10 Cruel Tricks Video Games Played On Horror Players
Thanks. We'll never trust anything again.
A main goal of any horror game is to unsettle and disturb us as much as possible. If a horror game doesn’t succeed in this, then it’s not a particularly good game.
While creating a chilling atmosphere and creeping sense of dread are effective ways of getting under our skin, this usually isn’t enough to satisfy horror game developers’ desire to terrify us senseless.
The problem, though, is that audiences have become well-versed in horror tropes by this. It's become far too easy to tell when one is coming, typically when the sound becomes suspiciously quiet and there's enough empty space on screen for something to appear in. For horror games to really catch us by surprise, developers need to get creative with what they throw at us.
Thankfully, creators have proven themselves to be deviously inventive in overcoming this problem. Alongside catching us by surprise with exquisitely crafted scares along with some carefully calculated misdirection, developers have likewise managed to use the game’s own mechanics against us in wicked ways.
No matter how familiar you believe yourself to be in everything horror, you won't have seen these cruel tricks coming.
10. Kill The Dog To Maintain Cover?! - The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil In Me (2022)
Throughout our time in The Devil In Me’s recreation of H.H. Holmes’s “Murder Castle”, developers Supermassive Games ask us to partake in a selection of cruel choices which can determine which of the plucky group of survivors will make it to the end of the night and which will be gruesomely killed. However, no choice you're presented with is as ruthlessly heartless as when you meet the wonderful dog Connie.
While being pursued by Du’Met, you'll encounter the lovable but loud canine in the farmhouse. As the killer approaches, you're presented with the dastardly option of killing Connie to remain undetected. Depending on who’s left alive, this scene can play out slightly differently. But it's the version where only Kate makes it there that's the most mischievous.
Though the game encourages you to kill the pooch with a quick time event, doing so would be the last thing that you'd want to do.
Showing the animal mercy instead will lead to Kate being discovered. the killer swings his axe, and a large blood spatter on the wall signals Kate's demise.
In some deceitful misdirection, the “blood” was nothing more than tomato soup, and both Kate and Connie escape with their lives.