Infacet the key psychology of horror video games – and why we will’t assist pushing play | Games

The sound got here first. In a San Francisco Bart prepare tunnel, Don Veca took his recorder and captured a prepare’s metallic roar – “like demons in agony, beautifully ugly,” he remembers. That recording grew to become probably the most chilling sounds in 2008’s Dead Space.

“We dropped that screeching, industrial noise at full volume right after the vacuum silence – creating one of the game’s most jarring sonic contrasts,” Veca, who made horror historical past because the audio director for the Dead Space video games, recollects. “Our game designer hated it – but the boss loved it. Over time, it’s become iconic.”

Now, virtually twenty years after Dead Space first terrified gamers into clutching their controllers, horror recreation designers around the globe nonetheless chase that very same feeling. So, how do they carry on discovering new methods to scare players – and what makes us hold pushing begin on the horror?

The sound of concern

Ask anybody who’s labored on an amazing horror recreation, they usually’ll most likely inform you a similar factor: true concern begins with what you hear.

Veca says it begins within the thoughts. “It starts with psychology – not the fear of what is, but of what might be,” he says. “Real horror isn’t a mugger with a gun. It’s the shadow behind the door, the silence that lingers too long, the certainty that something is coming … but you don’t know when, or what.”

That unpredictability grew to become the theme for Dead Space’s sound design. “We built tension like a slow tide,” Veca says. “Something could happen … something might happen … and then nothing – just a kitten in the kitchen. You laugh, the adrenaline fades, and three seconds later: claws, blood, screaming!”

Jason Graves, the Bafta-winning composer behind the rating for Dead Space and 2015’s Until Dawn, agrees. “Sound and music prepare the player to be scared – it’s all about the buildup, the tension, and then the release when something jumps out at you.”

Graves even handled the rating itself as a form of contaminated organism. “In Dead Space, something has infected the crew and turned them into monsters, so I ‘infected’ the orchestra,” he says. “Unusual techniques, tapping instruments, no keys or chords – just clusters and tension.” When the participant thinks it’s quiet, it may be 60 strings every enjoying any observe they need, very softly. It turns into a dwelling, dissonant room tone – at all times shifting, unpredictable.”

If you doubt how a lot sound issues, Graves provides a take a look at. “My daughter tried Until Dawn and kept freaking out,” he laughs, “I told her to mute it – and then she got through it fine. If the picture’s off but you still hear something, that’s what our brains are wired for. The monster under the bed, the fin on the water – your imagination fills the gaps, and that’s 10 times scarier than anything we can show.”

The human component

For cult recreation developer Swery – actual title Hidetaka Suehiro – concern has by no means been about low cost shocks: it’s concerning the human situation. He started questioning what actually scares gamers when his mentor, Resident Evil creator Tokuro Fujiwara, as soon as requested him: “What is fear in a game?”

“I was in my 20s and naively answered, ‘Game over,’” Swery recollects. “He replied, ‘Then are games without a “game over” not scary? Is a haunted house where you can’t take harm not scary?’ I used to be at a loss. Ever since, I’ve been regularly trying to find the reply.”

That curiosity grew to become the inspiration for 2010’s Deadly Premonition – a surreal small-town horror which blends absurd humour with existential dread. “Before crafting fear, we set a clear goal: build the town and its people,” he says, “I even wrote the story after the town existed.”

“At the centre of horror there is a human being,” Swery provides. “That human, carrying an inner diversity and suffering, is fragile, and can be defeated by evil … that’s everything.”

Though it’s in monsters that our fears are visualised, for Thomas Grip, recreation director of critically acclaimed 2015 deep-sea horror Soma, horror can be much less about villains and extra about what it says about being human.

“I think it’s a different kind of scary,” he says. “There’s no big twist or constant jump scares. The whole idea is that it forces you to ask uncomfortable questions: What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be conscious? What sort of life is worth living?”

Forget gore and surprises at midnight – in Soma, it’s extra about utilizing silence and philosophy to get beneath your pores and skin. “The key to any horror story, no matter the medium, is that the audience fills in the blanks themselves,” Grip says. “If your story is just, ‘Here’s something scary, be scared,’ it’s not that interesting. The best horror makes you think about something deeper.”

The unknown – and twists on the acquainted

Something else to play on is the concern of the unknown, and unease usually comes from what isn’t proven. “You shouldn’t spell everything out,” Grip says. “The player only gets glimpses, and their imagination fills in the rest – their own fears, anxieties, and whatnot. That’s where the real fear comes from.” Even the monsters in Soma replicate that concept. “The key is familiarity,” he says. “The best monsters are ones where you think, ‘Something’s off here …’ and the more you look, the worse it gets. People react strongly to things that look infectious or unhealthy. It triggers a primal fear.”

In 2021 viral indie horror hit Poppy Playtime, with its manufacturing unit of cute, murderous toys, concern takes a brighter form. “Nostalgia carries vulnerability. When we think of childhood, we think of safety – and twist those things, the reaction is visceral,” Zach Belanger, CEO of Poppy Playtime studio Mob Entertainment, says.

“That’s what makes Huggy Wuggy so effective. We ask, ‘How can something feel both lovable and wrong at the same time?’” he provides, of the sport’s fluffy baddie.

In 2025’s psychological horror Loop//Error, the photographs themselves are made spooky by suggestion – leaving element to the creativeness within the type of a blocky, black-and-white pixelated artwork type. “Using pixelated visuals and the deliberate absence of colour creates unfamiliarity – your mind projects things that aren’t really there,” solo developer Koro says. “It’s like remembering a nightmare: blurry, incomplete, but emotionally sharp.”

“The fear in Loop//Error doesn’t rely on horror cliches,” Koro provides, “It comes from human depth. From watching a mind collapse under its own weight, and realising that the scariest place to be trapped is yourself.”

The interactive issue

Finally, there’s one other component that makes horror in video video games so impactful: it’s a must to participate your self.

“In a game, you’re not watching someone else flee – you’re in it, and that’s why it feels good: your heart races, but you’re still in control,” says psychologist Kieron Oakland, a specialist in cyberpsychology at Arden University.

Daniel Knight, creator of 2020’s ghost-busting multiplayer recreation Phasmophobia, agrees. “Games put you inside the fear,” he says, of the horror recreation which took Twitch by storm on its launch. “When you decide to open a door or step into a dark room, the fear is yours. You’re responsible for what happens next.”

Grip additionally believes the style endures for that reason. “In games, you make the decision to walk into danger,” he says. “That makes it personal. The fear comes from you being the idiot walking into the dark tunnel.”

After all, scary motion pictures ask what you’d do at midnight. Video video games make you discover out.