Ready Player BOO! The Best Horror Video Game Jumpscares

Talk about twitch(y) gaming! Video games are quite popular for the level of immersion offered to players, whether on a console or a PC. With state-of-the-art headphones, large monitor displays, and gamers’ tendencies to identify with the protagonist character throughout the adventure, there are more complex ways than ever to envision yourself in the story.

Unlucky for us, that goes double for horror titles, which can often end up feeling like a first-person experience in torture, apocalypse survival, and those nightmares where you just can’t seem to run away from the monster fast enough. When a player is successfully immersed through sound, visuals, and gameplay, they’re incredibly easy to manipulate. Cue the jumpscare!

Often accompanied by a loud, discordant sound like a scream, jumpscares typically thrust a frightening face or other visual onto the screen to elicit panic and fear. Sometimes, jumpscares are punishment for failure. Sometimes, they’re made to subvert players’ expectations of being in a “safe” zone. Keep your head on a swivel and suddenly there’s something new in the corner of your vision.

Here, then, are 10 of the most memorable jumpscares in gaming — a true rite of passage for players everywhere, driving up heart rates and breaking pause buttons across generations. They’re best experienced firsthand, so beware spoilers for the following titles:

• BioShock
• Batman: Arkham Knight
• Five Nights at Freddy’s
• Resident Evil
• Silent Hill PT (Demo)
• The Last of Us Part 2
• Alien: Isolation
• Subnautica
• Dead Space
• F.E.A.R.

---

The Dentist (BioShock)

Gamers love to pick up items. In fact, it’s a key part of video game success! However, sometimes interactable objects will trigger events, whether you’re actively stealing items from an RPG’s shopkeeper or the developers just want to mess with you. One moment in the first-person survival horror BioShock gives players an early lesson in distrust.

In the Painless Dental Pavilion of the decaying city of Rapture, your silent protagonist Jack will enter a surgical office that fills with smoke. When it clears, a splicer’s corpse is now lying in the dentist chair. A little further exploration reveals a Speedy Hacker Plasmid, a highly useful, permanent character upgrade, sitting on the dentist’s deck. But upon collecting it, the room fills with smoke again, and when the player turns around to leave the area, a living thuggish splicer dressed as a dentist is standing directly behind you, ready to strike.

The franchise recreates the same type of scare in later title BioShock Infinite, when you turn around to discover a screaming Boy of Silence enemy right in your face.

---

Man-Bat on Halloween (Batman: Arkham Knight)

The Arkham games offer one of the best nerd wish fulfillments in a long time — become the Batman. These action titles put you in control of the Dark Knight himself as you stop his most famous foes and protect Gotham from The Joker’s madness, among others. But with an expansive world under Bruce Wayne’s watchful eye, the developers had to fill every nook and cranny with things for the detective to discover.

In Batman: Arkham Knight, there’s a random chance to encounter Man-Bat in a totally terrifying manner. While gliding and grappling through the city skyline in the Miagani Island region of Gotham, you may try to climb up a roof ledge, only to be met with Man-Bat shrieking in your face before swiping at you and then flying away. The fact that Batman doesn’t drop from the ledge is a testament to his fortitude (but if you dropped the controller, there’s no judgement!).

This scare triggers a mission called Creature of the Night, meaning you have to go track down poor Kirk Langstrom. A later Man-Bat scare can be triggered if your console or computer is set to Halloween (October 31) after completing the first mission — you can discover that he actually escaped from prison after being captured.

---

The Original Animatronics (Five Nights at Freddy’s)

Say what you will about the explosive growth and complicated lore of this franchise, but there’s no denying the original Five Nights at Freddy’s was a gaming sensation that changed the modern horror landscape. Thanks to its myriad scares, it became online streaming fodder, as frightened audiences who didn’t want to play eagerly observed gamers who were simply gluttons for pizzeria punishment.

Each of the animatronics featured in the first Five Night’s at Freddy’s game each operated somewhat differently in gameplay, but all were designed to torment the players. Bonnie is the first to activate on Night 1, haunting you from from the West Hall. If you don’t check Foxy’s camera enough, he’ll come tearing down the hallway to get you. Freddy hides in shadows and waits for the player to run out of power from mismanaging their resources. Chica uses the East Hall corridors and is known for waiting far longer than the other animatronics outside the security door. Failure to properly repel any of these animatronics will result in a jumpscare that ends your game.

While the gameplay may have appeared simple at first, the player’s first-person POV, frantic screen-reading, and need to combat multiple killer pizzeria mascots made a smash-hit formula of scares that has spun off into numerous games, books, a feature film (with an upcoming sequel), and even a haunted house attraction at Universal Studios’ annual Halloween Horror Nights event.

---

The Zombie Dog (Resident Evil)

A game doesn’t have to have the highest graphical resolution and biggest orchestral soundtrack to deliver efficient scares. The 1996 Resident Evil is proof of this. Subtle elements like fixed camera angles make for an effective way to disorient players. Backtracking through familiar areas is also a staple of this franchise. Oh yeah, and the zombies and bioweapons. Mix that all together and you’ve got one of the most iconic early gaming jumpscares.

This scare can happen whether you’re playing as Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine. As you proceed through one of the game’s many hallways, eventually you will reach a point at which zombie dogs burst through the windows you’ve just passed by. The fixed camera angle ensures maximum terror as the dog feels “closer” to you the viewer. And once the mutant mutts are inside, they go sprinting at your character, forcing you to react quickly.

There’s never really been a “calm and normal” introduction to any type of enemy in the Resident Evil series, but this one truly traumatized a generation of gamers. And even though seasoned players were expecting it in the remake, it wasn’t any more reassuring to see more detailed demon dogs chasing you through a creepy old mansion.

---

Lisa Always Behind You (Silent Hill P.T.)

P.T. (short for playable teaser) was released as a demo for a Silent Hill game that never was — but that didn’t stop it from terrifying the masses. From the mind of Hideo Kojima (the man behind the brain-bending Death Stranding), this short but effective snippet introduced a modern revolution for looping gameplay. In the demo, players are forced down a household hallway over and over, with subtle, supernatural details changing on each subsequent trip.

Lisa (unrelated to nurse Lisa Garland from the earlier SH installments) was a woman murdered by her husband, whose spirit haunts the hall the demo takes place in. Signs of her murder are revealed through the loop, including evidence that she was stabbed to death while pregnant and had one eye gouged out. You can often hear her breathing and see shadows twitching on the walls. And if that weren’t enough, there is a chance that Lisa will catch you if you turn the camera around to look behind you.

With her twitching, vomit-stained face and eerie breathing, Lisa’s jumpscare is a cherry on top of an I-scream sundae for this dreadfully disturbing teaser. Players even later discovered that when the camera is removed from its fixed position (via developer hacks), Lisa is actually always behind you as you walk.

Sadly, when the full game of Silent Hills was canceled, P.T. was made near-impossible to keep on your game system. It was removed from digital stores, and certain online updates could invalidate it in your playable library. Despite this, it is still considered one of the greatest modern horror games of all time.

---

The Workbench (The Last of Us Part 2)

There is an unspoken agreement between players and game developers that in 99% of titles, there are safe areas. Many titles often include “safe rooms” or other areas of pause where the player can manage their inventory, consider next moves, and try to get their heart rate back under control. And for many games, interacting with a crafting menu, workbench, or other inventory system pauses the action. The Last of Us Part 2 chose violence, though, and threw that treaty out the window for one notable jumpscare.

While in control of Ellie, players can find a workbench in an apartment building during the Day 2 section. Here, the protagonist can typically upgrade weapons, but upon doing so, players will hear rapid footsteps and suddenly be ambushed out of the upgrade screen by a human enemy. This forces the player into a quick time event (or QTE) and close-range fight (without whatever cool upgrades you surely thought you were getting). The developers designed this ambush to emphasize Ellie’s loneliness (since Dina isn’t here and could have watched her back) and to remind players they are never truly safe in the game world.

TLOU isn’t the first franchise to ever do this — Resident Evil has also, on occasion, allowed its stalker villains like Nemesis to enter a room with a typewriter save point. These rooms have been understood to be safe (Mr. X in RE2 notably could not enter any rooms with typewriters). However, TLOU‘s decision to subvert this expectation of safety left gamers reluctant to rest too long in any supposedly protected space.

---

Every Xenomorph Attack (Alien: Isolation)

If you thought regular video game enemies were terrifying, you haven’t seen anything yet! The frequently praised Alien: Isolation is an exercise in torture (and yet we can’t stop playing it). The game puts players in the shoes of Amanda Ripley, Ellen’s daughter, aboard the space station Sevastopol. Made to emulate the feeling of the original Alien film, this game is basically one long stealth segment. Oh, and there’s a Xenomorph stalking you every step of the way. And it really is the perfect organism for terror.

What makes the Xenomorph’s jumpscares so devastating is that no two are exactly the same. This is thanks to a complex two-brained game AI (or artificial intelligence, a broad set of algorithms that often react to player input and determine enemy behavior and environmental resources) — one element called the Director and one called the Alien. The Director AI always knows where the player is located in the game world. However, this information is kept secret from the Alien AI, which is driven by sensors and hunting behaviors. Periodically, the Director will give the Alien hints about where you are, but will never fully disclose your location. The Alien has to figure that out for itself. And when it does, it’s game over, man!

This leads to unpredictable, tense gameplay where the Alien can learn your hiding spots and patterns if you play too repetitively. And you will get jumpscared by it many, many times. You’ll get knocked down, dragged through vents, stabbed with its tail, and, of course, attacked by its second jaws. It’s only a matter of when, not if, it will find you. Good luck, have fun!

---

The Reaper Leviathan (Subnautica)

Thalassophobia is the fear of deep, vast bodies of water. Submechanophobia is fear of manmade objects or machinery submerged in water. Megalohydrothalassophobia is a fear of giant objects or creatures underwater. If any of these three things make your skin crawl, Subnautica is already going to be a bad time. However, despite its inclusion on this list, the title is actually not a horror game. It’s considered an adventure and survival game, centered around detailed oceanic exploration.

Try telling that to anyone who has had an encounter with a Reaper Leviathan, though. This fictional fauna isn’t even the largest beast you’ll discover in Subnautica, but it’s one of the most memorable — probably because it is known for aggressively grabbing your seamoth (a small submersible you’ll use for exploration) while you are helpless to stop it. The Reaper Leviathan will roar at you before potentially smashing and destroying your best protection, leaving you to swim for safety … unless it catches you again.

Many peaceful underwater trips have been ruined by Reaper Leviathans. Their multiple eyes, head horns, and massive mandibles make them more like something out of Alien than Finding Nemo. Even in the game’s creative mode, with survival elements removed, these creatures will still jumpscare you whether you’re in a submersible or just a dive suit. We’ll stick to the shallow end, thanks.

---

Elevator Necromorph (Dead Space)

The sci-fi horror world of Dead Space is filled with terrifying encounters aboard eerie, derelict spaceships like the USG Ishimura. The franchise is known for its disgusting enemies known as Necromorphs, composed of reanimated dead tissue genetically altered by an infection. This results in hulking flesh monsters of impossible shapes and proportions shambling towards protagonist Isaac Clarke as he tries to dismember these nigh-unkillable creatures.

The tension starts early and often, though, because not 10 minutes into the game’s introduction, the Ishimura is overrun by Necromorphs while the player still has no weapons. This begins a chase scene that ends in an elevator. Just as you think Isaac is safe from the infested halls, a few moments of relative calm pass before a Necromorph with blades for hands pries open the heavy doors, about to lunge at you.

Thankfully, the elevator doors slam back shut and bisect the beast, but this is yet another early gaming lesson in, “Don’t get too comfortable anywhere, you’ll never be safe.” Unfortunately, you won’t be able to avoid Necromorphs, or even elevators, for the rest of your playthrough (which can average about 15 hours).

---

The Ladder (F.E.A.R.)

As other entries on this list have covered, there are many areas in video games that are meant to be “safe,” including elevators, ladders, and small crawl spaces. Many of these sequences are used to disguise map loading times or give the player a brief reprieve for the moment. But F.E.A.R. (which stands for First Encounter Assault Recon) delivered a seamless scare from the game’s supernatural antagonist.

You play as Point Man, an agent tasked with investigating paranormal phenomena, including a psychic girl named Alma Wade. Alma torments the player and their allies as revenge for the Armacham Technology Corporation conducting inhumane experiments on her in an attempt to make money off her powers. At one point in your journey, you will encounter a ladder to climb down, and as Point Man’s view swings around, Alma is suddenly standing on the platform where you just were. The lights flicker and a sharp sound can be heard before she fades into ash.

This infamous moment is not only scary and unexpected, but it occurs very soon after another encounter with Alma, leaving the player on edge (or falling off the edge — seriously, who wouldn’t let go of that ladder after seeing that?).

---

How many of these jumpscares have you experienced for yourself? Did we miss any other pulse-pounding polygonal panic?

Share your thoughts (and traumatic gaming memories) at side.show/geekgroup or in the Sideshow Social Network. And as always, don’t forget to Let Your Geek Sideshow!