We all remember our favourite gaming moment.
Maybe it was a time that you scored the winning goal in Rocket League or solved that pesky puzzle in Portal. But what about those moments in horror games that you’ve never been able to forget? Those horrific moments where you felt so scared you weren’t sure you’d be able to finish the game. We still think about them many years after we turned off the game.
We’ve put together a list of scary gaming moments that still haunt us. These are moments that when we think about them we still get shivers down our spines. And sometimes we wish we could forget them.
Meeting Nemesis (Resident Evil 3)
In Resident Evil 3, Jill Valentine is being pursued by the ultimate bioweapon – Nemesis. He’s a huge hulking creature equipped with a rocket launcher that will stop at nothing to kill you. Every moment with Nemesis in Resident Evil 3 is terrifying, but the one moment we want to highlight is when you first meet him. That moment you realise he’s not going to be leaving you alone.
If you played Resident Evil 2 before the third, you’ll remember how Mr. X was quite similar, but if you hadn’t then this concept of a creature endlessly pursuing you was new. Everything else was killable. But this guy shows up with his huge rocket launcher and not even hunky Carlos can kill him. Truly a nightmarish experience that still haunts us to this day.
Running from Pyramid Head (Silent Hill 2)
Speaking of horrifying, unkillable enemies, Pyramid Head is way up there with the scariest. Pyramid Head first made his debut in Silent Hill 2 where he quickly became one of the most well-known horror game icons. And for good reason. He might not have a face to give us a hardened expression, but just his ability to loom and chase you with his huge blade is terrifying enough.
It’s hard to pick out one moment that still haunts us – because really they all do – but we think the first boss battle with him might just be one of the scariest moments in the game. There’s been this build-up where you’ve glanced at Pyramid Head in a few different places, but haven’t yet had to fight him – until suddenly he’s there and you’re trapped in a small room with him. He swings his blade around and if you happen to catch it just once, you’re dead. It’s absolutely terrifying and we still hold our breath during the battle.
Splicer Attack (Bioshock)
One of our favourite ever intros in gaming history is the Bioshock intro. Your character starts on an airplane and crashes in the middle of the ocean. As the plane sinks into the water and flames surround you all around you spot a staircase. And this is where the game begins. But one of the scariest moments in the game has to be when you first climb into that bathysphere and begin your descent.
Atlas gets on the radio and asks for your help, but before you can respond a splicer jumps onto your bathysphere and starts cutting into the glass. This moment is absolutely terrifying because the game has just started and you’re completely helpless. Thankfully, the splicer doesn’t manage to get inside, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t pee our pants anyway.
T-Rex (Dino Crisis)
Dino Crisis is one of those games that probably wouldn’t be that scary if we decided to replay it today. But when we were younger it was one of the scariest things we ever played. The first few dino-free moments of the game are great, but once that raptor makes its first attack, it’s terrifying.
Quite possibly the scariest moment is with a giant T-rex. If you’ve played Dino Crisis, you’l know the moment we mean; the T-rex stretches its giant head through a door and begins chasing you down a long corridor. There’s nowhere for you to run or hide so your only option is to fight this giant reptile with all the gumption you’ve got left in you. Its aged now, but there’s still nothing quite like it.
The Radio (P.T.)
Anytime anyone brings up P.T. we shed a little tear for what might have been. This playable teaser for the since-cancelled Silent Hills made us so scared we got nauseous at just the idea of playing it. Maybe it’s a good thing that a full version of the game didn’t release because we’re not sure we would have been able to handle it.
The entirety of this short teaser could be considering a gaming moment that still haunts us, but we’ve decided to narrow it down to a particular bit: anything with the radio. Walking through the game’s repeating corridor is terrifying on its own, but having the man with the deep, spooky voice telling us about a man who murdered his entire family just ups the ante. Not to mention when he tells you to look behind you. We’ll never forget it.
