As Lovecraft once put it, “the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown,” which I think perfectly summarizes why cosmic horror stories are so effective. Commonly defined as a subgenre of fiction that derives scares from existential and/or incomprehensible threats, cosmic horror presents us with situations where knowledge isn’t necessarily power and the protagonists can’t always win. And with video games allowing players to virtually experience stories instead of merely observing them, it makes sense that developers frequently borrow from Lovecraftian fiction when attempting to tell deranged yarns.
However, not all cosmic scares are created equal, so we’ve decided to come up with a list celebrating six of the most disturbing moments of cosmic horror in video games. After all, it’s worth remembering that horror gaming has the potential for more than mere jump scares and repetitive zombie killing.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be including specific scares regardless of the overall quality of the game they came from. We’ll also be featuring plenty of spoilers, so keep that in mind before reading ahead.
With that out of the way, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite cosmic frights if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
Now, onto the list…
6. Brain of Mensis Encounter – Bloodborne (2015)
A playable love-letter to Lovecraftian fiction, there’s no discussing interactive cosmic horror without bringing up FromSoft’s iconic Bloodborne. But even in a game chock-full of Eldritch abominations and madness-inducing horrors, one particular moment stands out as an eerie reminder of how helpless the player character is against the incomprehensible nightmares of Yharnam.
Naturally, I’m referring to the first encounter with the Brain of Mensis, a Shoggoth-inspired monster so repulsive that it inflicts players with “frenzy” if you happen to move into its line of sight. While there are objectively scarier encounters in the game (and the fact that you can technically kill the Brain means that it’s not as esoteric as it appears), the idea that merely making eye contact with this thing is enough to drive you mad makes this a great example of cosmic horror.
5. First Photo of “The Frog” – Iron Lung (2022)
Set in a distant future where habitable planets have disappeared and moons are flooding with human blood, the general setting of Iron Lung already verges on cosmic horror as the player character is tasked with navigating a treacherous ocean in the slim hopes of acquiring life-sustaining resources.
That being said, I’d argue that the absolute peak of this aquatic horror experience comes in the form of the low-resolution pictures that help you navigate the bloody trenches of AT-5. More specifically, I’d like to highlight the first time you spot the creepy “Frog” fish lurking in the crimson waters surrounding you. The real horror here doesn’t come from the monster itself – which is basically just an oversized angler fish – but the terrible implication that you’re only seeing a small fraction of what really haunts these waters.
4. Fighting Dagon – Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (2005)
Muddled graphics and janky mechanics may keep Dark Corners of the Earth from being a bona fide masterpiece, but there’s no denying that it’s the most faithful Lovecraft adaptation this side of the H.P. Lovecraft Society’s faux silent film adaptation of Call of Cthulhu. In fact, even though the game tasks you with battling several of the author’s indescribable creations, even some of the combat encounters here are meant to remind you of how small humanity is in the grand scheme of things.
My personal favorite of these existential horrors occurs during an unexpected boss fight against the lord of the Deep Ones himself, Father Dagon. As the kaiju-sized deity lays siege to a coast guard ship, the player is tasked with firing the massive deck guns in the monster’s general direction– with the catch being that looking directly at Dagon is enough to drive our protagonist to suicide, adding an additionally disturbing challenge to an already frightening encounter.
3. Assimilation – Carrion (2021)
Phobia Game Studio’s Carrion may put you in the shoes of a Lovecraftian abomination instead of making you run from one, but that doesn’t mean it’s lacking in cosmic scares. In fact, at the end of your journey as a Shoggoth-like mass of tentacled flesh, players eventually manage to recover enough genetic code to assume the form of a complete human being and escape into a quarantined city.
While the game only hints at the apocalyptic chaos that ensues, this John-Carpenter-esque reveal adds another level of terror as you reflect on the consequences of your rampage as you aided this carnivorous monster in escaping from its captors – with that slowly-dawning dread being the reason why Carrion earns a place on this list.
2. Becoming Trapped in the Dark Place – Alan Wake (2010)
In general, Remedy Entertainment’s Alan Wake is more spooky than legitimately scary, playing with literary horror tropes inspired by the likes of Stephen King and Neil Gaiman. However, this playfulness doesn’t extend to the game’s finale, which sees our author protagonist become trapped in the abstract Dark Place as he’s forced to continue writing indefinitely in order to keep the eldritch forces of Cauldron Lake at bay.
No doubt inspired by Lovecraft’s The Music of Erich Zann, an underrated short story where the titular musician is forced to play bizarre music every night in an effort to protect our reality from otherworldly invaders, this downer ending exemplifies the absolute best of cosmic horror, placing our protagonist in a never-ending battle that he can never truly overcome.
That is, until the sequel comes around…
1. Becoming a Great Soft Jelly Thing – I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (1995)
Harlon Ellison is rightly remembered as one of the greatest speculative fiction writers of his generation, but I’d also argue that the author was a pioneer of adventure gaming, having co-developed an innovative adaptation of his infamous short story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Working alongside Cyberdreams and The Dreamers Guild, Ellison didn’t merely translate his disturbing tale of an AI gone rogue to 90s computers, he actually reworked the entire project into a psychosexual drama with incredibly disturbing imagery and multiple endings.
However, out of the seven possible conclusions, five of them still contain the same nightmarish fate featured in the short story, with the player character being transformed into an immortal “Great Soft Jelly Thing” meant to endure incomprehensible suffering as punishment for helping his fellow humans.
Now that’s cosmic horror.
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