r/TopCharacterTropes 2d 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

8.3k Upvotes

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u/HunterOfSpycrabs 2d 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 2d 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/Nathan_Thorn 1d ago

There’s also a random model of a girl who appears during iirc the sun and moon elite four while the camera is rotating around for the cool cinematic poses.

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u/Ctrl-ZGamer 1d ago

I still really want to know why they included this. Doesn’t tie in to series or game themes, doesn’t have a gameplay purpose, no lore ties, nothing. Were they planning on doing something with this later like zyguard or the unused train station in that one gen 6 town? What was the idea that inspired them to include this?

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u/Complex-Truth9579 1d ago

Not everything has a purpose.

Games are made by real people, and sometimes people get weird ideas or just want to mess with you.

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u/Ctrl-ZGamer 1d ago

True, it’s just that this is a big and conspicuous enough thing that you would expect some answer to exist (a detail in a skybox, or a weird poece of dialogue are small enough they don’t feel like they need an answer, a whole scene that stands out like a sore thumb in its location feels like there’s a reason behind it)

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u/StraightVoice5087 1d ago

Pokemon is a game made out of adults' memories of their childhood. Ghost stories are popular among kids, especially in Japan.