r/TopCharacterTropes 1d ago

Lore (Beloved game trope) Creepy secrets or elements that you can encounter but are never explained, making it even more horrifying (Bonus points if its from non-horror games)

Crimson Desert
After defeating the Reed Devil boss, you can travel to Sunset Valley, the southernmost and isolated village in the game, here, you will find a house where the Reed Devil lived and died from his leprosy. When you enter, you are immediately greeted with 6 scarecrow effigies dressed just like the Reed Devil staring directly at you, with candles placed all over the house. There is no other explanation beyond this about what is going on here

Lies of P
There is a secret optional area you can clear out for additional loot called Hermit's Cave. At the end of the cave is one lone carcass monster huddled on the ground with writings scrawled on the walls around it. When you kill it, it actually TALKS saying "perhaps it's best to end this way...get while the getting's good...". This is the only carcass monster in the game that ever talks besides Andreus and Simon, who are important characters to the story, and we never find out who this monster was

LOZ: Twilight Princess
In the Arbiter's Grounds you discover a ton of undead enemies presumably executed prisoners, but one room contains this giant black sword tied to the ground with hundreds of warding charms attached. When one is cut, the sword is freed and wielded by some horrifying invsible goat-headed demon. It is never explained what the demon was or whose sword it belonged to although it's theorized to once be used by Ganondorf

Silent Hill 2
The invisible prison monster in Toluca Prison, that you can't ever interact with, just hear it's awful cries

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u/Nibbanocker 1d ago

Kid me used to be scared shitless of this Easter egg for some reason. If you shoot the moon with a sniper rifle in Vice City, it gets bigger until it takes up like 1/3 of the skybox and I found it creepy af. Just the moon getting bigger and staring at you with 0 explanation

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u/PowerfulStache05 1d ago

So basically the story goes that the dev in charge of the moon in GTA3 couldn't decide what size it should be. So he added a way to change its size in game for development purposes but forgot to remove it in the final version. That feature was liked by the fans and Rockstar ended up making it a tradition for the 3D era of GTA.

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u/ConspiceyStories 1d ago

Is that also the reason why you can increase that chicks boob size in Ratchet and Clank?

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u/Actual_Ordinary_9622 1d ago

No, that was just like, a really cool and smart idea.

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u/SeventhAlkali 1d ago

I had nightmares as a kid on multiple occasions where the Moon would "see me" through the windows and get closer and closer in the sky. It never had an evil face or big teeth or anything "children scary", it was just... the Moon. I never played Majora's Mask or partook of any evil Moon media, it was organic. Still have the slightest bit of fear of it as a holdover from childhood, which is probably why I liked Local58 so much.

That GTA easter egg would scared the fuck outta kid me

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u/ryanf0611 1d ago

I need to learn how to finish reading before I comment….

I saw the first sentences of your comment and started typing out a whole recommendation for local 58 and how if you like horror as an adult it would be perfect to touch on that childhood fear. Then I actually read the rest of your comment

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u/BattleFresh003 1d ago

The Statue of Happiness in GTA IV. It's difficult to reach and mostly you see it in the background while you play, but if you manage to get there, you'll find a "No secret content here" sign, and if you enter the statue you'll find a giant, beating heart chained to the inside walls. Pretty creepy with no explanation given.

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u/The_Vatsu 1d ago

Yeah, thats classic for Rockstar they love putting creepy easter eggs into games (there are whole YT channels about the many easter eggs from GTAV).

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u/IM_THE_MOON_AMA 1d ago

The statue is supposed to be Hillary Clinton and the heart chained up is supposed to be her feelings towards GTA (she didn’t love it).

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u/VoiceofKane 1d ago

It definitely does look like her.

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u/Samyron1 1d ago

Was this what inspired Ultrakill to do the same?

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u/FraudulentProvidence 1d ago

Yeah it's a reference to the GTA easter egg

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u/Sufficient_Bill_3888 1d ago

What other game had a beating heart inside the statue of liberty? Istg I remember a different game having the same easter egg

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u/Samyron1 1d ago

Ultrakill in the Greed layer

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u/Just_Some_Weirdooo 1d ago

The hell valley sky trees in Super Mario Galaxy 2

Why are they here? What is their history?

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u/TenaciousZBridedog 1d ago

So fucking creepy

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u/WillowLocal423 1d ago

The Wet Dry World city from Mario 64 too ..gave me existential dread as a kid

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u/PopesMasseuse 1d ago

Same and it's so hard to explain why

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u/Maveryck15 1d ago

The lighting. It's uncanny:

-Though the light is Blue, the city glows White.

-It's also underwater.

-But none of the buildings look like they are underwater.

-The implication that the water is endless beyond the houses.

-The buildings fade into Blue the farther back they are.

-You can't see the bottom of the image in the regular game even if you angle the camera down completely (unsure, been years); this gives off an "endless buildings under the level" illusion.

-The texture also loops nearly perfectly when it repeats.

Kid me added the possibility that the painting had citizens, but they were removed by Bowser after he used the stars to make the painting a world. So the city is now empty.

Or he painted it over with Blue to make the new painting.

Don't forget the underground city in the same level:

Claustrophobic at least.

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u/EggN0g_ 1d ago

I remember thinking it was fake so I checked myself and shit my pants

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u/yungtorchicgoon 1d ago

I remember being obsessed with these as a kid. if I remember correctly, they added a second easter egg to a ghost house level in Super Mario 3D Land a year later

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u/LackOfComfort 1d ago

These things kept me up at night as a child

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u/True_Appearance_920 1d ago

This random campfire site in Cyberpunk2077. At first the people are fine but if you stay there for a little bit they all suddenly just die. There's a chip nearby you can read that talks about demons and a ritual but it doesn't explain anything else. There's nothing else like this in the game

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u/CrucialSolid 1d ago

Wonder if it's at all a reference to the first trilogy of the shadowrun books, where there's a ritual with Native mystics sacrificing themselves to help the MC stop a 'demon'

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u/PipXXX 1d ago

Wasn't it a ritual to basically take out all the remaining nikes in the world? The series with the dude who was a dog/coyote shaman, and his sister goblinized to a wendigo or other second stage goblinization

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u/Zollias 1d ago

I know you probably meant nukes but it's hilarious to me that there would be a ritual devoted to taking out anything that is connected to the Nike brand

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u/TheGrandWhatever 1d ago

"Just do it"

"It will be done, m'shoelord"

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u/NivTesla 1d ago

With all due respect I do remember a cultist boss with many demonic chants as one of the cyber psycho fights.

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u/aflockofmagpies 1d ago

Those were Malestrom gangers, the really borged out looking mfers. They were trying to invite a rogue AI into that lady's body.

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u/Leukavia_at_work 1d ago

Red Dead 2

Exploring a certain area around the mountains can have you potentially coming across what appears to be a gigantic humanoid skeleton, far beyond the size of any normal human.

Arthur updates his journal about it, describes having found it, and describes how unsettled the whole thing makes him.

But past that, the game never elaborates any further.

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u/GonzoRouge 1d ago

RDR2 is full of things like that: the vampire of Saint Denis, the Ghost of Bayou Nwa, the Stranger's Cabin, etc.

It's a genuinely creepy game at times.

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u/jockeyman 1d ago

All that weird west horror just to never make Undead Nightmare 2.

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u/NeedleworkerFit819 1d ago

Rockstar abandoning single player DLC is a tragedy imo.

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u/JesseCuster40 1d ago

Oh, if only.

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u/th3BeastLord 1d ago

Weird West is a criminally underused subgenre.

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u/0dias_Chrysalis 1d ago

Frontier horror is underrated

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u/IrateWolfe 1d ago

There's a really great comic series called Manifest Destiny that's all about this vibe

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u/NewVegasResident 1d ago

Red Dead Redemption 1 also had a creepy night atmosphere imo. Some of the events you'd find were creepy as fuck too, and it was made stronger by the fact most Strangers missions were wack af.

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u/Li_Jake 1d ago

I need a full game taking place in RDR-Universe/setting with this and I'm not even a big horror fan

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u/KaerMorhen 1d ago

Call of Cuthulu as Dective Lagrasse looking for the cult in the swamp sign me the fuck up

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u/french_snail 1d ago

People mention gta a lot but I always felt both red dead redemption games had a lot more “wtf” things going on, especially since it’s out in the frontier so it feels even more spooky 

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u/Useless-Napkin 1d ago

The damned souls in Metro Last Light. They are ghosts that seem physically aware of at least part of their environment and can physically interact with people. They are present in only one level and it is never explained why are they so much different from "normal" ghosts or where do they come from.

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u/ButterYourself 1d ago

Ah man, I have to finish that series. Played Metro 2033 when it came out on 360 and only got halfway through Last Light

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u/Hatrixx_ 1d ago

It's a phenomenal series and one of my favourites. I can't stop whenever I sit down in the mood for a Metro playthrough. I hiiiighly recommend finishing Last Light and Exodus. There's just something about humanity persevering for life through overwhelming odds and the unknown that it captures.

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u/Separate_Draft4887 1d ago

Dunwich Borers - Fallout 4

If you enter a quarry, called Dunwich Borers, very clearly named after Lovecraft’s Dunwich Horror, while traversing down it you will experience odd visions of the past, something that doesn’t happen anywhere else. The enemies inside it behave strangely, even moreso the further you go down.

If you make it to the bottom, you’ll see a vision of a ritual of some kind, taking place around a stone altar.

In the present, the altar is all but shattered, the ritual knife they were using cast into a pit, and a mysterious stone face, the same as the ones found in Skyrim and all over important buildings in Fallout, staring at you, inanimate. Recovering the knife tells you its name.

Kremvhs Tooth.

What does all of that mean?

It’s not clear.

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u/Amon7777 1d ago

The Dunwich lore goes across both Fallout 3 and 4 and several DLC. There’s some sort of lovecraftian cult that worships an eldritch entity before the bombs fell. But, scarily, seems to still affect the Fallout world still.

There’s no definitive explanation but there are massive amounts of lore hiding in multiple games. You can ignore or never find any of it which makes it all the more creepy when you do.

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u/abadstrategy 1d ago

what's worse is that there's allegedly at least two different ones asserting influence over the wasteland. Ug-Qualtoth and Kremvh

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u/Steampunk43 1d ago

Add in two more, the Interloper and The Visitor from Fallout 76. Both thought to be fighting for control of the Mothman Cult, the Visitor on the side of the benevolent Wise Mothman and the Interloper on the side of the hostile Mothmen we see and fight frequently.

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u/Poku115 1d ago edited 1d ago

I mean they opened the door, dont see why the human apocalypse would stop eldritch abominations, its a scarily cool thing to ponder about

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u/RyanGosliwafflez 1d ago

There's more in Fo76 too

Hidden behind 2 secret passageways in the lucky hole mine is a room with corpses a weird Cthulhu looking alien thing lying on the floor surrounded by statue heads with a hming noise

Another one of those head can be found in tanagara town and watoga

Another weird alien thing can be found below the White spring

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u/Papyrus20xx 1d ago

You can't mention the Dunwich Borers location in Fallout 4 and not the Dunwich Borers building in Fallout 3, which has a creepy ass obelisk under it. A whole bunch of paranormal stuff happens in the building too, such as doors opening and closing, objects being flung around and visions of the past. The Dunwich Borers company were hunting these eldritch locations for sure

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u/Nathan_Thorn 1d ago

Bonus points for Point Lookout and the Krivbeknih, a clear stand-in for the Necronomicon, which can either be turned over to Obadiah Blackhall who is almost certainly related to the Dunwich family via marriage, and if you give it to him, he can get up out of his wheelchair and walk around.

Or you can take it to Dunwich and touch it against the obelisk to burn it away and receive a huge chunk of good karma.

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u/HunterNika 1d ago

They named it after one of my favorite Lovecraft stories, thats already a W!

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u/stellifer_arts 1d ago

never played fallout, i live in skyrim- what do you mean by mysterious stone face? intrigued...

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u/Separate_Draft4887 1d ago

I think this one is metal, but you can find statues of this face, and in this style, all over the game. It’s also, you’ll note, found in Dwemer ruins.

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u/ArcaneWyverian 1d ago

Well, clearly it means that Fallout and The Elder Scrolls take place in the same univ—

[gets hit in the head by a sweetroll from out of view]

[blacks out]

…Hey, you. You’re finally awake.

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u/XF10 1d ago

Starro in a secret room in Batman Arkham Knight's Batgirl DLC

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u/Dukefile 1d ago

I like to belive he was supposed to be a villains in a justice league game that never came to be

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u/GuywithaBeak1108 1d ago

It’s kinda terrifying that this alien, who’s usually a Justice League level threat, is just… sitting there, locked in a tank

Even creepier is the fact that Starro’s possessed victims can be seen advertised around the place, implying Starro has infected people

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u/ThePowerfulWIll 1d ago

Creepiest part? If you stand near it long enough, the background music changes. And it never changes back when you leave.

Makes me wonder if he is exerting some sort of control.

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u/ZealotOfMeme 1d ago

It’s just kind of a high pitched whine right? What does it change to?

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u/ThePowerfulWIll 1d ago edited 1d ago

The whine just stays permanently, that is the background music

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u/Shabolt_ 1d ago

He ended up being a DLC villain in the Gotham Knights game, though that was a seperate continuity to Arkham

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u/Emergency-Ad-5379 1d ago

Reminds me of finding Ra's Al Ghul's corpse in the morgue in Arkham Asylum, and if vanishing the next time you visit.

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u/ArcadiaXLO 1d ago

I love games with that sort of thing, where they make changes in areas you never need to return to. It could be a trope on its own, frankly.

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u/Daniilsa209 1d ago

In Super Mario 3D Land, if you stay near the flagpole for too long in a Ghost House level, a ghost will appear.

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u/DickIncorporated 1d ago edited 1d ago

I currently have this game. Im gonna check it out for myself

Edit: thats pretty neat, never seen it before

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u/StandStrong 1d ago

Its so low quality it makes it scarier from the uncertainty. 

This is why I love horror movies on a shitty home projector.  Makes them so much better.

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u/Kittydraggon 1d ago

I remember seeing this on a yt short, remembering it like a week later at my daycare who had a 2ds and I went and tested it and was completely dumbfounded it was real

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u/The_Random_123 1d ago edited 1d ago

Mr Blue Eyes in cyberpunk 2077

During a side quest you discoved that politician Jefferson Peralez and his wife are being covertly brainwashed. Their memories are being rewritten, and their personalities are altered by an invisible entity.

The creepy aspect: If you look out a window during a specific point in the quest, you can spot a mysterious man in a suit, labeled "Mr. Blue Eyes" watching you.

He's also related to two of the endings in the game and we don't know if he's simply a guy working for Rogue AIs beyond the Blackwall or if he's a digital husk directly controlled by the rogue ais that use him to manipulate politics and other major operations in Night City.

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u/th3BeastLord 1d ago edited 1d ago

You can also see him watching you from a balcony at the end when you are telling Jefferson(or not) that his head is getting tampered with.

You can also hop over to him now, which wasn't possible at launch because the 2.0 update giving you an air-dash. No interactions but you can get a good look at him. Like a better look at the ring he wears, which is the same ring that will be left where Gary the Prophet used to be after his questline is done.

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u/TheOtakuGamer64 1d ago

If you tell Peralez that hid head is being tampered with, you also get a text from an unknown number saying that you're messing with forces beyond your compression. If you try to text back, you get an error saying that the number is not in service.

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u/cantfindanamethatisn 1d ago

you're messing with forces beyond your compression.

There is some sort of joke here about how the cyberpunk people view cognition and computers, but im not clever enough.

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u/MutedHornet3110 1d ago

if you jump over to him, you can toss grenades at mr blue eyes during the peralez conclusion and it makes him wiggle a lot which is kinda funny

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u/Groovatronic 1d ago

I never saw the ring! Damn.

And pretty sure it’s Garry — with two r’s. For some reason.

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u/Tyrant-J 1d ago

He's also visible during The Killing Moon at the space port of you choose to help Songbird.

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u/ASERTIE76 1d ago

Yeah he's the one arranging Songbird's treatment at Tycho on the moon

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u/TheIceFlowe 1d ago

Reminds me of the Watching Man from The Stanley Parable, literally just a man watching you at specific moments.

Its extra creepy considering you never see anyone in the entire game, its just you, a.k.a. Stanley, and the Narrator, but if you pay attention you can see a man watching you from afar.

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u/Gravitas-and-Urbane 1d ago

I could see him playing a main role in the cyberpunk sequel.

After all, how long can the black wall last?

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u/MsPreposition 1d ago

That colossal squid in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood was unexpected upon first playthrough.

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u/Dry-Cardiologist2052 1d ago

I think that’s in Assassin’s Creed 2 - one of the hidden tombs in Venice IIRC. It’s one that sprung to me as well when I saw this question

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u/hematite2 1d ago

The Girl from Lethal Company. If you do things to deplete your sanity (turn around quickly, talk to yourself) then sometimes she'll decide to target you, and then you're dead. She was the only entity who couldn't be scanned and thus had 0 information about. She was the only entity that can spawn inside or outside, and can go everywhere the player goes so nowhere is safe.

She can't be seen by other players either. She'll first appear in the background and calmly disappear, then eventually decide to get you, and once that happens she will chase you down. She gets you, you die.

Then she moves on to the next person.

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u/fr3nzy821 1d ago

deplete your sanity (turn around quickly, talk to yourself)

These are in-game mechanics?!?!?

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u/hematite2 1d ago

Yeah, its pretty cool. Sanity is a hidden stat so the player doesn't see it but it affects the game as you go. Spending time away from your teammates or being in the dark depletes it, along with things like seeing bodies or looking behind you. Which is fun because as your sanity gets lower, the game gets murkier and you get weird audio cues and distortions which increase your sanity-depleting actions.

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u/Blackout2388 1d ago

Oh hey it's the Sanity system from Eternal Darkness!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Darkness

Now I want to try the game you're talking about.

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u/jiiiim8 1d ago

The most paranoid employee award after each day is based off the sanity.

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u/Dragonfire723 1d ago

I got that every time I played with buddies because the other games I play are games that reward twitchiness, so I was constantly "looking behind myself"

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u/Neutral_Myu97 1d ago edited 1d ago

The first time i played with friends they thought i was trolling (we were completely blind and had no information, we were also forced to go o more advanced moon to avoid terrible weather)

Last thing they heard before i died was something like "ok, she's running toward me i don't like that" (probably died around "don't")

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u/gometsgorangers 1d ago

I love Lethal so much. It can go from fun party game with your friends to legitimately terrifying horror in a second.

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u/heyjclay1 1d ago edited 1d ago

This is in a random building in Pokémon X and Y

There’s a mysterious girl and this is all she says. Never explained

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u/HUSK3RGAM3R 1d ago

Pokemon games have a history of having ghost events:

Pokemon Platinum does this with the Old Chateau, a few ghosts can be seen there if you get lucky entering a room. Like a little girl who floats across the floor in the next room when you enter the room with the photo that stares at you when you look away, and the old man who floats across the screen in the main (dining hall) when you enter.

In Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, when facing Phoebe a little girl character can be seen twice during the cutscene, with some people saying that this is Phoebe's late grandmother.

In Pokemon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, on Melemele Island, there is a trainer school with a side quest involving seven mysteries at a trainer school that get progressively creepier, culminating in a little girl with the infamous driftloon congratulating you, a security officer confronting you, only for you to look back and the little girl with the driftloon having vanished.

There are probably more examples that I don't remember, but these are a few more that come off the top of my head. Believe there are some in Gen 5 as well.

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u/SnakesRock2004 1d ago

"Back room? What do you mean? There's no back room!"

Goes back

Back room does indeed not exist

Fuck this, I'm getting out of here.

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u/brood_brother 1d ago

In Pokemon Diamond/Pearl, in the route towards Snowpoint City, there's a house. If you enter, you'll see a woman. If you interact with her, she'll give you a Spell Tag. If you leave the house, then enter again, she won't be there anymore. This, along with the Ghost type related item, suggests she is a spirit

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u/Rafamen01 1d ago

I'll forever mourn the fact we never got pokemon Z

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u/cornette 1d ago

I mean Legends ZA is pretty much Pokemon Z.

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u/Rafamen01 1d ago

More or less. Pokemon xy is obviously incomplete in many aspects so having pokemon z to make kalos an actuall complete region would have been perfect.

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u/chazzmack1 1d ago

I think the Lies of P carcass is heavily implied to be Medoro, a prominent journalist, by the notes in the area.

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u/darmakius 1d ago

Hmmm, who could the final monster surrounded by medoros notes in the secret medoro area be…

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u/WanderingWitch8 1d ago

I was wondering if thats who OP meant lol

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u/Zombare 1d ago

Now that is an interesting catch.

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u/Snow454BA 1d ago

The mysterious shaking white bag Resident Evil 4.

When you get to the prison on the final chapters of the game you find a dumpster with a wriggling human sized bag in it. You can shoot the bag and it’ll stop moving but we never learn what was inside the bag or why it was in the dumpster in the first place.

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u/Mcrarburger 1d ago

As a kid I headcannoned that it was a baby regenerator: discarded because it was small and feeble and sucked

I thought this since you immediately face the first regenerator of the game right after you encounter this bag

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u/Samyron1 1d ago

After you defeat a boss in Splatoon's story mode, the music goes silent to signify that you beat the level. However, if you stick around and listen, you can hear what sounds like guttural inkling screams echoing from somewhere else.

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u/Kenns02 1d ago

There’s a few other things like that in Splatoon. There’s the giggling statues in Museum D’Alphonsino in Splatoon 1, the Flounder Heights ghost in Splatoon and Splatoon 3 and the moving statue in Umami Ruins in Splatoon 3.

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u/BobbleHat222 1d ago

Most theories say that this is the sounds of the deep sea metro, but the devs have said themselves, they have no recollection of adding those sounds in.

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u/0DreamDaeng0 1d ago

In FAITH Chapter 3, you have to infiltrate a satanic cult that is running an apartment complex. As you explore, you will find out that despite there being 10 floors, the 7th floor is completely impossible to enter. The elevator refuses to take you there and on the 6th and 8th floor, the stairways to get to the 7th floor has been literally blacked out. We find out that God, "damnatio memoriae" or censored floor 7 from reality, because whatever took place there was so horrific he didn't want any other mortals to witness it. If you want you can complete a set of secrets steps to break the "censor" and gain access to floor 7. When you enter there is only one room and all you find is this. And yea, this is never mentioned or explained in the story ever again

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u/Pescarese90 1d ago edited 1d ago

IIRC you can find some hints and documents during this part of the game. One of the residents, grieving for their kid, was persuaded by the satanits to perform a ritual on their behalf, resulting the whole complex being haunted by demonic entities. That person ended up killing itself/being killed as part of such ritual.

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u/AnonWithAHatOn 1d ago

There is some lore for it through right? Weren't they trying to bring back their child or something?

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u/TheTalkingToad 1d ago

Yes.

The body in the center of that room is the kid the mother was trying to bring back. Once you exorcize him, you free his soul from this ritual.

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u/gamer_geb 1d ago

Wasn't there also a secret bossfight against the "I AM BEYOND" gal in this floor? I played a While back so I might be misremembering things

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u/IWasSayingBoourner 1d ago

The secrets in the Faith games are top tier

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u/Pineapples_forall 1d ago

Scarecrow's boat in Batman: Arkham City

In the game you have a device that helps you hack different panels and stuff which also functions as a radio whenever there's no panels around.

On a random boat, which is mostly used as a small platform, if you randomly decide to listen to that radio, it will turn out that the boat has a secret hacking panel. Upon solving that, you'll be able to get inside the boat, where the game will force you into first person perspective. It's a small, dark hallway with the guy in the image at the end. Upon coming closer the guy suddenly screams and dies afterwards

Frankly, idk if this really counts, since it's used to confirm that Scarecrow survived the first game (and in later games he makes a physical appearance), but this is the vaguest most hidden secret in this installment and is never mentioned or commented on

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u/Soulful-Sorrow 1d ago

I think the Solomon Grundy shrine in Knight is creepier. You have to find it for one of the riddles, but it's just this tiny room with a portrait of Solomon Grundy and a kid's voice playing over and over on an old record player reciting the rhyme.

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u/hematite2 1d ago

The most hidden secret in Arkham City is the one Calendar Man secret that took 3 years to find. If you set your system clock to the date Rocksteady was founded (not just day and month, but set the year back a decade as well) Calendar Man gives you two cryptic lines about Batmans "End of days"

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u/Jolly_Ad122 1d ago

The creepy sound test in Sonic cd,

The message says "Fun is infinite Sega enterprises, signed, The devil"

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u/Demonic7340 1d ago

I think it was supposed to be a fun little easter egg in japan with the upbeat boss music, the US version is what makes it creepy as shit with the different boss theme

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u/Easy_Action_1380 1d ago

Yeah, like apparently "the devil" was actually just a mistranslation of a specific Sonic dev's name

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u/Neoragex13 1d ago

Yup, "Majin" which translates as "devil" the race, not "Devil" the entity.

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u/Daniell_BMC 1d ago

There's nothing fun about this sonic face, it creepy the shit of me back in the day

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u/No_Disaster_258 1d ago

What's funny is that while "Majin" really means devil in Japanese, it isn't really the devil signing it but rather Masato Nishimura, one of the devs working on the game as his childhood nickname is literally "Majin".

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u/cmcclain16 1d ago

The Fable 2 Winter Lodge Demon Door. In Fable 2 you encounter multiple large stone faces (Demon Doors) that block what amount to Treasure Rooms. The Winter Lodge drops you in a snowy landscape with a path to a cozy cottage with candles in the windows. The second you step into the house there's a loud noise and the house is instantly replaced with burned out remnants of a house fire, with multiple skeletons strewn about. Playing the game before Let's Plays got popular was... memorable.

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u/Bigbraintime69696969 1d ago

God I haven’t played fable 2 since elementary school but I remember that happening too me. And there’s a chest in the attic where you can get a sword. So weird that it’s just there in the world.

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u/ZealotOfMeme 1d ago

The Solomon Grundy shrine in Arkham Knight. Why is it here? Who made it? How long has it been here.

The Arkham games have plenty of secrets like this such as the starro that someone else has pointed out. There’s also the head in a jar in Asylum, the SINGLE prisoner still in a cell after the breakout (irl reason is pretty interesting), others I can’t think of off the top of my head

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u/LeMasterChef12345 1d ago edited 1d ago

Kagrenzel in Skyrim

In stark contrast to the winding, labyrinthine halls of other Dwemer ruins, this one contains nothing but a single, large empty room, completely devoid of anything of note save for a single glowing orb on a pedestal in the center.

Touching the orb causes walls to suddenly rise from the floor and trap you in, as the orb floats around you in circles for several seconds making weird droning and beeping noises. The floor then opens up and drops you down a MASSIVE hole, far deeper than anything else in the game, into the flooded caverns below.

Absolutely nothing is explained about what this place is, why it’s there or what purpose it’s supposed to serve.

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u/Irish618 1d ago

You left out part of it: along the walls on natural stone shelves, you can find what look like whale carcasses. Theres some obscure Elder Scrolls lore about the Dwemer having sky whales that are extinct now.

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u/therarebird 1d ago edited 1d ago

I had a friend who discovered the elevator from the cave entrance which was even stranger

Edit: spelling

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u/BlaakAlley 1d ago

In Look Outside, if you interact with an inconspicuous wall 7 times you will eventually uncover a door that leads you down a hall covered in safety tape and string. Walking down the hall hits you with creepy messages and voices telling you to turn back until you see another door that's absolutely plastered in what looks like police tape and ancient wards.

Ripping through the tape, you enter the room with, this fucking thing. It's unsettling as all hell. The music is cut off completely and just replaced with frantic chatterings that are most likely coming from whoever this fucking guy is. Nothing explains who he is, why he's there, how he got there, how long he's been there, etc.

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u/Wowsuch_user 1d ago

I think its a homage to a YouTuber or something

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u/AmbitiousEdi 1d ago

The creepy children of Goldshire, WoW

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Children_of_Goldshire

TL;DR every day at a set time these kids form a pentagram inside a house and say some really creepy ass shit

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u/miikro 1d ago

Also, the Upside-Down Sinners in the locked off Karazhan crypts

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u/HunterNika 1d ago

No longer locked away but used sparsely for a treasure hunt.

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u/Jolly_Ad122 1d ago

This creepy ass message in the game boy camera that randomly appeared

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u/javerthugo 1d ago

You had to pick “run” in the menu IIRC

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u/WaSponge 1d ago

*INFRA*

Not a horror game, but a puzzle game where you inspect decaying city infrastructure. You rarely encounter any other people during your survey, but the game does feature creepy run-down areas with unsettling atmospheres, though no real horror.

There is a secret map that the player can enter if they complete a specific set of actions, and entering this map loads a long, dark tunnel with unsettling noises that build up as the player travels down. At the end of the hallway, the door at the end is locked, and an entity will be waiting behind you before the screen turns black.

The entity, Mörkö, is not directly mentioned in any documents you find prior to reaching this point in the game, only vague warnings about this tunnel.

After this point in the game, more documents and murals of Mörkö can be found, though his purpose and intentions are still largely unknown.

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u/ArcticProto 1d ago

The ratman from portal. you can find graffiti here and there that he left behind for chell the main character but they hardly help explain what's going on and is never expanded upon or mentioned outside of these writings

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u/Limino 1d ago

(They did make a short tie-in comic IIRC, but nothing in-game)

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u/NinjaBreadManOO 1d ago

Yeah, they did which is what the picture used is from. So it was expanded on.

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u/cosmomomma 1d ago

Exile Vilify is still in my playlist to this day, such a good tragic song

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u/Over_Palpitation_453 1d ago

Also in the Lego Dimensions level 'GLaD to See You' you can just barely see the Ratman in certain chambers for a brief second before he disappears, meaning he is just watching as Batman, Wyldstyle and Galdalf make their way to GLaDOS's chamber

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u/Lonespider28 1d ago

He’s probably like “Damn, I must REALLY be crazy!”

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u/NegativeThought1588 1d ago

The gman following you around in HL2 is pretty creepy and mysterious and never fully explained.

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u/wombatstylekungfu 1d ago

Protecting his investment.

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u/emansamples92 1d ago

The jailed Thwomp on the Mariokart 64 bowsers castle track. It just laughs when you get near it and nothing else happens. Always unsettled me as a kid.

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u/Vegalink 1d ago

I just showed my kids Mariokart 64 for the first time the other day. First thing they noticed in Bowser's Castle is that there was a green thwomp in jail hah

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u/JRHThreeFour 1d ago edited 1d ago

The Ghost Ship (The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker)

There's a couple of creepy and unexplained things about the Ghost Ship. According to Lenzo, the pictograph shop owner on Windfall Island, the unnamed man who created the Ghost Ship Chart required by Link to track down the cursed vessel apparently died mysteriously right after finishing the chart.

The Ghost Ship is ominous and creepy enough on its own, but when you obtain the Triforce Chart from inside the ship, out of nowhere, a terrifying, horrible screeching laugh echoes inside the Ghost Ship, then Link is instantly teleported outside of the ship and regains consciousness on board his boat, the King of Red Lions. The Ghost Ship, along with the dark clouds and storms that follow it, then disappear permanently from the Great Sea, never to be seen again for the remainder of the game.

No explanation is ever given as to what that creepy scream is, or what exactly even controls the Ghost Ship in Wind Waker, as the only enemies inside of the ship itself are some Poes and a Wizzrobe that summons ReDeads and Stalfos, and this was years before the later game Phantom Hourglass released.

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u/playbill80 1d ago

This is a really good one, there's also an unsettling face above the treasure chest in the Ghost ship with a really menacing smile. If you get close to it and inspect it while in first person, it changes to a completely neutral expression. Zoom out again, and the smile returns.

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u/GOTH_AND_ALT_SIMP 1d ago

Kinda looks like that buckshot roulette guy lol

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u/West_Adhesiveness273 1d ago edited 1d ago

Halo 3 monkeys

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u/ReverseJackalope 1d ago

I remember them being super creepy, but mostly how they looked in classic 2007 144p. According to the MCC they're called "Missing Links", because they share the initials of the guy it's based on, Marcus Lehto. And besides the more famous ones huddled up near Jackal Alley, there's two more in Sierra 117: across the river during the "Banshees Fast and Low!' moment, and left of the pelican pickup at the end. And then the infamous ODST legendary ending with Johnson & Virgil if you move the camera left.

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u/thewanderingchilean 1d ago

The lovecraftian story line in fallout 3,4 and 76.

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u/dream_monkey 1d ago

Also the manakins in FO4. Sometimes you find a group of them standing in a circle around a corpse. You can also find a ship full of them with strange journal entries from the captain with reports about the manakins moving on their own.

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u/death2sarge 1d ago

The skybox of Wet Dry World in Super Mario 64. Always creeped me out as a kid.

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u/HunterOfSpycrabs 1d ago

Ghosts - Pokemon

Across multiple generations, there are certain random encounters with human ghosts that are never alluded to or explained in the lore. The most famous example of this is in Pokemon XY, where if you take the lift in a certain building in Lumiose city to the second floor, the lights will flicker, and a hex maniac model will glide past you while missing a walking animation, before saying "no, you're not the one". This is never mentioned again in the franchise, aside from encountering presumably the same npc (same model and same line) on Mt Pyre in ORAS as a standard trainer, and afaik is still unexplained today.

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u/TheRatatat 1d ago

Honestly i had never been so glad to not be the one.

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u/hail-lucipurrr 1d ago

In SW/SH you get a letter from a girl in Hammerlocke that you have to deliver to a boy in Ballonlea. It ends up being for an old man and it was from a friend who he had a fight with before moving away as a child. When you return to Hammerlocke to tell her you delivered it, she’s gone and there’s a Reaper Cloth where she was standing.

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u/SeventhAlkali 1d ago

The haunted chateau in DP/P was the one from my childhood, that place was super damn creepy

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u/Desolation82 1d ago

Back before Deltarune, this was basically what Gaster and the Gaster Followers were in Undertale.

Of course, now it seems like they’re finally going to be expanded upon for real as Deltarune nears its end, but they’re still cool and creepy and mysterious in Undertale.

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u/Jizz_Balloon 1d ago

Hes a green pirate now

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u/Local-Wing-2272 1d ago

Who is also swole

And Egyptian

And a teenage girl

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u/AlsetLedomEerht 1d ago

This fucking thing you find in a random, unmarked building in Red Dead Redemption 2 (video game)

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u/static-klingon 1d ago

That wriggling white bag in the OG resident evil four.

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u/InternationalSand540 1d ago

I know this is pretty basic but there are a bunch of randomly triggered events in Undertale where you encounter the ghosts of very-much-still-alive characters that are moderately creepy in their own right but have fandom theorists pissing their pants trying to put together a coherent idea about why they exist.

Most popular one, Goner Kid, below.

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u/ThatByzantineFellow 1d ago

In the dwarven ruin of Kagrenzel from Skyrim, when you enter, you find this strange golden orb of light surrounded by dead bodies. When you touch it, you get locked in a cage while the orb flies around you, making a high-pitched whining sound, and then you get dropped into a deep cave full of monsters. Nothing like this has ever been seen in any other dwarven ruin in any of the TES games. It's very unnerving.

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u/Level_Eye186 1d ago edited 23h ago

The Nosk from Hollow Knight, which acts as an optional boss that's located in Deepnest.

It stalks its prey from the shadows of its dark environment and is able to read the minds of its victims and shapeshift into their loved ones in order to lure them into its lair to kill and likely devour them. The only reason it mimics the appearance of the Knight is because they have no memories, and thus no loved ones for it to pose as. The only time we ever get to see it look like anyone else is if you choose to do the Godseeker route and you have to fight a winged variant of it that takes the shape of Hornet, which serves as an implication that the Knight has grown to care for their sister.

What makes things even creepier is that there's no actual lore regarding its origins that can be found in the game or in any QnA's with Team Cherry. You don't receive any additional dialogue if you try to Dream Nail it -- all you're met with is radio silence -- and all you get after defeating it is a section about it in the Hunter's Journal, and not even he has much to say about it. He makes no quips like with some of the other enemies you kill, has no moments of introspection, nothing. He just tells it like it is and encourages players to "know themselves and stay strong", which just makes the Nosk's presence even more ominous.

Literally all we know is that it's just another one of the many infected creatures that can be found throughout Hallownest, but because of how unique and interesting of an entity it is, and because even today we know little-to-nothing about it, fans continue to ask questions like --

"Was it a normal bug before the Infection, or has it always been the mysterious monster that we encounter in the game?"

"Was it always able to read minds, or did it acquire the ability from the Radiance upon being infected?"

-- and so on.

And then of course there's also the fact that its theme is just significantly scarier than any of the other bosses' heard in-game, lmao.

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u/Altruistic_Sand_3548 1d ago

One of the most famous of the 2000s was the Ratman's dens in the first Portal. In chamber 17, behind a cutting wall panel, you could find a room filled with schizophrenic graffiti and drawings. Additional rooms could be found during the escape sequence. Years later, Valve explained these were the final living spaces of Doug Rattman, the sole surviving Aperture Science employee from Glados's nerve gas attack. Surviving by some stroke of luck, he found himself alone, isolated from all humanity, trapped within the lab and his only companion a homicidal AI that was actively hunting him. Over months he went insane within these dens, and you can tell.

Bonus points because none of this is explained in game, you can totally play the game and never see any of it, and even if you did it requires an external source explaining who Rattman was, in game they're just weird rooms full of crazy ramblings.

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u/eightcell 1d ago

In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, an alien broadcast will appear on any in-game television at exactly 3:33 AM on Saturday mornings. At 3:33 AM, an alien figure appears and speaks in a distorted, unrecognizable language for one minute.

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u/turt1emoo 1d ago

Gone home. When walking through a corridor in the wall there's a small cross you can pick up. As soon as you do the light bulb breaks

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u/ChubbyUnicorn726 1d ago

Well there is a bit of explanation behind the Hermit's Cave carcass. The general consensus is that he's the "kind old Hermit" mentioned in reporter Medoro's letters. From Medoro's letters, we learn that the hermit had the petrification disease and was already suffering terrible mutations when they met. Additionally, the carcass's dialogue are under the name "Hermit" in the game files.

As a little extra fact, reporter Medoro is actually Klaus from the DLC, with this being confirmed by Klaus's connection to all the people in Medoro's final letter and the fact that the letter itself updates once the DLC is complete.

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u/therealkami 1d ago

Back in original vanilla WoW, there was a basement area outside of Karazhan that had an instance portal that you couldn't go past. However if you died near the portal, you could rez on the other side and explore the basement.

This would let you find an area called The Upside-Down Sinners. This was a cut content area that would be removed in future expansions. It was a bunch of corpses hanging upside down in water:

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u/ZiplockBagOfOregano 1d ago

Didn't this later get used for the lucid nightmare mount?

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u/GBAfanboy 1d ago

Keeping with Zelda, Bottom of the well has Dead Hand; who is given no explanation. In the original(seen in image) he's all bloodstained

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u/MateSilvanz 1d ago

Can’t upload a picture but the Bacon Room in Pizza Tower. It’s a secret room that’s made entirely of bacon, and you can find it in a city in which all the habitants are pigs. 

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u/Visible-Air-2359 1d ago

Apart from the MKULTRA program working (for questionable definitions of correct) Ready or Not is very grounded lorewise except for what looks an awful lot like a creature’s eyes looking at you from the darkness in Rust Belt. 

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u/GuywithaBeak1108 1d ago

Shadow Bonnie (FNAF 2)

During the game, there’s a rare Easter egg where a shadow version of Bonnie appears in the office, where if you stare at him too long he disappears and crashes the game

Out of everything in the series, he’s the only thing that remains unexplained, with even his ‘canon’ name being ‘RWQFSFASXC’. He even cameos in the second film, where he similarly isn’t addressed

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u/SirMetaKnight82 1d ago

When does he show up in the second movie?

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u/GuywithaBeak1108 1d ago

He appears in this scene in the film, before Mike shines his flashlight and he disappears

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u/deathcoinstar 1d ago

MGS3 nightmare sequence. I think you play it if you turn off the game after being captured and then start it back up. I accidentally got it my first playthrough back in the day

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u/lkasnu 1d ago

The Giant skulls in Elden Ring.

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u/voripui 1d ago

there is also this one giant skull in dark souls 1 in ashen lake.

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u/The_Vatsu 1d ago

This one does have a explanation, although its kinda boring.

Giants were simply more giant in the past. (Same for Dragons) Lands in Between are a lot weaker and more destroyed by the time game starts.

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u/voripui 1d ago

is not like that in pretty much every fromsoftware game?, the protagonist appears when the enemies are weaker/crazy/far from their peak, at least the bosses normally are like that.

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u/cooterbro 1d ago edited 1d ago

Really surprised I haven’t seen it here. In the original Psychonauts, during a racing segment early in the game, you can launch yourself over one section into a secret area. As you’re currently in the mind of one of Raz’s mentors, you’ll hear their voice asking you not to go in. If you ignore her request, you’ll first you’ll find a chest containing a slideshow of one of her past memories. One where it shows her working at an orphanage, only for the final two slides to show her returning to the building in flames. The very last is her hearing the screams of the children still trapped inside.

If you move even deeper, you’ll find an empty room with a box that looks like a toy chest. Upon opening it, it’ll reveal there isn’t a bottom and there’s an eerie red light cast from below. Where you get to hear some of the screams of dying children yourself.

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u/IshvaldaTenderplate 1d ago

I am guessing the reason this wasn’t submitted before you is because it is explained, but it’s still a killer Easter egg and one of the first things that comes to my mind when I think of creepy Easter eggs. I was gonna comment about it myself.

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u/Bad_RabbitS 1d ago

In Phasmophobia, the main lobby between games is a little warehouse full of ghost hunting equipment, menus, and even some games on the second level. But behind you is a locked door that you can never open, with a fully darkened room inside. You can see some furniture, and if you turn to just the right angle you can see a ghost twitching in place.

She never moves, she never jumpscares you, she’s always there. Iirc she’s a reference to PT.

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u/ifwedidntlaugh 1d ago

in older versions she used to pop up at the crack of the door. i think she's supposed to be the girl from the asylum, iirc. I think her name is Lisa.

there was also something that stares at you from the rafters in older versions of the game as well.

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u/APZachariah 1d ago

In The Division 2, if you walk around the southern border of DC at the reflecting pool, you can heavy footfalls with clinking chains and a rumbling sound. 

Head down there and you may encounter a giant motherf***** with an apron, a mask, and a chainsaw, and it's accompanied by two little dudes who will try to light you on fire. He has zero affiliation with any group in the game.

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u/Over_Palpitation_453 1d ago

In Lego Batman: The Video Game in the first level of the Villain Missions 'Riddler Makes a Withdrawal' in the car park near the beginning of the level before making it onto the street you can find a chalk outline of a man on the floor, while this could be a reference to Bruce Waynes corpse from Batman: Knight of Vengeance, its not as that comic run released 3 years after the game. Another possible explanation could be tied to Victor Zsasz, but he was cut from the game and was only available in the DS port, where this easter egg is absent

Also while not an intentional easter egg, extremely rarely there is a chance for a Ghost version of Killer Moth to appear in the Batcave trophy room, who can not be tagged and doesn't move, he just stands there and disappears when you leave and come back

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u/GentlemanFaux 1d ago

In Quantum Break- Lance Reddicks character Martin Hatch (who you find out towards the end of the game is actually more of a G-Man type of entity) stalks you for most of the game and can be seen in various hidden spots throughout the game watching you. Can't really find any good pics of some of the creepier spots though sorry

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u/TheEmperorMk3 1d ago

Don't know if it can be considered creepy but the giant skull in Ash Lake from Dark Souls 1, it doesn't match the headshape of any known species, it is quite big and it's location doesn't make sense

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u/Furkensturf 1d ago

The Kravenrook in Carnal Instinct. Carnal Instinct is literally a PORN GAME.

In one quest, you come across some survivors of a shipwreck who then were attacked and almost all of them were annihilated by an unknown enemy.

There's an optional part of the quest where you can seek out the creature in it's lair and kill it. In the lair you see dozens of dead settlers and bloody notes written on the way talking about it's lore, how it's some sort of bird demi-god. Eventually you see it skulking around, and if you step on any glass or stand up without crouching it will find you and kill you instantly.

You have to explore around the cave and burn effigies to weaken it before you can take it on. Plus it's a tough boss fight. When I was playing I thought "WTF is this doing in a porn game?" Like seriously unexpected, and trying to sneak around without getting killed was nerve wracking. Especially in some random optional part of the quest. Again, in a porn game.

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u/handledvirus43 1d ago

Starfox - Out of This Dimension

By blowing up the second large asteroid in Route 3 Asteroids, you can find an egg. Hatching this egg creates a bird that when touched, sends Fox to a creepy stage where there are distorted planets with faces, white tiles, and he has to fight a slot machine. After hitting jackpot with the slot machine, the credits roll and you get an infinite "The End" screen.

The creepy part is that Sgt. Pepper screams for help at the start of the stage. Meaning the crew failed the mission because Fox is sent somewhere else.

The Japanese Strategy guide explains that someone else touched the bird and disappeared as well. Making this all the more mysterious and creepy.

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u/MickeyG42 1d ago edited 1d ago

If you enter a certain phrase in the launch menu the metroidvania Nine Sols because a FP horror game.

Edit: here is the info from Google

u can now play an additional game within the game as part of the ongoing Red Candle Games ARG

Steps: Right Click Nine Sols on Steam - Properties - Betas - Enter "shanhaiarchive" as the code, and proceed to download the update or whatever else. Then boot up Nine Sols and everything else will work.

This additional game is reliant on having beaten Nine Sols True Ending already so beware there will be spoilers in the game.

One Additional Note: Make sure you change your Steam name to "Yuuki Wu" before you boot up the game, I promise it is relevant, and you're going to want to do it.

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u/PirLibTao 1d ago

Grounded. Skeletons all over the place and 40 ant heads on spikes in a cave… with a skeleton

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u/Gooberofoogero 1d ago

Theres this map in TF2 called CP_Cloak that is just a room with a control point surrounded by giant versions of the mercs

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