The epitome of what I’m trying to refer to is the Playdead games (Limbo and Inside). Dark Souls and BioShock both hit on this idea but not quite so directly. The game BADLAND is also a great example of this, too. The mobile game The Silent Age also did this exceptionally well. Never quite knowing what’s going on, and maybe some tension without release, but again not straight up horror. A feeling of uneasiness is what I’m looking for.
When playing through Inside, there’s never any moments where you’re scared, but you’re never sure what’s going on and there’s always a level of unease. What are all the mindless zombie-like people? Why is everyone hunting the player? What happened to this city? What’s the goal of the character the player controls? What exactly is going on here? That’s what I’m looking for. If you know of any other games which do this, I’d greatly appreciate hearing about them. It’s a very specific niche so I’m not sure how many games do this, but the games that I’ve seen do this tend to be some form of post-disaster or dystopia. I’ve seen some great artwork do this too. Zdzisław Beksiński had done some stuff like this. Some great dystopian novels also do this quite well.
Portal series
Absolutely. I forgot to mention those in my post but I’ve played them many, many times and they’re some of my favourites. Once you leave the test rooms in Portal 2 and explore the rest of Aperture after it became abandoned is one of the coolest experiences in video games for me. I love abandoned stuff, creepy in all the right ways
Yes, the games are not especially creepy but the implications are really horror material the more you think about it. Like the reason why Aperture is abandoned, what experimentations were conducted there, what are the consequences, who is the rat man… Chills.
That’s the best way to do creepy imo. Not immediately in your face or done in a horror-type way but more subtle.