10 MORE Scariest Levels In Non-Horror Video Games

8. Mad Hatter Levels - Arkham City

For a short guy with no powers beyond a haberdashery fetish, Batman’s Mad Hatter brings the scare. Hatter’s got two things going for him, villainwise: he really can control your mind and he really is mentally ill.

Hatter’s not Joker/Harley Quinn “crazy.” He’s unwell, often pitiably so.

The best horror comes with a tinge of tragedy, and even the less-than-forgiving Batman knows fighting Hatter is less like foiling a mastermind than hurting a very ill man.

At the same time, being trapped in someone else’s delusion is freaking scary. The Mad Hatter levels of Arkham City succeed the superb Scarecrow sections of Arkham Asylum, switching perspective to put both Batman and the player on the defensive.

Rocksteady took the Scarecrow paradigm from Asylum and remixed with added pathos. Scarecrow was a sadist screwing with Batman for fun. Hatter was a frightened man trying to survive in a terrible place. He mind controls himself a big scary bat-bodyguard, and for all that breaking that control is satisfying, Hatter’s right: without help he’s going to die.

Peter MacNicol’s masterful performance caps off (heh) the tragedy, careering between menace, madness and justified desperation.