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.
I’ve never heard of either of those but they look really interesting. One of the better suggestions on here, based on pictures at least. I’ll definitely be checking both of those out, thank you.
I have another. One of my all time favorite games for the PS2 is Everblue 2. It’s a first person diving adventure game, you swim around a tropical island, looking for treasure and advancing the plot. Travelling around the map, you’re fixed to just moving left, right, forward, and back, but there are dive sites where you are given full motion. These are dark, claustrophobic spaces, sometimes with dangerous sea life. Usually, you’re searching for a specific item at the request of a person on the island. You’re given a time limit to each dive in the form of oxygen, and each item you collect effects both your overall health and the amount of oxygen you consume. Once you’ve got what you want, you then have to exit the site. There’s literally no music during dives unless there’s a threat. The only sounds are you and water…
Not super scary, unless you have thalassophobia. Just paranoia inducing, creepy, and tense at times.
If you’re not opposed to emulation, because that’s the only way to play it now, I really recommend giving it a try! We only got the second game, but there’s a European release of the first Everblue too. Emulation isn’t perfect for it though. There’s a ton of interlacing jitter no matter what settings you use, to the point that I can’t play it because it screws with my eyes too much. The same company also made the Endless Ocean games for the Wii.
I’ve been wanting more games in the genre like it ever since. Only Subnautica came remotely close.
I’ll definitely look into that more, it sounds right up my alley. Thanks for the suggestion, I especially love hearing about these lesser-known games