My Top 6 Video Game Characters that Frightened My Nights

Have you ever thrown your controller due to a jump scare? Or decided to stop playing a certain horror game because it was to scary for you?

Well, horror video games can be really fun to play, especially if you are looking for something that would give you suspense and thrill, but every once in a while we would come across a game or character that gets stuck in our mind and may even appear in our nightmares. So for this Halloween, I am listing down the video game characters that succeeded in achieving what they were made for, scaring the crap out of me.

Here are the top six video game characters that frightened my nights:

6. Nemesis
Video Game: Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

Alright. I am starting my list with probably the most iconic Resident Evil villain. Nemesis, also known as The Pursuer, is the main antagonist in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis that hunted Jill Valentine down and almost stopped her last escape attempt from the nightmares of Raccoon City. This monster is a bio-organic weapon created by Umbrella Europe and was sent to Raccoon City during the zombie outbreak. He is relentless and seemingly indestructible, and he will stop at nothing until he completes his mission, eliminating the remaining S.T.A.R.S. members.

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is one of my all time favorite video games, and I first played it when I was around six years old, so when I was a little kid, I had this love-fear approach for Nemesis. I love the game and I love nemesis as the character, but hearing that monster growl “Staaarrrsss!” used to really send chills down my spine. I used to imagine myself being in a Resident Evil game, in the center of Raccoon city, and having myself chased by this hulking monster carrying a rocket launcher in a tight alleyway, just pure nightmare. But now, whenever I see Nemesis again, such as playing the remake, it was like being reunited with an old friend.

5. Slender Man

Video Game: Slender: The Eight Pages

Slender Man is a creepypasta character that stalks and abducts his victims. He is a slim and very tall humanoid entity that wears a black suit, and has a head but no facial features. He is the main antagonist in Slender: The Eight Pages as he terrorizes the player and stops them from collecting all eight pages.

I believe that I played Slender: The Eight Pages once back in college, and decided just to stick to watching let’s play videos of it on YouTube. My fear is not more on the character itself, but the mark and idea that this enigmatic entity left on my mind, and it was being placed in a similar situation and being helpless and alone just like the character we are controlling in the game, such as walking alone on a dark street, being alone in an empty classroom, or just plainly being alone at night. It was difficult not to create this wild imagination after playing the game that something sinister, like Slender Man, lurks and stalks you from the shadows.

4. Death

Video Game: Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams

Death is the main boss in the second level of Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams. He is encountered by Cotton at the graveyard, and will attack Cotton using his detachable head and arms, as well as some fireballs and a couple of weird things that come out of his torso.

Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams is one my early introductions to video games. I first played this game when I was around four or five years old, and I enjoyed it so much, but I remember, I was a little boy that time, so even though the character’s design was cartoonish, it still gave me the creeps after all the lights were off and and it was time to drift away to dreamland. I used to have an image in my head that this version of Death is just outside our room and detaching his hands and head from his body getting ready to take me away. Fun times.

3. Turning Around Zombie
Video Game: Resident Evil

Our very first zombie encounter in Resident Evil. The Turning Around Zombie is what introduce us to the horror of the whole franchise. He is encountered by either Jill Valentine or Chris Redfield, depending on which character the player chooses, at a hallway near the dining hall in the Spencer Mansion, munching on the pitiful corpse of their fellow S.T.A.R.S. member Kenneth Sullivan.

Being a little kid playing Resident Evil for the very first time, I got the image of that zombie stuck in my mind, I believe that I was around the age of five or six that time when I first played it. It was truly a scary experience for me. Even though I had anticipated that it would be something horrific, it was still able to inject some fear factor into me. There was just something about seeing that monster devouring another corpse, and then a severed head falling on the floor, then the zombie’s head slowly turns and we would see half of its face staring dead right at us, about to make us his next meal. That scene was so terrifying for me all those years ago that I used to have a bit of a fear of entering a room, and afraid that I would witness the same zombie just munching on someone on the floor and then turning his attention to me.

2. Every Ghost from Fatal Frame III: The Tormented
Video Game: Fatal Frame III: The Tormented

Fatal Frame III: The Tormented is the third installment of the series. It is a survival horror game that is set in an old Japanese manor house. The game will have you use a paranormal camera to take photos of various ghosts as well as using it as a weapon to fight against them.

Fatal Frame III: The Tormented is the only game that I had ever played from its series, hence why it’s the one that made it into this list. I couldn’t pick one entity from this game, because almost all of them are straight up horrific nightmares, so I am just gonna have all the freaking ghosts from this game into my list.

Playing this game scared the crap out of me so much, as I really find the Asian horror genre really frightening. I got so scared that I once unintentionally threw my controller because of a jump scare from this game. This game had me wary of taking photos because who knows what ghastly being I might capture in camera.

Honorable Mention: Regan MacNeil
Video Game: The Maze

The Maze is a scary prank game that became an internet trend in the early 2000s. It has three levels and features the terrifying and haunting face of Regan MacNeil from the 1973 classic horror film The Exorcist, which will appear at the end of Level 3.

This prank game had me scared of being alone in a room for at least a whole week, but the reason why it’s not on the list is because of the origin of the character. Regan MacNeil is technically from a horror film, and it was not like they made a version of her in the game, but they literally just had a still image of her possessed face from the film flashed on the screen along with a screaming sound that will definitely wake up your whole body system. Still, it is one of my scariest video game experience, being jump scare by that haunting face.

1. Lisa
Video Game: P.T.

Lisa is a malevolent ghost that appears in the first-person psychological horror game P.T., a playable teaser for the cancelled horror game Silent Hills, which many fans consider as the scariest horror video game ever made. She was murdered by her husband which led her to haunt the never-ending hallway that the player has to traverse through. She stalks the player and gradually becomes more violent and more aggressive the more the player loops through the hallway.

When I started writing this list, I had Lisa on the number 2 spot, but the more I I thought about her, the more I got disturbed by her image that I was finding myself checking around the room and looking at the reflection of my screen to reassure myself that she won’t be there.

A dark and eerie hallway can be nerve-racking enough by itself, so the idea of having a sinister entity, such as Lisa, follows you through a hallway and being put in that situation would definitely make me lose my mind. The game even became creepier than it already was when someone hacked the game and viewed it from a fixed angle, which revealed that Lisa has always been following and is just right behind the player for the entirety of the game. Her frightening appearance, gruesome backstory, and the way she messes with the player will forever be one of the main reasons why empty hallways will always send chills down my spine.

So this is my list of horror video game characters that frightened my nights. Which video game characters scared you of the most?