Scariest Horror setting

[sephiroth1991]

I always like them set in places i go to regularly such as a home, flat, park, Underground station, shops, insane asylum.

 

[Harkonnen64]

A foreign place always gets me.

Be it the absurdly spacious sewer or the underwater city, I do not know anything about them and that scares me.

Didn't think of foreign places, but that's a really good point. I've gone to Mexico before and because I'm half Hispanic and thereby look Hispanic, everyone assumed I speak Spanish, but I don't. It was kinda scary really. Add that on to the perceived hostility instilled by the media and you've suddenly got a place where you're constantly watching your back, just like a horror game. I think you may be onto something my friend...

 

[lee1287]

Chenobyl or pripyat, bad spellings, but they just freak me out.

 

[deus-ex-machina]

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.

Yeah, I noticed that.

I've never really thought of former-USSR settings as extra scary though. It always feels more desolate, but I've never tied USSR with horror. I'd be more scared of deep rainforest inhabited by local cannibals or remote island populated by a mad cult - ala Wicker Man.

 

[Catalyst6]

Let's see... it's a toss-up between hospitals and anything involving children (toy store, kindergarten, the like).

Gods help us all if there's ever a game set in an pediatric wing of a hospital.

 

[ExileNZ]

What the hell is wrong with you people? Why is The Cradle not on the first page?
Well actually I guess it is now...

OK so I guess a little more context is in order:
The Cradle shows up in Thief 3, giving a break from sneaking around in the shadows and bopping guards on the head for something a little more dark - searching an abandonned orphanage for The City's equivalent of the boogie-man. I won't say if you find it. I won't say anything about what you find. Except that it scares you. And that The Cradle is like Serenity Valley in Firefly - once you've been there, you never leave...

 

[Spaghetti]

Any setting where you can hear the beasties, but can't see them. STALKER does this beautifuly (or horrifically...one of the two). Having to wander around a dark undergound labratory that's been abandoned for years. Your torch only illumaniates a small area infront of you. You can hear the sound of the beasties, zombies and mutants scraping, moaning and screaming but you can't see them.

Pant wettingly, brick shittingly scary.

 

[Clueless Hero]

Stuff that scares me is usually a person/humanoid that does something to invade your personal space. You know, shatters your sense of security. That's why the Marble Hornets [http://www.youtube.com/user/MarbleHornets#p/u/28/Wmhfn3mgWUI] series scared the living shit out of me back when I first saw it.

 

[googleit6]

Underground parking garages are horror settings waiting to happen.

Anyone ever been to PEI? Pretty much anywhere in the countryside there is classic horror setting.

 

[squidbuddy99]

Any place becomes scary when it's dark. We naturally have a fear of what we don't know or see. Couple that with shady figures and eerie noises and instant nightmare fuel.

 

[kinggamecat]

I've never really been "SCARED" by a video game but the ones that come closest to doing it are atmospheric ones, ones that know when to use what music, effects, characters, plot devices, writing, narrative etc.

 

[sketchesformysweet]

Silent Hill 2 did it best. Dark, hardly lit and isolated areas with an intense atmosphere created through a brilliant soundscape.

 

[bulbasaur765]

That mine shaft in Donkey Kong Country where you see the "Stop & Go" signs.

 

[blankedboy]

Stuff that scares me is usually a person/humanoid that does something to invade your personal space. You know, shatters your sense of security. That's why the Marble Hornets [http://www.youtube.com/user/MarbleHornets#p/u/28/Wmhfn3mgWUI] series scared the living shit out of me back when I first saw it.

Agreed. I watched that a few days ago, it was completely awesome and completely terrifying at the same time. 26 was a bit cruel of him to make, though

I mean, he pushed the boundaries of how subtle Slendy could be, and threw out the criteria that you had to be alone, that audio distortion would warn you of him beforehand, and that the lights had to be off or dim.

It really says alot about a horror film when a guy walking into a dimly lit room can scare the living shit outta you.

 

[Chal]

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 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.

The only works from him I've actually read were A Shadow over Innsmouth, and a few excerpts from At the Mountains of Madness, but this is a very well-written description of why I'd like to read more from him. Excellent job there.

I don't have anything that could compare to that, but I have to say that swamps tend to get to me. Anything could be hiding anywhere, and it's generally gross, slimy, and impossible to escape from in the first place. I'd really like to see a proper zombie game like that chapter in World War Z where a parachutist is trying to find their way back to civilization with the help of a radio guide.

 

[Withall]

Short of the mindscape of a character... I'd say an abandoned, completely empty hospital. No sexy zombie nurses, no smock-clad pyramidhead.

No... *shudders* wheelchairs (FUCK THEY SCARE THE FUCK OUT OF ME). Just a clean, lit-up hospital. At least, what can be seen normally. I don't know how I'd be able to run with that any further, and I don't want to do so right now. I want to be able to sleep without nightmares.

 

[Extraintrovert]

I'll be incredibly unoriginal and reiterate the "mind of the character" concept, but with some more detail, namely lack of objectivity. As in, the viewer is experiencing the mind of a character, but there's no confirmation as to whether what they're experiencing is actually happening or not, whether the world is falling into insanity or whether it is simply them. It's why I enjoyed Jacob's Ladder, Donnie Darko and, of course, Silent Hill so much, because for at least the majority of the time the viewer, who is supposed to be an objective observer, has no more idea what the fuck is happening than the characters. That is scary.