11 Terrifying Abandoned Areas In Video Games That Will Give You The Creeps

It's only a game, and these places can't hurt you... honest.

Deserted town of Pripyat, Ukraine
Efrem Lukatsky/AP

Video games can inspire feelings across the whole spectrum of human emotion.

They can make us laugh, they can make us cry, and they can make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. They can also grip us so tightly that sometimes it begins to feel as though we're a part of their world, which for the most part isn't too bad. Escapism, after all, is what we're there for.

Every so often, though, developers throw something into their games that makes us wish we were anywhere else. Stumbling into an abandoned area is always disconcerting, and there are titles in the horror genre that use that feeling as the basis for their tone (Silent Hill, anyone?). Even more unsettling is a game in which the world is otherwise populated - even wholesome, in some cases - but turning a corner leads you into an area that is eerily silent, causing you to realise that there might just be something untoward going on, and as the game's protagonist, it's almost always up to you to sort it out.

Some of these areas were easier to anticipate than others, but each and every entry on this list contains at least one ingredient in the recipe for a change of trousers.

11. Lavender Town – Pokemon Red And Blue

Deserted town of Pripyat, Ukraine
Game Freak

Anyone who played Pokémon Red or Blue (so, just about everyone) will undoubtedly remember their horror at their first experience of Lavender Town.

Pokémon's late '90s release saw an entire generation of children loading up the now-classic RPG title on their Game Boys, and staying up well past their bed times to grab a little extra screen time.

Imagine their surprise, then, when the game's harmless, cutesy vibe all but disappeared and we found ourselves alone in a literal ghost town with nothing more than a pocketful of monsters imprisoned inside balls.

Lavender Town was creepy for more than just its ghost population, though. It was also home to a large Pokémon graveyard, which itself serves as proof that your beloved poképals could actually die if you don't look after them. It felt somewhat like a thinly veiled threat, which only served to up the creep factor.

Lavender Town also plays host to a particularly creepy piece of background music. So creepy, in fact, that an urban legend made the rounds that a number of young players in Japan had committed suicide after listening to the music. Absolute nightmare fuel, this one.

 
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Antisocial nerd that spends a lot of time stringing words together. Once tried unsuccessfully to tame a crow.