10 Terrifying Video Game Enemies That Gave You Nightmares

6. Slender Man - Slender

As if to typify the internet age, the story of Slender Man is equal parts brilliant and equal parts downright strange. A creation that resulted from a challenge on the Something Awful forums to insert paranormal figures into old photographs, Slender Man took off in a way that could not have been anticipated. His legend spread quickly and many people believe in him as a real entity, even to the point where crimes have been committed in his name (despite, of course, him ACTUALLY being a figment of someone's imagination). It was only a matter of time before someone made a game about him. Slender tasks you with finding 8 pages of text about the titular ghoul before he finds you first. It's a simple concept but the execution was absolutely terrifying; pitting you in the darkest of dark woods with only a flashlight to light your way. Slender Man could appear anywhere, at any time and looking directly at him would drain your sanity, eventually killing you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGTUyPlkyN8 The masterstroke with Slender was that he was entirely passive, he didn't chase you, he appears in your field of view but doens't come towards you, the very act of just looking at him is supposed to hurt so he doesn't need to come for you. His spawn locations were all entirely random and he usually appeared as you were looking around, just glancing him out of the corner of your vision. The unexpected and totally random nature of his spawns, combined with the creepy atmosphere and his undeniably unsettling appearance make Slender one of the scariest free games going.