10 Video Game Areas That Scarred You For Life
3. Oswald Asylum - Fran Bow
Amongst the assortment of children who we see go through untold hells in video games, poor ten year old Fran Bow definitely has it roughest. Not only are all her family dead but her, but she's haunted by a demonic force named Remor who is either a nightmarish figment of her imagination, or otherwise an actual demon specifically targeting a traumatised child for kicks.
Worse yet, the place that should have been a safe haven for Fran - the Oswald Asylum, which she is committed to at the start of the game - is instead awful on several levels.
On a surface level, the Asylum is pretty awful because it's an old fashioned type of place, meaning that when you discover the basement has lobotomised kids in it, you're equal parts horrified, and totally unsurprised. But, of course, Fran also has the ability to see the ghosts and ghoulies from Remor's realm if she takes the suspicious red pills she finds, meaning that there's an extra layer of awful to find in every room.
The result? Fran Bow is one of the few games where you can actually kind of jumpscare yourself.