10 MORE Scariest Levels In Non-Horror Video Games

10. Shalebridge Cradle - Thief: Deadly Shadows

The Thief franchise wasn’t horror, exactly, but in the sense that Game of Thrones wasn’t horror exactly: a dude still feeds his incest babies to ice zombies. Dark, I'm saying.

Likewise Thief, whose amoral hero breaks into houses and shanks strangers for pocket change on the streets of the unnamed City, which is a) one of the great unsung settings of gaming, equal parts steampunk, crime drama and the lowest of low fantasy; b) so bleak it makes you long for a relaxing vacation in Rapture.

Ironically, “Deadly Shadows” lightened things up from the first two games, adding a branching narrative and an open(ish) city. Those creative choices added to playability, but they also set up a pitch-perfect horror bushwhack in Shalebridge Cradle. Set exactly when players are comfy in their skills, the combination orphanage/asylum (who thought that was a good idea?!) brought back the first two games’ darkness with interest, filling hallways with flailing once-human horrors and seeding rooms with secrets and setpieces.

The result is not one horror story but dozens, many rooted in real historical abuses, inflicted by and on real people. Nowhere in gaming history has felt more nakedly haunted.