The aftermath scene in horror games

[RedxDecember]

An interesting question crossed my mind today. How should a horror game use the aftermath scene? If you're lost on what I'm trying to say, I'm referring to when you enter a level and you see the dead victims and destruction of whatever horrible act happened there. The two most common uses I've seen are using them to tell a story (Bioshock) or for pure fear (Dead Space). Some games (non-horror) have also used the dead to show a dangerous area (Limbo). My question for you all is;
How should a true horror game use a aftermath scene? Are there any particular good ways you've seen it used?

Thanks for reading.

 

[XMark]

It's probably best used before you've actually seen whatever monster is responsible for it. Knowing what kind of damage they are capable of is a good way to get you worried about meeting whatever it is.

 

[AVeryClassyCat]

Just knowing something was responsible, and some information about the nature of it is sufficient. You don't have to see it, in fact it may be better to have it be a complete surprise to finally face the evil later in the game.

 

[hazabaza1]

It's hard to make "blood and gore" scary since its been used so often.

Not really a horror thing, but a game that does the aftermath thing really well is Hotline Miami. Basically got a reputation for being a "murder simulator", it kind of lives up to that name. It seems fairly happy and trippy at first but the game builds up the combat by having pounding music and really fast gameplay and basically non-existent respawn time, so you go into a trance of killing and keeping yourself alive.

Then the game does something very clever and makes you walk all the way back out of the level from where ever you killed the last guy. The music goes all slow, and you get a chance to really look at what you've done.
The juxtaposition of the somewhat cheery music and bright colours contrasted against... mildly realistic amounts of blood and brains does a rather impressive job of making you go "oh... jeez."

 

[SlaveNumber23]

Its best used when the scene hints at an upcoming threat, rather than try to shock you with blood and gore. Interestingly enough I experienced a fairly scary aftermath scene while playing DayZ which I think is a pretty good example of an aftermath scene used well, even though it was completely unscripted.

Basically my friend and I had been trekking across the map for a very long time to get to one of the airfields, and didn't have much firepower to defend ourselves. Upon reaching the airfield we quietly went around the back and tried to scout out some of the buildings. One of the rooms we opened was revealed to be absolutely filled with zombie corpses, and the corpses were lootable which meant that they had been killed by players and recently. This was quite terrifying because it meant that players with some pretty great firepower had to be nearby and might kill us at any moment.

It wasn't the sight of the corpses which was scary but the information they revealed of a nearby threat.

 

[Mikejames]

I think Silent Hill 2 had fun excelling with this.

After finding an eerily empty town you come across strange signs of struggle and abandonment everywhere. Like casual notes left for friends near a dark room completely riddled with bullets, or a wall of newspapers with cryptic messages scrawled across them.
It started with more of a subtle grounding in reality than most Silent Hills, while not needing to rely on heavy amounts of gore like many games today.

In essence, this

made me more nervous than this.