Scariest Horror setting

[Audio]

Hey peeps.
It seems getting people scared is all down to mind games. Although i hate the 'making you jump' sort of scares, i love to stop and check out the settings. It's like the difference from a haunted house in a themepark and a real house that is said to be haunted. The 'ride' uses flashing flights, steam and things that swing & shout. A proper haunted house does nothing but send chills up your spine: "is there really something here?", "what if i actually did see something..?", "why is this spot colder then normal?"

In games, there are general horror setting clichés. A mansion, graveyard, hospital or school. I heard that the key to a decent horror setting is to take somewhere that makes you feel safe and turn things upside down.
What is your favourite setting you've come across? and have you got any ideas for a better one?

I kinda lke the hospital settings but i feel it's just an excuse to up the gore settings. If i remember right, Silent Hill 2 had some great ideas (only game in the series i've played tbh :[ )

 

[kempoman14]

For me, the best setting is the character's mind. There, you call quite literally fuck around with the player's head all you want. You can set it anywhere the character has seen, been or remembers.

 

[Nouw]

Nice Avatar OP. Finally someone else who uses the word "Peeps"

Anyway, I love the Setting of being abandoned and alone. AVP2 is a great example for this.

 

[Absimilliard]

H.P. Lovecraft's. The lessons you learn about it is that ignorance is truly bliss. Humans are far from alone in this world, which incidentally is not the only world there is, and most of the other things out there can and will kill you in various gruesome ways. In fact, just knowing about some of the things will drive you insane. And there is no such thing as a benign god. The gods that do exist thrive on chaos, bloodshed and madness.
The fact that his world is a connected one in all his books helps giving you the feeling of how big, scary and dangerous it is. And it's a rare exception indeed that has anything that even approaches a a happy ending, further cementing the feeling of dread and futility.
Also, a common factor is the complete lack of information you've got about what exactly is out there, apart from the high probability of claws or nastier. As I stated, not knowing that anything is out there is the only way you can have some peace of mind, but as soon as you learn that there's something, it will basically go downhill for you.

 

[Srrrh]

Generally, I agree that the scariest place is a person's own mind.

However in gaming terms, Silent Hill's hospitals (in 2 and 3, anyway) are the scariest settings of all time. Although I am something of a drooling Silent Hill fangurl and my answers to all questions on gaming seem to involve the series in one form or another.

 

[Trivun]

I like the idea of setting a horror in the countryside, ideally in a place with heavy forest and hills or mountains. Say, the Scottish Highlands, or Germany's Black Forest, or the US Midwest or New England. It just creates such an eerie, tense atmosphere for a game to be set in...

Combine that with a game that doesn't rely on cheap scares, but more like a literal mindfuck for both the character and the gamer (think the entirety of Silent Hill 2 combined with something like Psycho Mantis, Eternal Darkness, and the mansion level in Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines).

That is what makes a scary game. Even better would be a script jointly written by Stephen King and Clive Barker (provided it was in the style of both their earlier works...). I think I'm just trying to list all the elements of the ultimate horror game, here. Have a Japanese development team and it will inevitably be banned for causing people to commit suicide after playing it (like Polybius, but an awesome horror game instead...).

 

[SwagLordYoloson]

Exploring an abandoned mining platform with only a torch and one bullet..

 

[mackin1978]

For me it would be the house in Eternal Darkness: Sanity's REquiem on the gamecube. as well as acting as the hub for the game it also held many secrets that ultimately, when discovered, screwed with not only the character but the games player as well. gave me chills everytime i played it

 

[Zeema]

In Order of Scary

Your House [ Because its YOUR house]

A Kindergarten [ you walk into a room a little girl crying with her back turned to you as you get closer it sounds more and more like laugher and her body is slowing turning Rotten and old and she attacks you 1 half of her as a little girl and the other half a zombie.

Hospital [ I don't like Doctors and Needles]

Prison [ walking through the cell block and something jumps onto the prison bars shacking them wildly]

Graveyard[ I hate people touching my feet because thats where a zombie would grab you from underground.

a Hello Kitten Factory [think about it scary kittens walking across the factory floor and BAM one of the dolls attack you]

A Hall Of mirrors - Walking up and down things on the mirror moving around you as you see a mirror in distance you walk toward it and see your face all of a sudden your face is screaming at you and you get attacked from a ghost version of you.

Yeah come on who think there scary

 

[breakyoudown]

Whenever a game loops a track of a person crying from being tortured I feel uneasy

 

[USSR]

Ever play Penumbra?
Yeah.
That shit will blow your mind.

Something about that place..
Ugh, just rips on my sanity.

 

[DrEmo]

The scariest, to me, would have to be a creepy place. Not a scary one where you know monsters are lurking around the corner or where there are zombies. A vaguely familiar place, ominous lighting, blood red sky, complete silence save for the faint whispering you hear coming from behind you. Is it the wind? Is it your imagination?
That's scary, IMO.

 

[Furious Styles]

Anywhere very dark, creaking and comprised mainly of claustrophobic tunnels and corridors.

 

[octafish]

Metro City, particularly the Match Maker's crime scenes.
The Rickenbacker and The Von Braun.

 

[Audio]

A Hall Of mirrors - Walking up and down things on the mirror moving around you as you see a mirror in distance you walk toward it and see your face all of a sudden your face is screaming at you and you get attacked from a ghost version of you.

That's a good idea Perhaps each relection of you is dying in different ways or something

The theif III creeped me out in the mental asylum. Big zombies wearing strange metal braces around the head, cant see their faces. Twitching, moaning and scraping as they walked. To top it all off, you have some little girl haunting you..telling you what the grownups did to her before she was killed. :X

 

[deus-ex-machina]

I know it's been hinted at with other suggestions but:

Abandoned mental asylum.

 

[TheRundownRabbit]

dark underground tunnels

 

[wolfy193]

The space ship from Alien, and most scifi settings.

 

[Kollega]

I know it's been hinted at with other suggestions but:

Abandoned mental asylum.

Not as scary as it could be... try abandoned SOVI3T mental asylum! I can attest that somehow, anything built in USSR is inherently more gritty than what you'd get in the West. You all remember Half-Life 2 and Call of Duty 4, right? So that's gonna be my answer for this thread: standard fare (small towns, schools, hospitals, abandoned factories, military bunkers or metro tunnels) but SOVI3T.

You got ninja'd by one post, by the way.