History NothingIsScarier / VideoGames

* ''VideoGame/MyHouse'' has an AlienGeometries maze inspired by ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves'' that the player has a chance of entering from the master bedroom closet. The maze is entirely pitch black and lacks music, and though a monstrous groan is occasionally heard, no monsters are encountered here.

* Probably the scariest and most tense part of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' is after Shrina imprisons TheTeam, Cloud wakes up in his cell while Tifa is asleep and discovers the door is open, and sees the bodies of the guards down the corridor. Worse still you just have to follow the trail of blood while [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z9hQibQbA54 disturbing music]] plays keying you into the fact something is terribly wrong, not helped by Red XII’s comment “Nothing human could’ve done this”. Oh and you don’t even encounter any enemies, because everyone is dead and ex-President Shinra has a familiar Masamune stabbed into his back.

* ''VideoGame/{{INFRA}}'': You solve the puzzle to unlock door B2 in Bergmann Water Tunnel 1, then find yourself in a pitch-black corridor. After walking through the darkness a while, you hear the approaching sound of VaderBreath, which spurs you to run, only to be blocked by another locked door, then turn around to see the WhiteMaskOfDoom of [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight Mörkö the Boogeyman]]. Cue SmashToBlack followed by waking up in a storage closet in Tunnel 3.

* ''VideoGame/{{INFRA}}'': You solve the puzzle to unlock door B2 in Bergmann Water Tunnel 2, then find yourself in a pitch-black corridor. After walking through the darkness a while, you hear the approaching sound of VaderBreath, which spurs you to run, only to be blocked by another locked door, then turn around to see the WhiteMaskOfDoom of [[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight Mörkö the Boogeyman]]. Cue SmashToBlack followed by waking up in a storage closet in Tunnel 3.

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Antichamber}} Antichamber]]'' is this trope taken to its extreme. There are absolutely no antagonists, no way for the player to die, not even so much as a plot, but its [[MindScrew bizzare nature]], [[GainaxEnding even more bizzare ending]], and the fact that [[CreepyChangingPainting parts of the map subtly change]] can make the game quite creepy.
* ''VideoGame/{{B3313}}'':
** Surprisingly for a creepypasta-themed game, there are few JumpScare scenes and not many overt horror elements that weren't already native to ''VideoGame/SuperMario64''. Instead, the Castle's confusing architecture, signs of desrepair, red mist in certain areas, creepy messages from [=NPCs=], and off-key music make for an unsettling and lonely atmosphere even when nothing is actually threatening the player.
** One path into the Funhouse is a small room with its wall texture, a pipe and a sign reading "FUNHOUSE". Another has a Bob-omb ominously wondering just what the player can find on the other side of the door. The Funhouse itself is a maze of corridors only made unsettling by how wide and empty it is, not to mention the three exits are hidden in certain walls to make the player feel trapped inside.
** There is at least one sudden dialogue box that comes out blank, referencing how certain pre-release footage of ''Super Mario 64'' [[https://twitter.com/webbedspace/status/1474397703329046538 skips whatever was said]] in it.

* ''VideoGame/JimsComputer'' uses this as its main source of horror, having creepy noises play and hints of a looming threat, yet no actual monster. The moments where Jim opens closets are timed just right to make the audience dread what may be inside even for half a second, despite the fact that each time, nothing is found.
* It can't be stressed enough how masterfully ''Franchise/SilentHill'' does the fear of nothing. The scariest moments in the first four games is simply travelling alone with nothing appearing to attack you. Places like Woodside Apartment in ''Silent Hill 2'' or the chained-up bedroom in ''Silent Hill 4'' are especially horrifying because the atmosphere envelops you. Although enemies don’t always show up, a ScareChord and other ambient noises will appear in the already-unnerving music just to make you jump over nothing.
** ''Silent Hill'' even subverts the comfort of having a [[NonPlayerCompanion companion]], as seen in the second game when you travel with Maria through the Brookhaven Hospital. [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BonXYLB0svs It’s nerve wracking as Maria will always be hidden in the darkness or standing stock still in corners]] until your flashlight reveals her. It’s especially scary as Maria isn’t a threat, but she’s so phantom-like she can give you a worse JumpScare than the monsters.

* In ''VideoGame/Portal2'', there's ''always'' someone talking to you. Whether it is [[TheVoice The Announcer]] (who mostly says funny nonsense), [[BigBad [=GLaDOS=]]] (who does nothing but make [[YouAreFat petty]] [[AdoptionDiss insults]] towards you) or [[RobotBuddy Wheatley]] (who tries to help but [[IdiotBall is very bad at it]]), there is always someone there to keep you company. [[spoiler: However, this is thrown out the window ''completely'' at the start of Chapter 6, which is also ''the lowest point in the game'' (literally and figuratively). You've just had freedom ripped away from you at the last moment. Wheatley is DrunkWithPower and has [[FaceHeelTurn turned on you]]. [=GLaDOS=] is [[ForcedTransformation trapped in]] [[MakesSenseInContext a potato]] and while she keeps you company for the starting cutscene, she immediately gets kidnapped by [[FeatheredFiend a bird]]. You're in an old, run-down part of the facility, everything is rusted and broken down, things are on fire, and there are hazard signs everywhere. And there's ''no-one there''. That feeling of complete and utter loneliness even ''after'' hearing Cave Johnson for the first time makes this one of the creepiest parts in the entire game, and lasts throughout the entire chapter]].
* Probably the scariest and most tense part of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' is after Shrina imprisons TheTeam, Cloud wakes up in his cell while Tifa is asleep and discovers the door is open, and sees the bodies of the guards down the corridor. Worse still you just have to follow the trail of blood while [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z9hQibQbA54 disturbing music]] plays keying you into the fact something is terribly wrong, not helped by Red XII’s comment “Nothing human could’ve done this”. Oh and you don’t even encounter any enemies, because everyone is dead and ex-President Shinra has a familiar Masamune stabbed into his back.
** The weirdest part about JENOVA? You see and fight her scattered limbs, you see her severely-downsized form, you see her reborn form... but you never see the planet-destroying original.
* ''VideoGame/{{Ib}}'': You're just wandering in a cursed art gallery trying to get back to the real world for most of the time and barely anything will pop up to scare you out of scripted events, but the ominous music itself is enough to drive you so suspenseful that the biggest fear is ''expecting'' something to happen while they don't.
* In the HubWorld of ''VideoGame/SonicGenerations'', there's always music playing, whether it be a remix of the track belonging to the level you're standing in front of or one of the shop-themes. However, after finding the seventh Chaos Emerald and beating the [[ThatOneBoss Egg]] [[HumongousMecha Dragoon]], you go into the next area and ''the music stops completely''. There's no noise as you insert the Emeralds into a set of giant gears, except for Sonic's footsteps. Even after you fix everything, the only sound is the rumbling of the gears and the ticking of a clock. [[spoiler: Considering the fact that by activating the gears, you open the gate to the [[FinalBoss Time]] [[EldritchAbomination Eater]]-fight, this silence is pretty appropriate]].
** ''VideoGame/SonicFrontiers'' takes this even further. [[spoiler: Its main villain, The End, is an EldrichAbomination that destroys worlds. The kicker of this is that it does not have a concrete form, but rather, many, many incarnations. Its truest form varies between person to person, as it is a projection of their eventual death.]]
* The GameOver shots from ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys1'' and [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys2 the sequel]] show what happens to you if you get caught. What does the GameOver screen in ''Videogame/FiveNightsAtFreddys3'' show if Springtrap gets you? Nothing but a black screen and the words GameOver written in red neon. [[spoiler: [[GreaterScopeVillain Considering]] [[FauxAffablyEvil who]] is [[SerialKiller inside]] [[WouldHurtAChild the]] [[TheManBehindTheMan suit]], [[TakeOurWordForIt maybe it's best that we don't know what happened]].]]
* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates: Conquest'': At one point, [[AxCrazy Hans]] executes [[spoiler:Scarlet]] off-screen. We're never shown what exactly he did, but it was apparently so brutal and horrific that Camilla, a BloodKnight who's been ConditionedToAcceptHorror and able to casually threaten people with death and dismemberment with a smile on her face, is [[EvenEvilHasStandards shocked speechless]].
* In ''VideoGame/JustMoreDoors'', if opening door after door to find dozens of square rooms with only furniture and more doors isn't enough, the areas that are not basic square rooms very often qualify. Sudden drop in lighting? Ominous sounds? Corners where something could be waiting for you? The game has it all.
* In the ''Franchise/TombRaider'' series, this trope is invoked quite a lot as Lara is frequently exploring places no-one has entered in thousands of years.
** The level from ''VideoGame/TombRaiderLegend'', which has Lara exploring King Arthur's tomb, features a section where Lara must swim across a vast body of water. As she swims, the camera pulls out showing just how vast the water is and how little Lara is...and you wonder if something is going to come up from underneath...
** Another particular example is in Temple of Xian in ''Tomb Raider 2'' [[spoiler: when you enter a cave full of small and {{Giant Spider}}s you find a massive chamber with a huge egg cocoon; the level design makes you platform almost right next to it, but it never opens...]]
*** This trope is also used throughout the series with Lara exploring places no-one has entered for thousands of years, and you're never sure what might be waiting around the next corner...
** The TempleOfDoom in the second level of ''TR 3'' has a room with a pair of corpses suspended in mid-air, with no indication of what killed them. Also, the hangar in Area 51.
** This is used particularly cleverly in ''VideoGame/TombRaiderAnniversary''. While a lot of the enemy encounters in the game are kept relatively true to the original, of particular note is the almost complete absence of [[spoiler: crocodiles]]. Having dealt with fleeing from these in almost every Greek and Egyptian level of the original, every time you get in the water you find yourself anxiously waiting for one...
*** Similarly, many of the optional tombs in ''VideoGame/RiseOfTheTombRaider'' are eerily dark and empty, with several having large bodies of murky water to traverse. One of these tombs is in a Greek bath house, where dozens of bodies are floating in the bloody water. It's pure ParanoiaFuel, and you keep expecting something to drag you under, but nothing ever does.
*** In ''VideoGame/TombRaider2013'' there’s a bit early on after you get the bow in the Coastal Forest where you have go into a dark bunker to progress knowing full well there’s dangerous men on this island. There’s nobody inside the bunker, but there’s skulls and rotting meat strewn all around the place with the clear implication that was somebody unsavoury ''was'' living there, Lara is noticeably freaked out as you explore the place even though you encounter no threat whatsoever.

* Same thing in the Marine's first level of ''[[Franchise/AlienVsPredator AvP]]''. The first time your motion sensor goes ''beep'' it's just an automatic elevator activating, but after several long minutes of increasing tension in deserted corridors, dark corners, hissing steam vents, and flickering lights you ''will'' empty the magazine in its general direction. The game's designers know full well that the motion sensor is more effective as a tension builder than a tracking device.
** The tradition continues in the game's sequel. The first Marine mission takes you across a barren planet and deserted installation, where nothing more than a string of {{Cat Scare}}s occur (such as a hissing pipe shaped like a xenomorph's head bursting from the ceiling). You're constantly in anticipation of of an all-out attack, so you are completely alert. But it doesn't come until about half an hour into the game, by which time you've probably decided [[SubvertedTrope nothing is coming]] and are skipping through the empty halls, at which point the aliens appear and rip your face off.
--->''beep beep beep''
* In either version of ''VideoGame/DeadRising'' after special forces have apparently taken out the zombies, those zombies all just lie on the ground. It is quite disturbing in the first play through.
** Played with in ''VideoGame/DeadRising2'' where "jumpers" [[spoiler:(just zombies that decide they need to lie down on the ground for a nap or wait around a corner, or worse inside a toilet stall and eat you if you pass by)]] who, first time around, scare the shi'ite out of you, but the thing that makes it scary is, that you never know where they will hide, until you go there. They spawn randomly too.
* ''VideoGame/{{Rayman}} 2/Revolution/DS'' has the Cave of Bad Dreams, which is [[NightmareRetardant too over-the-top to scare anyone]]... except for the threat of a cyclopean demon attacking you if you take too long to complete the level.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' has quite a lot of this, for such a generally lighthearted series there’s a disturbing amount of creepy material that’s never fully explained.
** A lot of the creepy Ghost and Psychic Pokémon Pokédex entries and data invoke invoke Nothing At All to the extent they come off as {{Creepypasta}}.
*** Haunter’s Pokédex spells it out “If you get the feeling of being watched in darkness when nobody is around, Haunter is there”.
*** Drifloon and Drifblim carry children and people off, where to? '''Nobody knows'''. Although ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' clarifies in Drifloon‘s case it takes children to the afterlife.
*** Hypono (who evolves from the already creepy as sin Drowzee) has been known hypnotise children and try and kidnap them, no reason is given for why they do so but the minds of older players will reel with the dark implications.
*** Mimikyu is already a NightmareFuel incarnate Pokémon with it’s crudely drawn Pikachu mask similar to a SackheadSlasher. Worst still is the knowledge that whatever is beneath that PaperThinDisguise apparently scared a scholar to death when he saw it.
** Lavender Town. Besides the Pokémon Tower where Pokémon are buried, nothing on the surface is overtly disturbing about the place as it appears as friendly as the rest of the Kanto towns. Except the kid friendly tone takes a sharp left turn as the player learns Pokémon die and the [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JNJJ-QkZ8cM music that plays]] is so spine chilling it has an [[UrbanLegends urban legend behind]] it.
** The pale girl/Psychic Trainer [[RandomEncounters encounter]] from ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' strongly invokes this. Upon entering the second floor of a certain building in Lumiose City, the music stops, the lights flash and a StringyHairedGhostGirl appears behind you gliding towards the bottom of the screen in a frozen walking animation and saying cryptically "No, you're not the one" before leaving the frame and disappearing. She can appear later on in a bedroom standing creepily by the wall and says “Don’t talk to me... If you do, I won’t... hear the elevator...”. Absolutely no explanation is offered in the game to exactly who or what the hell she is. Some [[WildMassGuessing speculate]] she’s an inter-dimensional traveler or a ghost, the most likely explanation is that she’s a spooky EasterEgg left by the developers.
** Another bizarre Easter Egg in Lumiose City is an ominous message scribbled on the back of one of the time tables at the train station that simply reads "I'm going to go for help. Wait in the usual place." No context is ever given.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' has a [[https://youtu.be/qm1gWsHwyf0?t=18 mysterious force]] to keep you from stalling on one floor of a dungeon for too long, eventually blowing you away in a gust of wind should you not reach the stairs to the next floor in time. It does give you multiple warnings but never explains what's actually happening. It's even scarier in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0uZGp5yy48 future world.]]
** ''VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet''
*** The mysterious ''thing'' lurking in the very bottom of [[spoiler:Area Zero]]. While you can find a book with a description of... whatever it is, its [[NoNameGiven name is never given]], and the player never gets to see it face to face, so it's a complete mystery as to how accurate the book is. All that's known about it is that it's huge, disk-shaped, and ''somewhere'' [[spoiler:deep in a place that's already an EldritchLocation]].
*** The Great Crater and the entire buildup to it are a great example of this. The second you get your map, you can see this gigantic, whited-out zone in the middle of Paldea, much bigger than any city in the region and with a rim that towers over everything but the highest mountains. You hear a lot of strange legends about the place, and all the adults warn you it's strictly off-limits, but once you upgrade your dragon to climb cliffs, you can reach the top of the crater's edge, only to find yourself in total silence on a narrow ridge, staring down into a chasm so deep, a layer of clouds blocks its bottom from view, with nothing else up there except the occasional high-level Pokémon flying around. Once the game actually does allow you to enter it for real, it only gets creepier. [[spoiler: You find the research station at the crater's edge silent and abandoned, your Box Legendary is ''terrified'' by the idea of going down there, and once you do, it spends most of the chapter hiding in its Pokéball. The crater's interior is a massive complex of rock and land strips that almost seem to defy gravity, and all else that's down there is wild Pokémon and a few abandoned and silent research buildings, and things only keep getting weirder and more foreboding as you keep descending.]] The entire game builds up a sense of dread about the place, and it ends up being one of the creepiest locations in the entire series.
*** At one point, Arven tells you the full story of what happened to his Mabosstiff. [[spoiler:He tried to enter the Great Crater to find his mother or father (which professor it is depends on the version), only to be attacked by a creature he describes as being so alien that he questioned if it was even a Pokémon at all, which beat his Mabosstiff nearly to death when it tried to defend him. We never find out what did it; the Paradox Pokémon and the disk-shaped creature from are certainly strange, but Arven never identifies any of them as being the culprit, and the base game ends with the implication that there may still be ''something else'' dangerous on the loose down there]].
* ''VideoGame/ThePath'' has no enemies, no jump scares, nothing. It's just you, walking ''almost'' alone in the forest, listening to the calming songs and sounds of the forest, and yet you feel worked up, knowing that, since the game is a remake of the story of Little Red, there is a wolf out there, watching you...
* ''VideoGame/RuleOfRose'' gives even ''Silent Hill'' a run for its money with how masterfully it does this trope. There’s many, many areas in the game (especially the orphanage at nighttime during the opening), that are creepy as hell but there’s nothing there to hurt Jennifer, yet the atmosphere is so chilling and the non-player characters with only a few exceptions are so [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehaviour disturbing]] in their own right.
** One of the most skin-crawling scenes in the game is when elderly and predatory headmaster Hoffman demands the eldest orphan Clara come into a room with him. When Jennifer looks through the keyhole, she can see Clara scrubbing the floor while Hoffman stands near her face. Nothing explicit or sinister is shown but the awful implications will sicken most player’s minds.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Penumbra}}'' series makes really good use of this trope as well. The tech demo (that started it all) has only 2 encounters throughout the entire thing, yet throughout the game you're terrified in case you find something around the next corner. The trope is also present in the series proper (''Overture'', ''Black Plague'' and ''Requiem''), owing to their focus on PsychologicalHorror - and when we say they offer this ''in spades'', we really mean it. The whole damn series is a rich source of pure ParanoiaFuel in video game form...
* Speaking of Frictional Games, their next offering, ''VideoGame/AmnesiaTheDarkDescent'' is replete with this. The monsters are scarce enough to keep them from being a source of frustration, but frequent enough to ramp up the fear. Add to that [[HellIsThatNoise ambient sounds]] that, at times, sound like footsteps and groaning, and you'll be cowering in a corner for fear of a monster you haven't even ''seen'' yet.
** One of the key elements of keeping the monsters continuously frightening throughout the game is that you ''can't even look at them'' without taking a severe hit to your SanityMeter. If you do attempt to just look square-on at them there's an InterfaceScrew that blurs your vision: you ''never'' really get a good look at them unless you go on a panic-induced suicide spree, never mind that their models on their own are grotesque enough. The most one can catch safely during gameplay is perhaps their toes.
** The game's sequel, ''[[VideoGame/AmnesiaAMachineForPigs A Machine For Pigs]]'', manages to do this in its teaser trailer. We hear a high-pitched, unearthly squeal as a monster bursts down a door, out of view of the camera. Just as it's about the round the corner and come into view, the screen fades to black. This being a horror game, you expect some kind of JumpScare in the final few seconds of the trailer. [[spoiler:Nothing happens.]]

* ''Franchise/DeusExUniverse'':
** ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' uses this with a little of the classic version in the underwater laboratory. Eerie music, no apparent enemies, ominous logs and corpses spread around, flat out informing you of every enemy you will face. The music and locations all build up towards ''something'' but that something ''never occurs''.
** ''VideoGame/DeusExInvisibleWar'' does this with the abandoned Antarctic base. Parts of the level have only a few guards and penguins, the music is just this ambient wind, and inside is dead silent. Scattered throughout the level are datapads that serve as [[ApocalypticLog the diary of a researcher long dead]], adding to the creepiness. Lastly you have to fight mutagenic creatures that have escaped into the base, and it is nearly a relief towards the end when you finally run into a few humans.
** ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'' uses this trope on three occasions:
###Near the end of the FEMA camp, you have to go through one otherwise empty warehouse room with shelves stocked with hundreds of huge boxes. After a couple seconds you recognize them as something you first saw earlier in the level: each and every one is the compact form of '''a car-sized killer robot that can be activated at any time''', and the emptiness continuing for the next couple rooms highlights how completely screwed you'd be if they were.
###During your initial wanderings through [[spoiler:the Picus building]] it starts out completely empty, with little to no BackgroundMusic, but on it's very clear ''something'' bad has happened by all the locked fire-escapes and signs of a hasty evacuation. You'll be overjoyed when the bad guys come out of the woodwork - at least then you'll have something to ''hit''.
###[[spoiler:Panchaea]] starts of with you walking around a deserted, ruined ocean facility in the middle of the Arctic. The only hazards are electrified water on the floor, the occasional loose wire, and a few mines. It's made scarier by the fact that you ''know'' that there are [[spoiler:augmented people driven murderously insane]] hanging around ''somewhere'' but you're not sure where.
* ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'':
** What's scarier in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil1'' than when the monster crashes through a window? When that same corpse that's been slumped in the corner of that room you've passed through a handful of times over the course of the entire game... just never gets up. Worse still, there are a couple of corpses that you don't see get up: you come through the hallway, the corpse is just gone, and ''[[ParanoiaFuel you never find out where it went]]''.
** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'', safe rooms. Keep in mind that these are places ''explicitly named'' such that nothing will jump out at you, so you can save your game and stuff. Then the rooms themselves are creepy as hell and they play [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4VaYvcjxHY this]]. '''Shudder'''.
** Then, in the [[TwoLinesNoWaiting A side story]], there's a door in one of these safe rooms. Normal enough, and maybe something interesting behind it. But then there are ''zombies in the loading screen.'' Suddenly the safe room is not so safe anymore. And it leaves the creeping worry... will it happen again?
** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis'' has a similar [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edu_Gw3KO-4 creepy save room theme]], as well as an even scarier [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok2hDKIhf2w empty room]] music.
** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis'' also features a corpse in the hospital that, when examined, reads "His neck has been devoured from the inside-out." Surely this means you'll encounter a parasitic creature akin to the G from ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'' that bursts from the bodies of its victims, right? You never do, but ''[[ParanoiaFuel something]]'' [[ParanoiaFuel in that city is infesting people and eating its way out of them, and it could be anywhere...]]
** TheRemake of ''[=RE1=]'' does this so well whether it be going though the dog hallway and nothing happens but a tiny clink of glass, going down into a creepy stone staircase into presently [[EmptyRoomPsych empty chamber]] ''or'' when you clear a floor of zombies and you have to move around the big empty mansion full of anxiety.
** The first part of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5: Lost In Nightmares''. The first time you go through it (and subsequent times on Amateur), there are absolutely no enemies to be found, but the ambiance is downright terrifying. The later parts of the chapter follow the classic version of the trope.
** The "Before Kitchen" demo of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil7Biohazard'' features [[{{Squick}} really grotesque imagery]] and a lot of noises from nowhere, but the most the player will ever encounter is a CatScare after picking up certain items while wandering through the house.
*** The most tense parts of ''[=RE7=]'' are wandering around the Baker house alone even when Jack is dead, the Molded will spawn inside the house eventually putting you on edge at all times.
** The aforementioned remake of ''[=RE2=]'' has already mastered this trope, probably thanks to using the same engine as ''[=RE7=]'' to make environments as creepy as possible. In both Leon and Claire's scenarios you spend the first few minutes just walking around the cramped and creepily silent police station, it's especially scary when you enter the Licker corridor and unlike the original game find nothing but a [[FacialHorror disfigured]] corpse and some more bodies hanging from the ceiling. At one point in Claire's scenario (after losing Sherry) you have to go through Chief Irons's creepy [[TaxidermyIsCreepy taxidermy]]-filled office alone, and it's very unnerving as no zombies or Irons himself appear to break the tension.
* ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' has had plenty of classic examples. However, a full-blown example can be found in the Skyline Apartment building: given the keening whine of the music and the subdued lighting, you'd expect that something threatening would be waiting for you. Instead, after poking around in the shadows of almost every single room in the building, you find a frightened TV host, a vaguely ominous message on an answering machine, a fresh corpse, and a dying prostitute. The place brightens up when Prince Lacroix gives you an apartment there, but considering that almost every single resident has died for one reason or another, the eeriness never quite dies away.
** Check the basement. The guards were [[ParanoiaFuel spying on the tenants]]. "Were". As in, they're gone. What happened to them? Never explained.
*** They were most likely fired by the owner due to the Prince's influence. Living in a building with overly curious creepy janitor is actually not very Masquerade-conscious.
** There is also the character of the Sheriff. He is of no recognizable clan, bloodline, ethnicity or cultural origin. Nothing about his past, powers or abilities is known. It is never stated how he came to LA and started working for the Prince, and only comes out of the woodwork when someone needs to die. Players and player characters alike are scared shitless of him.
* ''VideoGame/{{Scratches}}'' also relies heavily on this for 90% of the game, noteworthy examples are the effect the first time you enter the [[CreepyBasement basement]] of the mansion, the music makes you think something is gonna jump at you from the shadows at any moment, also [[spoiler:near the end, when you finish crafting the sacred totem and you are on your way to confront the cursed mask, creepy laughs and whispers haunt you all the time on your way to it.]]

* ''VideoGame/ClockTower'', the series that ''Haunting Ground'' is based on, does the opposite in the first. While Jennifer roams around the huge mansion, there is absolutely no music playing. For the most part, the only sounds you'll hear will be your own footsteps and the occasional interaction with some background objects... [[spoiler:until Scissorman pops out, that is.]]
* At one point in the first ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'' VisualNovel, the music abruptly switches from a fairly elaborate orchestrated piece to a much more stripped-down version of the same. [[HellIsThatNoise Guess which one is scarier]]. Of course, it doesn't help that the bass line for the latter version sounds like [[ParanoiaFuel footsteps creeping around...]]

* ''VideoGame/Metro2033''. Irradiated areas when your mask is running low. The deep breathing, the rising geiger counter and just nothing else.
** One of the creepiest levels is ''Ghosts''. There is not a single enemy.
* ''VideoGame/Fallout1'' likes this as well. There are several locations, mostly abandoned military research installations or something like that where you're all alone. Which makes it really unsettling.
** The loneliness is also brought out into ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' if you use the Animal Friend perk level 2. If you experience nothing, see a green blip indicating an ally, and find out it isn't human, but just another Mole Rat, then you know what it is like to be truly alone.
*** This in turn can be completely removed by gaining an ally.
* ''Franchise/TouhouProject'':
** Fujiwara no Mokou mentions this after the heroines note a distinct lack of opponents at the end of the extra stage. Very much subverted, in that while it is almost outright mentioned in one stage, that happens to be the one in which you play the ghosts.
** Mentioned again in ''[[VideoGame/TouhouSeirensenUndefinedFantasticObject Undefined Fantastic Object]]'' in one of Reimu's routes right before the final boss (although said final boss turns out to be [[AntiVillain not very horrifying at all]]).
--->'''Reimu:''' I can't sense anything at all, but... Anyways, what's ''with'' this world? All that ominous atmosphere from before is completely gone... ...It's just creepy in the opposite way.
* This is [[SoOkayItsAverage probably the only "good" part]] of ''VideoGame/TheCrystalKey'', although it only kicks in during the second half of the game. In the beginning, you're in a BeautifulVoid, and while the lighting and music are pretty dang creepy, it's not so bad because you have no reason to believe there's anything out to get you. When a soldier appears out of nowhere, shoots you, and dumps you in a prison cell, it's a bit jarring, but still not that bad. When you [[TheGuardsMustBeCrazy break out]], however, you get to watch a [[{{Expy}} Darth Vader ripoff]] force-choking a guard. And then he rushes out of the room and heads straight your way, and you have only a few seconds to get into a side corridor. After ''that'', even the rest of the BeautifulVoid segments become horror as you wait to see what will come for you next.
* Speaking of {{Beautiful Void}}s, [[VideoGame/SchizmMysteriousJourney Schizm]] takes this and runs with it. You were sent on a starship to provide supplies to scientists studying a GhostPlanet where all the inhabitants mysteriously vanished--meals left uneaten, work begun but unfinished, that sort of thing. All the scientists are gone, too, and their [[ApocalypticLog audio logs]] speak of them vanishing one by one. They speculate at some length as to what's happening, but none of them can figure it out--so you have no idea where not to go or what buttons not to push.
* Three points in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2''. The first is when you board a Collector Ship and for the first half, you find absolutely nothing. It's pretty damn unsettling as you--and your characters--wonder where the Collectors are. Another is when you board [[spoiler: the Derelict Reaper]], and go through the first few minutes with no enemies while watching creepy vids which reveal that "even dead gods can still dream." A third takes place on a side mission, [[spoiler: a derelict ship that has lots of puzzles but absolutely no enemies -- and not many more lights.]]
** In another optional mission, you're on a crashed ship hanging off of a cliff. There are no enemies and you can't bring any party members. There's also no music and the only sounds you'll hear are the creaking of the ship as it starts to slip off the edge (Which gets worse the farther you get into it) and the occasional crash of a piece of metal falling.
*** It becomes less scary once you've played it a few times and realized that all the creaking, crashing, and falling objects are scripted and no matter how fast you move the ship will never fall over the cliff until you reach the end.
*** It's actually quite soothing after you've played it a time or two. Nice change of pace from the rest of the game, much like exploring the [[spoiler:Normandy crash site]], another mission with no enemies.
** The first mentioned example is particularly unsettling because of all the chest-high walls. Players have generally come to assume that chest-high walls equals imminent fight. So they're REALLY expecting something to come out.
** And on the second, that one gets creepy before you ever get there. You're going into a [[spoiler:''millions'' of years old corpse of a super-advanced species whose only goal, as far as you know, is to kill every single sentient creature in the galaxy, previously studied by a group of scientists that Cerberus has lost all communication with]]. Then once you get there, you find nothing but empty rooms, leftover supplies, and creepy recordings of the scientists slowly going crazy. And if you've paid any attention at all in the games up to that point, you know ''exactly'' what is doing it to them. The [[spoiler:husks]] attacking are practically a ''relief!''
*** The fact that your [[spoiler:soon-to-be]] party member isn't making a scene at all doesn't help. At one point you hear husks roaring, then a couple of shots shoot past you along with several dead husks, then one of your current party members says "Wait, what was that?"
** In the third game, the Ardat-Yakshi monastery. Right after you drop, you find a shuttle with its engines still warm, with one of your squadmates noting that there may be a visitor. Then you enter the damn place, and the elevator isn't working. So you go down by ladder, and the large hall you enter is huge and completely dark. The only thing lighting it is your flashlight, while you hear ear-piercing screeches in the background - as James notes, "Like nails on a chalkboard... and it's calling its friends." As you explore the room, you hear several noises of something moving, and when you get close to the exit, you find a few dead Cannibals on the ground. [[spoiler: The large room is, in fact, completely empty, and the Banshees don't attack until you're in a well-lit area]], which is why this is an example of the second kind of this trope, not the first.
** Invoked by Tali, who mentions several times that the relative silence of the ''Normandy's'' engine compared to the quarian ships she grew up on unnerves her. Generally speaking, those quarian ships creak and groan and make all sorts of noise due to their age and the huge number of times they've been repaired or altered... if there's dead silence on a quarian ship, it means something has gone ''catastrophically'' wrong and the life support is probably off-line.
** The aforementioned [[spoiler: Normandy crash site]]. Just you, alone at the wreck of the ship, wandering around the ice, looking for [[spoiler: dog tags]] and remembering the past, while in the background, something's howling... but nothing appears.
* In ''VideoGame/Uncharted3DrakesDeception'', Drake gets stuck in the Rub'Al Khali desert and has to wander through dunes upon dunes of sand for a long time with only an empty well to encounter. The player controls Drake as he goes through all this, so the horror Drake gets from seeing nothing but sand for a while is a shared experience.

* ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}''
** The Room of Clocks in ''VideoGame/Castlevania64'' and its remake ''Legacy of Darkness'' combines this with SuspiciousVideogameGenerosity. It's got a save point, food, and your pick of subweapons. The only BackgroundMusic is the ticking of the clocks. The Room of Clocks is still one of the most unsettling and nightmarish places in the game.
** The chair room in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaCurseOfDarkness''. It serves for nothing, other than just, well, sitting in everything you see. From a rocking chair, to the electric chair (that does nothing), and even the cannon, all settled in a simple and placid background of a sunny meadow. It's interesting at first, then later rather boring... but stay just a few minutes more, and you'll start wondering what the hell is that room doing there, what purpose does it have, and why anything is happening there.
** ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance'' does this at the VERY BEGINNING and through the game. A colossal armor comes to life BEFORE you enter the castle and you can't kill it, an indestructible great armor that you destroy by sending it to be crushed by gears, a mysterious creature you must sacrifice in order for its blood to fill the room and elevate the platform you're on... Oh, and Legion (Corpse) room.
*** There's a vacant room that you fill with furniture you find through the castle. ''Curse of Darkness'' above borrowed this and made the Chair Room.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'':
** The Endless Staircase is downright creepy, especially if you don't have the prerequisite 70 Power Stars to reach the top (if you don't, it's impossible, unless you can use a glitch only found in the N64 and Virtual Console version). While there's nothing that can hurt Mario, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6LxO6Jql1s the eerie music]] combined with a dark staircase that seems to go on forever can be unnerving.
** In the DS version, there's an extra locked door in the castle that can only be opened with the key you get from catching all the shining rabbits. If you do, your character comes back out with one of the castle's secret Power Stars. If you go in again after that, the music stops, the Boo laughing sound plays, and your character emerges (unharmed) making the 'taken damage' sound effect.
* ''VideoGame/StarControl'':
** The Orz, a strangely cute alien race from an alien dimension, don't really fit this trope, as the whole game is set into a non horrific, rather comedic atmosphere. However in a different setting, their uncanny, overly energetic friendliness, combined with their almost incomprehensible way to talk in strange pictures, which however allows many fearsome interpretations about their true, hidden nature and desires, as well as the fact that they seemingly just eradicated a whole human subspecies from existence, without leaving any witnesses of what exactly happened and them becoming instantly hostile to anyone asking to many questions about that, the diplomatic intercourse with them would fall into this trope, as dealing with them is dealing with a danger of unfathomable nature.
** The beautiful thing is that there is nothing in the game that will corroborate anything about the Orz. There's no proof, just conjecture. The Arilou are no help, because they're even more evasive about this than normal (amplifying the effect tremendously), and the Androsynth computers never give any specifics either. Also, the creators were very careful not to say anything else about the Orz in conversations with the fans.
** Parodied by the Spathi and their belief in THE ULTIMATE EVIL, a terrifying force of evil that is the greatest threat in the known universe. The Spathi have never found any kind of physical evidence that THE ULTIMATE EVIL exists... [[InsaneTrollLogic which obviously means it is hiding itself just beyond the range of their sensors, which is proof that it is evil]].
* Used occasionally in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins''. During the Dalish Elf origin, a companion notes that there are no sounds of wildlife, no wind in the trees... And of course, there's what happens if you decide to abandon Redcliffe to its fate and come back later...
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'': The Primeval Thaig. Totally empty aside from the Rockwraiths haunting the place... and this one weird idol, glowing ominously red. What lore notes we have on the place make it even creepier; it was once a center of Lyrium production, but one day they just shut their doors, refusing entrance to even Paragons. After a while, the doors opened again... and everyone was gone. No signs of a struggle, no indication of what happened during the isolated period except for the glowing red idol. This spooked the dwarves so badly they re-sealed the Thaig and ''erased it from history'' in the hopes that it would remain forever forgotten. And it was, until Hawke came along...
* ''VideoGame/DarkFall: The Journal'' uses this method of horror almost exclusively. It's not possible to actually die at any point in those games, but they do their damnedest to help you forget that.
** ''Dark Fall: Lost Souls'' makes similar use of this trope, although it has a ''lot'' more in-your-face horror than the original too.
* In ''VideoGame/HuntsmanTheOrphanage'', your only source of light is a small phone that occasionally comes to life whenever a ghost feels like communicating with you, you have no idea what your ultimate goal is for the first hour or so of the game, and the only thing that ''is'' certain is that a big creepy [[Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos Slender Man]] with spider legs is stalking you while you explore. Yeah, the same one that [[OhCrap killed all those poor orphan children.]]
** Also, the phone light only shines a few feet in front of you, so you usually find yourself looking straight into complete and utter darkness. [[Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos The Huntsman]] could be right in front of you, and you wouldn't have a clue until you were [[GameOver too close for comfort.]]
* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiI'' has RandomEncounters ''everywhere''. In every town, every building-- even [[NintendoHard places where it's decidedly unfair]], like right outside shops and places to heal. When there ''aren't'', you know there's something deeply wrong.
** Example: [[spoiler:The seemingly utopian town of Roppongi. Everyone seems to be at peace, and there are no demons around. Then you find out they're all zombies, reanimated by Belial and Nebiros in order to keep [[CreepyChild Alice]] company. Then there's the dungeon you navigate to get to the three of them--no encounters again, but instead, poison floors and exploding chests ''everywhere.'']]
** The game and [[VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiII its sequel]] represent [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou the death of all humans in your party]] by having the screen immediately cut to black.
* ''VideoGame/Shivers1995'' has you walking around a haunted museum of weirdness. Alone. With evil spirits hiding in inconspicuous objects, just waiting to suck out your soul.
* In ''[[VideoGame/{{Stalker}} S.T.A.L.K.E.R.]]'', there's the Wild Territory, a location usually bustling with mutants, anomalies and [=NPCs=]. Then there's a house which contains a stash that is completely empty, except for a few bushes which add to the "there's gotta be ''something'' hiding here"-feeling.
** The horror of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series revolves entirely on this trope; there are pretty much no jumpscares (unless you're unlucky enough to run into a bloodsucker nest or run into a [[DemonicSpiders Controller]]), but it has an incredibly creepy atmosphere with dread seeping from every nook and cranny.
* An unexpected (and possibly unintended) example shows up in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV''. There's an apartment across the street from one of your safehouses with a door which can be opened. Usually buildings with a door you can push open serve some purpose or another (be it part of a mission, the location of a collectible item, or even the site of an EasterEgg), this place serves no purpose. Even weirder, every other apartment building in the game contains people hanging around the halls. This one is completely empty, although there is a photo of a police officer in there, which implies that the house was owned by a police officer or his family, who had to leave their apartment (or were killed). It is very creepy.
* The Hellion-based instances in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' are creepiest when the map is largely cleared, and all you can hear are the eerie sound and music effects around the glowing mystic artifacts, bloody symbols, and candlelight. For those that are brand new to the game and unaware which game objects react to you and which don't, it's especially bad, as you keep expecting the symbols to do ''something.''
* ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'' uses this trope like it's going out of style. And it's really good at it. Especially Fort Frolic. It gets worse once you're able to access the basement of it.
* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'' uses this well after you left some areas. The Medical Facility and The Visitors Center are good (and terrifying) examples of this. The former, after you defeat Bane, you can enter and explore it on full... except that it has no enemies, and everything its just empty, except for a few doctors, that are of course just waiting for everything to chill out, and you can still go further and further on the medical levels, down and down below the elevator, and explore the chilling interiors of the facility. If it builds a lot of agoraphobia inside you, congratulations, it's working. For the Visitors Center... it's even worse, as its the only building that forces you into a first person view, and it's just a corridor with a lot of windows and chairs, and the only thing beside you in the building is a mannequin of The Joker, with a TV on his head, that talks to you like a doctor to a patient, and nothing else.

* While ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'' is better known for the classic example above, there is one Sanity effect that deserves mention here: Sometimes, when you enter a small room with no other exit than the door you came in through, you might go back through the door only to find that it is locked. Usually this happens when something really weird is about to happen, like your character sinking into the floor... but sometimes ''nothing happens,'' not even a flash of light or a cry of "This isn't really happening!"
* An interesting example in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''. In the Southern Barrens, a dwarf tells Alliance players that they DugTooDeep and found... something. She doesn't say what they found, but they found ''something''. She then mentions that the Cataclysm caused the cave where whatever it was is to cave in and tells you to pray that it was enough to keep it down.
* Whereas the DreamLand of ''VideoGame/YumeNikki'' falls under the Classic Variation (as noted above), the door in Madotsuki's (normal) room qualifies as this. Every time the player tries to enter the door, Madotsuki would nod her head and refuse to leave her room. What could be on the other side of the door that has her too afraid to leave, especially since she enters the door to her [[NightmareSequence nightmarish]] DreamLand throughout the game? [[spoiler:Whatever it is, she would literally rather die than confront it.]]
* ''The Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder'' has a good deal of exploration of an abandoned mansion. It's dark and not entirely finished, and creepy music plays through the entire thing, but it takes ages for anything to happen. [[spoiler: At least until you rappel down that pit in the basement...]]
* ''VideoGame/FragileDreamsFarewellRuinsOfTheMoon'', taking place after a series of natural catastrophes and [[spoiler: an experiment gone wrong]] that leaves humans on the brink of extinction, is made of this. The player explores the crumbling ruins of subways, an underground shopping mall, a theme park, a hotel, and a laboratory, and it's usually pitch dark outside of the area your flashlight illuminates. There isn't something trying to kill you in ''every'' room or corridor, but when you're approaching an enemy, you hear the ominous music before you see it and have to move forward.
* The unknown sectors in the ''VideoGame/{{X}}-Universe'' series straddle the line between this and type three. Head into one, get a fair distance from the gate, and just look at how empty it is in there. Think about all the things in the universe, mundane things like SpacePirates, or [[AIIsACrapshoot insane terraforming robots]] or a HordeOfAlienLocusts with point to point jumpdrives that could be jumping in right out of scanner range ... hey, why are you running for the gate?
* In the game ''[[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/572817 The Outsider]]'', it's extremely silent and dark throughout the entire game. In several rooms, it's so dark that you expect something to jump out at you. [[spoiler: It never happens.]]

* ''[[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/610205 I Can't Escape]]'' is taking place in constantly changing dungeon with many underground levels (each one is darker than the other), creepy environments, eerie sounds... and absolutely no enemies.
* ''VideoGame/JumpStartAdventures4thGradeHauntedIsland'''s labyrinth combines this and the first example of this trope, although that is randomized. Everywhere else, you hear the wind blowing and hear your shoes tapping on the ground whenever you move. When you're in the labyrinth? You don't even hear those. To make matters worse, [[JumpScare Repsac can jump you in the labyrinth]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Kairo}}'' in general takes this route as a {{Minimalis|m}}t PuzzlePlatformer. The most noise you can expect to hear while playing is the whirring of mechanisms operating, the footsteps of the player character, the static of the occasional monitor/screen you come across, and the sudden and rather loud gong noise that sounds when you solve a puzzle.
* The save room in ''VideoGame/TheEvilWithin'' is completely devoid of enemies and the only people in it are you, the creepy nurse and the guy in the cell next to yours. That doesn't stop it from being the scariest place in the game, especially when the painting shows up or [[spoiler: the nurse disappears]].
* Most character profiles in ''VideoGame/{{Skullgirls}}'' give thorough and comprehensive lists of things each character loves and hates, and helps build characterisation and establish an image of them. When it comes to emotionless, shapeshifting EldritchAbomination Double, though, the profile simply reads "Likes: Nothing. Dislikes: Nothing".
** [[spoiler: Not fully accurate, though, since Double ''very clearly'' does not like the sight of Eliza.]]
* Towards the end of ''VideoGame/{{Persona 1}}'' in the SEBEC quest, [[spoiler: the school in alternate world is suddenly devoid of life. There's nobody around at all and there's absolutely no traces of them anywhere. Even your friends aren't sure what happened to everybody. In actuality, Aki being absorbed by Pandora caused all the people in Aki's side of town to disappear since they were a part of her creation.]]
* In a meta-sense, the series ''VideoGame/{{Manhunt}}'' is horrifically violent and contains realistic violence and sounds. However, there is cut content from the second game which includes plenty of executions that didn't make it in. Some of these executions were never animated, but had audio recordings. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xcvSiV0yAo Listen to this]], [[SchmuckBait and try to imagine what Daniel or Leo could possibly be doing to the poor saps who come in their way]].
* In ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'', there [[ArcWords is a recurring phrase]]: "But nobody came."
** In the Pacifist run, it appears in a terrifying abandoned lab when you try certain Act options to emphasize that nobody will save you from these tragic abominations: "you cried for help, but nobody came. You screamed as loud as you could. ''But nobody came.''" (For bonus points, the PlayerCharacter is a preteen child.)
** In the same lab, one room has a shower curtain with... something moving behind it, getting faster and faster as you approach. You open the curtain... and there's nothing there except one of the keys you need to progress.
** Another instance in the same lab ''combines'' this with "wait for it..."; in one room that contains several refrigerators[[note]]You need to turn on the fans in another room to see properly in the refrigerator room[[/note]], one of the refrigerators is shaking, and keeps doing so after you examine it. But when you examine it, it's empty. [[spoiler:One of the ''other'' refrigerators in the room turns out to be an amalgamate in disguise]], but even once you deal with that, the empty fridge in the middle of the room continues to shake disturbingly....
** At the end of the Neutral run, you fight against [[spoiler:[[EldritchAbomination Photoshop Flowey]]]]. After he fully restores his HP, he dares you to call for help.
--->''"Call for help. I dare you. Cry into the darkness! 'Mommy! Daddy!' 'Somebody help!' See what good it does you!\\
[You called for help.]\\
''But nobody came.'' Boy! What a shame! Nobody else... is gonna get to see you DIE!!!"''
** The phrase occurs ''very'' often in a Genocide run. After you deplete all the monsters in an area, you will still trigger random encounters. But when the battle screen opens, it's empty, and simply says "But nobody came." In smaller-point font just to emphasize the point. Additionally, the music is replaced with Flowey's theme, "Your Best Friend", except 12 times slower as a low, eerie hum. Everything is dead. The terror is you.
* ''VideoGame/TheWhiteChamber'' has the eyeball hallway, easily the scariest part of the game. After the player gets dragged into the nightmarish, Silent Hill-esque DarkWorld, they're railroaded into a nearby repeating hallway, with the music getting more and more tense with each screen transition as one of the walls opens up to reveal a gigantic twitching eyeball as the player goes. What happens at the end? [[spoiler: Absolutely nothing. But dammit if the game doesn't convince you that something absolutely horrible is going to happen to you any moment now.]]
* ''VideoGame/LayersOfFear'' is full of this. While there are, of course, plenty of rooms where things do happen (things melting, rearranging, jumping out at you, etc), sometimes there are long stretches that are just ominous atmosphere (and creepy-looking corrupted imagery) but no actual activity.
* In the original ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'', three of the four Ages you visit were once inhabited, but are now empty, the inhabitants having been murdered previously (the fourth was always empty). Add to that the presence of rooms full of furniture and the library on Myst Island, and the overall feeling is that of a series of places where the residents have been gone for a while, but could come back at any moment...

* Unlike [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys1 the game it was obviously inspired by]], ''VideoGame/{{Tattletail}}'' is a bit of a slow burn. Right off the bat the game warns you that running makes noise, and gives you an icon on the HUD that shows when you're audible, so you assume you're expected to keep quiet, probably so you don't wake your mother. There's even a prompt for knocking on her door just so you can not do it. Then you pick up the eponymous chatterbox itself, and it ''won't. Shut. Up.'' You have no idea how much noise is too much noise, except that Tattletail is definitely making more noise than you're comfortable with. It's a red herring; your mother can't wake up [[spoiler:until the very end of the game, and even then only if you got all the eggs]]. And then on night two, the actual horror starts when you discover the Tattletail can somehow get out of the box on its own. This, too, is a red herring -- it's not this one you should be worried about. There's no way to get a game over on the first two nights, but it doesn't stop you from being constantly on edge.
* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'' is a much LighterAndSofter game than the previous entries in the series -- but in spite of this, it does feature one particularly horrifying moment about two thirds of the way into the game. The game's map sprites depict a woman walking to Orson, but her portrait is never shown. Something important to note: Orson's wife is ''dead''. By the time Monica is encountered by Ephraim and Eirika, she interacts with them: By saying nothing but "[[WelcomeToCorneria Darling!]]" over and over again. Her portrait is still never shown, and all you see are Eirika horrified at this and Ephraim who, while unnerved, explains this is a ''reanimated corpse''. The player is free to imagine just ''what'' Monica looks like at this point.
** This is also made even more scary if the player had gone through blind and chose Eirika's route, first. It is still unnerving as Ephraim (because of the aforementioned horror) but the fact that the player had ''never'' experienced this before adds shock to it.
*** To be more clear, while Orson's wife is not encountered until then in Ephraim's route, Ephraim had earlier fought [[spoiler:Vigarde]], who is ''also'' a reanimated corpse by the time of the game. The fact that the game showed [[spoiler:Vigarde]]'s portrait, which looks completely normal, but refused to show Monica's, makes the moment even eerier.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Eversion}}'', [[spoiler:World X-7 replaces the stage music with a heartbeat]].
** One of the randomly-selected "READY!" screens in World X-6 to X-8 is [[spoiler:a completely blank screen]].
** In World X-8, [[spoiler:all foreground objects (except you, the enemies, and the [[SuperDrowningSkills red liquid]]) are black and textureless.]]
* ''VideoGame/LittleNightmares'':
** The exact nature of the Maw and the world it exists in is left mostly unexplained. Even the supplementary materials don't expand much on it. No one in-game ever speaks and no documents explain things.
** The shoe pit has an unseen monster digging its way through all the thousands of shoes and luggage dropped there. Why it is there and for what purpose is unclear.
** The Hanged Man is encountered early in the game who has appeared to have committed suicide. But if one looks carefully, his chair isn't kicked over and his hands appeared bound behind his back...
** In the final stage, the Lady's Quarters, Six must sneak past the Lady and break open a pot to get a key to a locked door. The Lady's humming stops, and one would expect to have to run and/or hide from the Lady, but she never comes into the room. And when you creep out past where the Lady was, she's just ''gone'', not reappearing until the next segment of the level just when you're about to let your guard down.
* The protagonist in ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'' committed a sin so vile that the planes themselves condemned him for it. His sin was so unforgivable that a thousand lifetimes of penance could not come close to make up for it. And no, we never find out what he did.
* The setting of ''VideoGame/TheCabinetsOfDoctorArcana'' can instill a sense of dread in the player. You are trapped inside a beautiful Gothic manor, spectacularly furnished and full of curious objects and artwork, whose rooms you must unlock and search for clues, puzzles, and a set of keys that will allow you to escape. The emptiness of the house may make you feel like it's setting you up for attack, or at the very least a JumpScare. But no... you are the only one in the house, and the game's introduction makes it clear that no one else has been there in a very, very long time.
* In ''VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4'', the game leaves unanswered what exactly killed all the frost giants in Jotunheim. At first it appears Odin did, but seeing the sheer number of hoops that Kratos and Atreus had to go through to get there and only with the guidance of a giant and an all-knowing ally that they succeed, it seems unlikely that Odin did. Which leaves the question of who did kill the giants after they locked themselves away and for what reason? And are they still out there?

* The final chapter of ''VideoGame/BugFables'' combines the "never get a clear look at things" version with a good deal of BackstoryHorror. [[spoiler:In order to keep the Wasp King from getting the Everlasting Sapling, the heroes must follow him into the Giant's Lair -- which the "Eliascope" in the Bee Kingdom Hive shows is a normal [[HumansAreCthulhu human]] house. Inside the Giant's Lair (also known as the [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Dead Lands]]) are creatures known as [[EldritchAbomination Dead Landers]], [[BodyHorror freakishly shaped]] and [[BossInMooksClothing freakishly strong]] enemies that aren't clearly bug, plant, fungus, or ''anything''. The worst of them is the Dead Lander Omega -- only part of its huge body is seen, but what ''is'' depicted is a GiantEyeOfDoom looming from the shadows and dark, bony hands that drop the smaller Dead Landers to attack intruders. And if you use the aforementioned Eliascope and look carefully at the top right corner of that screen, you'll see an EarlyBirdCameo of Omega's hazy silhouette lurking in the tall grass, and it's ''[[{{Kaiju}} almost as tall as the house]]''. Now, the Lore Books note that the land was once inhabited by Giants whose artifacts and structures (like the Giant's Lair) can now be found everywhere, but they suddenly disappeared before the "Day of Awakening" that gave bugs sapience. Roach legends tell of a fiery cataclysm that supposedly ravaged the earth and destroyed all the Giants, but the lore researcher retelling this notes that there's no physical evidence of this and speculates that one of many different things could have happened to the Giants instead. All that's clear, based on the various lore and the state of the Giant's Lair, is that ''something'' terrible happened -- and ''something'' terrible was left behind.]]

* The Janitors in ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami'' do this in the "Clean Hit" chapter; when Jacket is walking to his car during the intro scene, he sees the blonde one ominously smirking at him. Then, in the actual level itself, Jacket has the option to shimmy across a window ledge to ambush several enemies. As he is shimmying, he passes another window, through which he sees the brown-haired janitor also smirking at him. These two characters are never seen again in Jacket's storyline.

* While ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheColossus'' has the scary titular Colossus, you know about those ahead of time and each one gets a cutscene entrance. What's really eerie are the Forbidden Lands you travel across to reach them. They're these expansive areas almost completely devoid of life except for some small birds and lizards and a lot of inexplicable ruins. There's no ambient music music either. Clearly something big use to be there a long time ago but the game tells you nothing, and your video game brain is telling you the developers wouldn't make an area this big and put nothing in it, but they did.
* ''VideoGame/EldenRing'': How does the Dung Eater defile his victims? From what little we know (it leaves them with a bloody crotch, an item called a 'Seedbed Curse' spawns on the body, watching the process traumatized Big Boggart, its victims are BarredFromTheAfterlife), we can deduce that we should be ''very glad'' we don't know more.
* In ''VideoGame/TheExcavationOfHobsBarrow'', the player never gets to see the true form of [[spoiler:the mysterious pagan god [[EldritchAbomination Abraxas Rex]]]]. They only get to hear the rather creepy growls and sounds it makes as it rewakens in the game's climax, and see the PlayerCharacter, Thomasina Bateman, regard it in utter wide-eyed horror as it looms over her from off-screen. [[spoiler:In the aftermath, Thomasina declines to detail what she saw in her account of the events, noting that "How does one even attempt describe the indescribable? The vision before me defied all logical explanation."]]

* ''VideoGame/EnemyZero'', an old first-person adventure game for the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn. Picture this: you're on a spaceship out in the middle of nowhere, and a bunch of nasty aliens have come aboard and murdered everyone save you and a few others. Problem is, the aliens are '''completely invisible''', and you get to roam the corridors of the ship, completely unable to see them. Your only way of knowing they're around is a sonar-ish device that starts pulsing louder and faster depending on how close the aliens are, all of which is absolutely nerve-wracking. The slightest peep will have you spooked, to say nothing when the aliens can be heard growling closeby. BringMyBrownPants, please.

** The ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil1'' UsefulNotes/{{Gamecube}} remake has one hallway lined with windows. When you walk through it, you hear a ''clink,'' as though one of the windows just cracked (if you're next to the window, you can actually ''see'' the glass cracking). Nothing else happens in that hallway, but it makes your blood freeze. [[spoiler:The second time you pass through it though...]]

* The Dunwich building in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}''. The Ghouls patter of footsteps and shrieking in the dark is bad enough, then there's the audio logs of an unfortunate wanderer who was unlucky enough to be entrapped there. But possibly the most unsettling part are the hints of the supernatural. Most of the game is an outlandish but clearly defined sci fi universe where even the most nightmarish enemies have some explanation. The Ghostly whispering, slamming doors and mysterious flashback however all leave the player in a constant state of terror that some sort of demon, ghost or vampire will lunge at them from the shadows at any moment. Added to that is that the building is a maze of corridors with blocked doors, cave-ins and missing floors, and objects that JUMP at you from nowhere.

* The Dunwich company returns in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'' in the Dunwich Borers mine. No explanation is given for [[spoiler:the flashbacks you begin encountering deeper in the mine]], what exactly the Dunwich company was doing [[spoiler:except that it involved an ancient altar that ghoulified its people ''before the Great War'']], or at the very end of it, [[spoiler:the ObviouslyEvil sacrificial sword the Sole Survivor can pick up at an equally ominous altar]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Metro 2033}}''. Irradiated areas when your mask is running low. The deep breathing, the rising geiger counter and just nothing else.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout|1}}'' likes this as well. There are several locations, mostly abandoned military research installations or something like that where you're all alone. Which makes it really unsettling.
** The loneliness is also brought out into ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' if you use the Animal Friend perk level 2. If you experience nothing, see a green blip indicating an ally, and find out it isn't human, but just another Mole Rat, then you know what it is like to be truly alone.

* Fujiwara no Mokou from ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' mentions this after the heroines note a distinct lack of opponents at the end of the extra stage. Very much subverted, in that while it is almost outright mentioned in one stage, that happens to be the one in which you play the ghosts.
** Mentioned again in ''Undefined Fantastic Object'' in one of Reimu's routes right before the final boss (although said final boss turns out to be [[AntiVillain not very horrifying at all]]).

* ''VideoGame/DragonAge2'': The Primeval Thaig. Totally empty aside from the Rockwraiths haunting the place... and this one weird idol, glowing ominously red. What lore notes we have on the place make it even creepier; it was once a center of Lyrium production, but one day they just shut their doors, refusing entrance to even Paragons. After a while, the doors opened again... and everyone was gone. No signs of a struggle, no indication of what happened during the isolated period except for the glowing red idol. This spooked the dwarves so badly they re-sealed the Thaig and ''erased it from history'' in the hopes that it would remain forever forgotten. And it was, until Hawke came along...

* ''VideoGame/{{Siren}}'' is pretty bad for this. Often you'll be walking in a nearly pitch black house, village, whatever with no weapon and sight jack. You'll be able to see through the Shibito's eyes but you won't actually KNOW where they are visually until you hear them. This is bad because generally you're too afraid to go forward even though the Shibito are dumb as a pile of hammers and aren't likely to do much.

* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4,'' Snake and Otacon return to a now deserted Shadow Moses Island. Despite knowing that all the soldiers are gone, and that nothing lurks around the corner, you still feel a sense of discomfort as you traverse the empty halls. This is especially prominent during the flashback at slaughter hallway, where you hear the agonizing screams of soldiers being sliced apart. There's no one there, and the screams eventually fade away, but you're left with a lingering feeling of unease.

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Antichamber}} Antichamber]]'' is this trope taken to its extreme. There are absolutely no antagonists, no way for the player to die, not even so much as a plot, but its [[MindScrew bizzare nature]], [[GainaxEnding even more bizzare ending]], and the fact that [[CreepyChangingPainting parts of the map subtly change]] make the game quite creepy.

** The Fiends. To encounter one, you need to look for a very specific spot, and from there you have a 1/256 chance of running into them at that spot every time you enter the area, heralded by [[MissionControl Burroughs]] [[BossWarningSiren warning you of "a very dangerous demon" nearby and urging you to get out]]. On top of that, several Fiends appear in spots that are devoid of activity: [[spoiler:An otherwise empty room in a Kasumigaseki shelter that requires 100 Luck to enter, in the middle of the abandoned Toyosu shelter, a seemingly innocent 'X' pattern in the road in Kicchigiorgi forest,]] just to name a few examples. In other words, it's the aforemetnioned ''Yume Nikki'' Uboa event, but replace Uboa with one of several {{Bonus Boss}}es ready to paint the ground with your blood.

** The Stone Sanctuary is a pitch-black (unless you have the Lumafly Lantern) hall with no enemies or music, just a large stone statue with [[EyeScream empty eye sockets]], and a series of platforms that lead to a Mask Fragment. Return to the statue with the Dream Nail, however, and you will be treated to a fight with the [[BonusBoss Dream Warrior]] "No Eyes", possibly the game's creepiest boss.

* In ''VideoGame/MortalKombatShaolinMonks'', triggering the BonusBoss battle against Ermac in the garden reveals that the real Ermac was disguised as his own statue the whole time.

* ''Franchise/FiveNightsAtFreddys'':
** [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys1 The first game]] is odd in that it uses all three versions of this trope, all to the scariest possible effect.
*** It uses the "Wait for it" version, in that using the cameras littered around the facility, you can always tell where the enemies are, either through simple deduction or being able to see them. There are blind spots around your room, and since you can usually tell when an enemy is there.. then you press the light, you're treated to an Uncanny Valley, still picture of the animatronic abomination, and then you slam that "shut door" button like there's no tomorrow. Then there's [[LeeroyJenkins Foxy]], who [[http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140815104916/five-nights-at-freddys/images/c/ca/Satan_be_runnin.gif rushes down your position]], but it can be hard to tell when.
*** It uses the "Nothing at all" version, in which you are peacefully sitting in your room, flicking through all the cameras, and you see all the animatronics are scattered around, and nowhere near you. You put the camera tablet away, and... nothing but the fan. No sound, no monstrosities to defend yourself against. Nothing.
*** It uses the "He was there all along" version in that the animatronics can sneak into your room and not be noticed until it's too late, [[HopeSpot which is equal parts terrifying and unfair]].
** In ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSecurityBreach'', [[KidHero Gregory]] crawls through the duct system past the animatronics' rooms. Glamrock Chica is jamming on her guitar and Roxanne Wolf [[InferioritySuperiorityComplex is giving herself a complimentary pep talk]]. However, Montgomery Gator's room is labeled as temporarily off-limits and all Gregory (and the player) can hear are smashing noises.

** The aforementioned remake of ''[=RE2=]'' has already mastered this trope, probably thanks to using the same engine as ''[=RE7=]'' to make environments as creepy as possible. In both Leon and Claire's scenarios you spend the first few minutes just walking around the cramped and creepy silent police station, it's especially scary when you enter the Licker corridor and unlike the original game find nothing but a [[FacialHorror disfigured]] corpse and some more bodies hanging from the ceiling. At one point in Claire's scenario (after losing Sherry) you have go through Chief Irons's creepy [[TaxidermyIsCreepy taxidermy]]-filled office alone, and it's very unnerving as no zombies or Irons himself appear to break the tension.

** ''Haunting Ground'' psychological’s horror elements also take full advantage of this trope, with many cutscenes that don’t involve any direct horror but are often so full of creepy and awful implications that they are scary regardless. Case in point, when first meeting Richardo he is playing a piano out of view and tells Fiona to uncover an object hidden by a sheet that he made for her, she does so and finds a woodcut statue [[StalkerWithATestTube of a pregnant woman]]. He doesn’t even specify his desire, for the scene to be disturbing as hell.

* Probably the scariest and most tense part of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' is after Shrina imprisons TheTeam, Cloud wakes up in his cell while Tifa is asleep and discovers the door is open, and sees the bodies of the guards down the corridor. Worse still you just have to follow the trial of blood while [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z9hQibQbA54 disturbing music]] plays keying you into the fact something is terribly wrong, not helped by Red XII’s comment “Nothing human could’ve done this”. Oh and you don’t even encounter any enemies, because everyone is dead and ex-President Shinra has a familiar Masamune stabbed into his back.

** ''Silent Hill'' even subverts the comfort of having a [[NonPlayerCompanion companion]], as seen in the second game when you travel with Maria through the Brookhaven Hospital. It’s nerve wracking as Maria will always be hidden in the darkness or standing stock still in corner until your flashlight reveals her. It’s especially scary as Maria isn’t a threat, but she’s so phantom-like she can give you a worse JumpScare than the monsters.

*** Claire‘s scenario has several of these moments. For example the cutscene of Claire finding Sherry was heartfelt in the original, but is instead terrifying in the remake as when Claire tells the little girl she’s here to help, Sherry just says "You need help... -he’s behind you" and hearing footsteps and moaning Claire turns around to see the G-Creature attacking her. Or even more creepy is when Claire and Sherry are in a seemly empty carpark and Claire hears scuttering noise making her look around ''but sees nothing''. There's no indication whether it's a Zombie Dog, Licker or something worse. Then Claire and Sherry are ambushed [[spoiler: but by DirtyCop Chief Irons not a monster]].

** Played with in during the tutorial as teddy tells you to inside the closest to teach you that he can act as a flashlight by hugging him, the closet is strangely massive and there's creepy black big coats in there. Once you reach the end, you and teddy hear something coming, only for the door to open to reveal its just your mother who comforts you and tucks you into bed [[note]] [[{{Foreshadowing}} although]] her line, "You've got to stop hiding from mommy" becomes FridgeHorror later on[[/note]].

** The bit between Samantha and Josh in the boiler room has a couple of effective moments of this, first they’re just chatting idly with light flirtation, but if Sam inquires jokingly over a baseball bat she finds Josh [[https://youtu.be/aszmRbh45Rg?t=509 muses]] that he used to play with his family including -{{beat}}- (with a sound effect) his late sisters ''who died one year ago''. After fixing the boiler he and Sam joyfully high five and hearing a noise Sam turns her back on him, [[https://youtu.be/VlnYsz_Xrhw?t=383 at which the smile vanishes from Josh's face replaced with an eerie look as he watches her]]. All gives the subtle impression there's something not quite right with Josh [[spoiler: long before he turns out to be The Pyscho.]]