"Folly. She hears, she sees. And you, yes, you are easily seen. We obey the silence. Those who do not, ah! They never leave."
The game stars a white creature called Ori and a cute owlet called Ku going on an adventure into another realm. Unfortunately, even with the cute characters and a brightly colored setting, terrifying things still find ways to show themselves... Beware of unmarked spoilers.
- Near the beginning, you wind up encountering a giant wolf creature called Howl. Howl is very menacing and scary, and the sequence starts out with Howl relentlessly chasing you and then forcing you into a corner, where a mere torch is all you have to defend yourself with.
- Silent Woods are the epitome of a location that wouldn't look out of place in a horror movie... if the name doesn't already tell you that. Everything about them is disturbing; the environment is horribly dreary, the music is ominous, and life is nearly completely decayed. Almost all of its inhabitants had been turned into lifeless stone. Then there's the thick, drab, bubbling tar pits that you have to get across using platforms and the occasional big bubbles that appear; should you fall into those pits, you get to see Ori hopelessly struggle as they sink and go under before letting out a muffled moan and drowning in a rather horrifying fashion.
- Even worse, these tar pits are present in the section where you control Ku with Ori riding on her back. If you fall into one here, you get to watch Ku desperately flap her wings as she sinks into the tar and drowns with Ori still clinging to her. Look closely enough, and you can even see the panic on Ku's face as she gets pulled under.
- Also, remember Howl, the frighteningly strong wolf-monster that nearly killed you at the start of the game? Just to show how deadly the Silent Woods are, at one point you quite suddenly come across what it strongly implied to be Howl’s corpse. Even Howl was no match for the Silent Woods and Shriek.
- Shriek, big time. Simply put, she is a walking mountain of terror and looks nothing like any of the other known creatures. Her general appearance, such as her skeletal looks and massive wings/arms, is just downright horrifying. And if that wasn't enough, she's extremely dangerous and aggressive, even having no qualms against harming the small and young.
- The part where she appears once Ori and Ku reunite. You have happy music signifying the two's joy... and then there are stomping sounds in the distance, with the music changing appropriately. Soon the scene shows Ori and Ku hiding behind a log, with the shadow and undead glowing eyes of Shriek in the background... staring right towards the viewer as she tilts her head, before moving in the two's direction and thankfully missing them.
- Just the mere fact that Shriek is so bent on "guarding the silence" that she doesn't think twice before trying to kill Ori, and then cornering Ku on a cliff and stomping on her without hesitation. The latter doesn't happen on-screen because it immediately cuts to black just before the stalk comes down, but it does serve to show just how cold, cruel and apathetic Shriek is - especially considering Ku is very clearly not a threat to her, and yet Shriek chooses to come down on her with all her might just because she was reminded of her Dark and Troubled Past.
- Shriek as a child once tried to reach out to three owlets, only to be frightened away by their very furious parents. During the flashback she is visibly terrified, and the game shows us why: from her perspective we see the owls glaring and screeching at her with a red sky behind them, making them look like giant, frightening and hateful monsters, and it is coupled with loud dramatic music. Though it also doubles as a Tearjerker, the way the owls are portrayed in their hostility is rather nightmarish.
- In Wellspring and Luma Pools, your adversary is a giant... thing... with a lot of tentacles. The game credits call it "Stink Spirit". When you first meet it in Wellspring, it grabs Ori and initiates the respective escape sequence after Opher frees Ori from its grasp. It is even more terrifying in Luma Pools than it is in Wellspring as it also displays clear malicious intent, even overtaking Kwolok and using him against you in the escape sequence and following boss fight.
- What makes the Stink Spirit even more disturbing is the fact it bears a certain resemblance to Gumo. The round body, toothy maw, and Creepily Long Arms manage to be charming on Gumo, but this monstrosity makes everything about this appearance unsettling, especially combined with how violently intent it is on attacking Ori. Add in that we don't know how it came to be. Was it a peaceful creature once like Gumo? Or was it born out of the corruption itself? Where did it originally come from? The game gives absolutely no clues to any of these questions.
- During the boss fight, the Stink Spirit will occasionally have Kwolok do a slow, creepy laugh. It's not enough that the laugh is by itself all sorts of haunting and unnerving; it's essentially proof that the Stink Spirit isn't just a thing, it's a sentient thing that gets enjoyment out of controlling Kwolok and tormenting Ori, making the laughs it forces out of Kwolok even creepier than they already are.
- Mouldwood Depths. It teems with Big Creepy-Crawlies, the spikes are composed of trapped thorn cicadas with twitching wings, and some areas are also filled with darkness. Said darkness is dangerous - if Ori winds up in darkness without a light source and cannot get back into a lighted area, an ominous whispering voice starts speaking and the small field of vision around Ori shrinks into nothing before Ori audibly dies. Even worse is that there's no indication of what kills them. Thankfully, the darkness can be combated with the Flash ability once it's acquired, but it uses up energy while it's active; best pray that you don't run out before you can get to a safe zone...
- The boss of Mouldwood Depths is Mora, who is a colossal spider accompanied by what looks like cordyceps fungi growth on her head, legs and back. She introduces herself by slowly crawling from behind where the Eyes of the Forest wisp is kept and then trying to stomp you into the ground, and in a late phase of the boss fight, she also introduces the same darkness that kills you if you don't equip Flash in time (hopefully you have energy to spare!). Just about the only saving grace is that she's Brainwashed and Crazy and returns to her normal kind self once defeated so she at the very least isn't evil and malicious, and even then that doesn't stop her from being completely frightening when she's not her normal kind self.
- Perhaps what makes it all scarier is the implication that the darkness itself is what kills Ori if you don't get to a safe zone in time. You can fight back against most enemies in the game, but until you get Flash, there's no combating the darkness itself.
- Decay itself. Much like in Ori and the Blind Forest it is a deadly force that slowly corrupts the land it overtakes and kills all living things that stick around for too long. However, while in that game it seemed to simply be a force of nature and a counter-balance to life...this game heavily implies it is a sentient and malevolent Eldritch Abomination; upon entering the final area, Seir informs you that Decay is actively resisting you and attempting to thwart your progress.
- At the end of the Windtorn Ruins, once you reunite the wisps and rebirth Seir, you suddenly get attacked and relentlessly chased by a very terrifying creature. Remember the burrowing worms you might've seen in the Windswept Wastes? It's one of those, but titanic in size compared to Ori and it shows its ever lovely Flower Mouth as it roars. Not helping its already monstrous appearance is the ensuing difficulty of the chase sequence, as if to let sink in the idea that one should consider themselves almost certainly dead if they were to be in that situation.
