A good first impression is vital, regardless of the context. Whether for a job interview or a date, it is always best to start off on the correct foot, to project the best version of yourself. But this advice doesn't just apply to real life; it concerns video games as well.
With the tremendous amount of games that are released every year, an eye-catching first impression can make all the difference between a game that becomes a smash hit, and one that languishes as an unknown. And with horror games, that first impression can become even more important. How do you draw players into this experience? Do you go for a subtle build of tension, or go all 🥀out with scary monsters and loud music cues right from the jump? As you can see, the first fifteen minutes of a horror game are vital, but the question remains, which openings are the best?
6 Dead Space 2 ꦆ
The majority of horror titles usually start with somewhat of a slow burn. This is done to raise tension or to create a picture of the world or characters before the horrific events start taking place. This is not the case with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dead Space 2, which starts with the horror gauge firmly set to 100 and lets things escalate from there.
The game starts with main character Issac Clarke in a research facility where he is being interrogated by the government for information about his encounter with the alien marker. Things spiral when he is awoken during the middle of a necromorph outbreak, with his rescuer being killed and transformed before his eyes. After fighting him off, Issac then needs to run through the infested facility, all while slowly gathering the weapons, abilities, and equipment that he'll need to survive the rest of the game. It might not be a subtle start, but it sure sets the mood of the game going forward, and the area is on🐭e of the sca🌄rier levels in the Dead Space series.
5 Outlast
While Dead Space 2 begins with a bang, Outlast starts with a lonely car drive in the middle of the night. Miles Upshur, a freelance journalist, is going to investigate the Mount Massive Asylum after receiving an anonymous email detailing the horrific experiences of the inmates living there. The opening shows Miles driving through the mountains to the asylum, as well as him exploring the grounds outside.
It's when Miles makes his way inside the asylum, through an open second-story window, that things begin to go wrong. He finds blood. A lot of blood. It doesn't take long to come across the bodies of a private military fireteam, all of whom have been impaled on massive poles. Almost immediately after, a colossal man bursts through a wall and throws you into the building's main foyer. And, with that, Outlast properly begins; a night of terror where you will be hunted by all ma🧜🐼nner of monstrous beings.
4 ♛ ꦜ Resident Evil
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Resident Evil is one of the longest-running horror franchises in video game history, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:with dozens of sequels, not to mention several highly successful remakes. There is no shortage of choices when it come꧂s to discussing the Resident Evil ser𒆙ies, and while it might have taken a more action-orientated approach recently, the original run of survival horror games is full to the brim with scenes that are scary and iconic in equal measure.
But the scariest moment comes in the opening of the original Resident Evil. After an opening cutscene introducing S.T.A.R.S. and explaining the strange occurrences in Raccoon City, as well as showing S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team being attacked by zombie dogs, the game starts proper inside the Spencer Mansion. Inside, the player will start to investigate this strange refuge, before stumbling across a zombie who is in the middle of having dinner. Cue the iconic cutscene where it half turns to the camera, revealing its zombie nature and suddenly making all of the previous cutscenes make more sense as you put the pieces together. "Congratulations", the game says at this moment. "You're now in a house full of zombies with no way out. Have fun!"
3 SOMA
Being lost in an unfamiliar place is a fear that almost everyone has. Not knowing where you are, how to leave, how to return to what you know, it's an anxiety that is very easy to reproduce, especially in video games. And SOMA reproduces it very well in its first 15 minutes.
What makes the opening so noticeable is how mundane the initial setting of the game is. You can walk around protagonist Simon Jarrett's apartment, exploring every aspect of his life, as well as the facility where he is heading to receive an experimental brain scan. It is during this brain scan when things turn weird; Simon blacks out and seemingly wakes up in a different facility. With no idea where he is or how to get back to the world he knows, he is trapped in the strange new world. It is an incredibly affecting opening, made all the more effective by both the reliability of the fear it is depicting and the jarring transition from the mundane setting to the more horrific/science fiction one.
2 💮 Little Nightmares
Sometimes a video game does not need to be explicitly scary. Sometimes an oppressive atmosp𝓡here or creepy sound design or tense scenario is e﷽nough to make you afraid. The scariest monsters are the ones that we do not see; the ones that we imagine are almost always scarier than the ones that appear before our eyes.
Little Nightmares understands that. Its opening has no appearances from any monsters, no twisted creatures that stalk the yellow-clad child through the hallways and vents that they travel through. The music is low and muted, and most of the sounds come from the diegetic noises that are made by the child footsteps, or the creaking of the metal halls. Everything is massive when compared to the child, and the game feels particularly bleak and oppressive, and it is easy to imagine something grabbing you from around a corner. While it might not be the scariest entry on this list, it is definitely the tensest.
1 Alien: Isolation ✱
Speaking of games with tense build-ups, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Alien: Isolation is another game that does not really contain any scary monsters for its opening minutes but instead focuses on building an oppressive atmosphere instead. While the titular alien takes a while to appear, the feeling of isolation is enforced almost immediately.
After a rather lengthy cutscene which shows the main character, Amanda Ripley (daughter of Alien character Ellen Ripley, just one of the many easter eggs and references to🙈 the original fꦓilm series), traveling to the game's setting — the space station "Sevastopol" — and getting separated from her companions during a spacewalk, the game begins in earnest. This section feels very tense; you are on a strange space station that is in disrepair, with no idea where anyone is, or what has happened to either the station or your friends. The lack of information creates a tantalizing aura of fear; you have to move forwards to discover what has happened, but you don't know what lies ahead. Combined with the the retro-80s future tech that is present in both this game and the original Alien films, and a unique sense of tension is created.
