5 Great Horror Moments In Non-Horror Games

Valve's masterpiece remains one of the best first-person shooters ever, and a large amount of the praise goes to the atmosphere. The game always conveys an oppressive mood to inform the player that the Combine have taken the Earth and things suck, so you have to fight them off somehow. There are some horror elements throughout, but nowhere is the vibe more profound than in Ravenholm.

Going from having fun with DOG and Alyx to a Combine assault and then taking the quiet, destitute path to Ravenholm to escape does a wonderful job showing that this place is different. A town totally infested with zombies except for local preaching Annabelle-toating Father Grigori, you must fight your way through to get to Nova Prospekt on the other side.

Such a tonal shift was bold, engaging and still terrifying, the atmosphere dripping with more subtle horrors than overt. Bloody body slumped against a wall? It's probably still alive, waiting for something tasty to stumble by. The more unnoticed horrors elevate Ravenholm to a height untouched by other non-horror games and the lack of control over the situation creates tension rarely seen in the FPS genre.

Ravenholm is one of the best Half-Life 2 missions, and is still a prime example of a horror scenario in a non-horror game.