The 5 Most Terrifying Games of All Time
I'm a lover of travel, photography and video games, from the UK. I have worked in the games industry and very passionate about games and their design. Never get bored of them!
3 – Silent Hill
Silent Hill - The graphics and gameplay may not hold up to today's standards, but the horror definitely does. Credit: Konami.
There’s been a lot of Silent Hill games over the years and they’re all scary, but for me the most effective is still the original. Silent Hill is a spooky, deserted suburban American town. In the first game you crash your car and wake up there, realising your daughter is missing. You soon discover you aren’t entirely alone, the place is populated with nightmarish monsters. Everything’s foggy and creepy to begin with, but its when the air raid sirens howl that things get really horrible. The town plunges into a dark and hellish metallic, mechanical version of itself and the monsters get even more disturbing. It's supported by really horrible (i.e. scary) sound design and a survival element - ammo is very low and there’s so many enemies you usually have to run for your life.
Highlights like the infamous school and hospital are memorable, often with the sirens going off midway through your explorations, transforming a creepy place to a horrifying one. The terror escalates as the game progresses and there’s multiple endings if you can bring yourself to play through it more than once. Although Silent Hill 2 was great too, with improved graphics and gameplay and nightmare stalker Pyramid Head, the first game just topped it in sheer horror for me and gave me nightmares back in the day!