reference to this. There's already HAM radios in the game that serve no purpose other than some worldbuilding reasons.
There's even a radio creepypasta for New Vegas as well.
It's the abandoned location "Lone Wolf Radio". Don't remember the actual pasta though, just that there was one. It's a really creepy location anyway, just a dead radio station with tonnes of equipment lying everywhere. Inside the trailer there is graffiti that reads "Everyone is gone. I am all alone. Let it all end."
Must just be something scary about radios.
I think it has to do with seeing places normally filled with life and people empty. Sort of like being in a school or an office after hours, or why abandoned theme parks and carnivals are so unsettling. You walk around these maps on guard for a pyro lurking around the corner, but he's never there. You are reminded of the countless hours you and your friends spent chasing each other through these corridors, and now you're the only one left. When you leave, will this place still remain?
I blame bad architecture. Look at all of those boxy buildings. Who wouldn't get depressed walking around in one of those worlds?
The good old days of browsing page 10 of gamefaqs for a cheat code in GTA, level guide for the new first person shooter in order to get all the objectives, or setup for a specific track in the formula1 games.
Yeah it's good for older games in terms of guides and stuff, especially the ps2/Xbox - early PS3/Xbox 360 era. Modern games these days all have their own forum websites or subreddits where you can ask for advice or get setups from.
I think a lot of it is the unnatural HL1-style world juxtaposed with higher-definition models. I always got a sense that there was something very strange right behind the walls.
I remember being creeped out by the loading screens, expecting something to slowly start breaking through a solid wall while my character was frozen.
Similar to the video, I used to open up tf2 maps and explore them by myself, and I can tell you they are creepy. Something about the ambiance when theres no sounds of explosions or shooting going on is just really unnerving.
As a kid I used to launch multiplayer maps in Jedi Knight 2 and run around exploring. That game came out in 1999, so the soundscape is even more harsh and desolate: No music, no voices, no soft ambient maps sounds. Only the endless howling of the uncaring wind through some vast barren constructs, punctuated by the harsh mechanical noises of the automatic doors and elevators that will crush you to death if you don't get out of the way. Maybe it's because it was such an early memory, but now I'm deeply comforted by empty and abandoned places. The Backrooms creepypasta? Even looking at the image makes me want to curl up in one of those endless carpeted corners and go to sleep.
i used to open up source games and small mods that never had a player base to explore the map in noclip for hours
Those claustrophobic corners really help make it creepy.
Most games, especially modern games, give you space to breathe and see what's up ahead. Sometimes corridors are unreasonably wide, like a residential hallway being 12 feet wide.
Every one of those blind corners is a roll of the dice if any kind of enemy is waiting. And you get the sense that there should be someone around, so you constantly expect to run into a face 2 feet from yours.
Sometimes while playing Elite Dangerous I get that fear-of-dark-water when looking at the black of space. The gravitational lensing effect created by black holes is utterly terrifying to me. I don't even know why I am going to the biggest one in the galaxy and its taken me weeks so far. Just to scare myself I guess. Just to twist my stomach into knots.
Steep learning curve but a really helpful playerbase with tons of resources to help you get started. Its... currently free on the Epic Store I think? I got it a few years ago via Steam but only really got into it during quarantine. I might as well pretend the reason I can't go outside is because I'm on a cool ass spaceship.
The whole creepy part reminds me of need for speed hot pursuit (2010 version). The game from the ground up was designed to be an open world racing game like previous need for speed games (think NFS Most Wanted and Carbon), but that idea was abandoned during development at some point. All the races still take place in segmented parts of the "open world" map, but you can only start a race or police chase from the main menu. You can free roam the open world map, but aside from a little traffic, it's just empty. There's no rival racers, no cops, and you can't start an event from the open world. It's just empty except for your car. Just gives off really weird vibes, like playing a very early version of the game with nothing to do.
