Summary
There are countless video games out there that have dabbled in horror and the macabre, not to mention deep within psychologically twisted territories. A compelling and captivating soundtrack is often a key component of this, too. After all, to suddenly and unexpectedly hear the sounds of melancholic choirs, off-key melodies, disturbing samples, and the like is bound to send chills down the spines of almost any player out there.
For those who think they can handle listening tounsettling and creepy musicwhile progressing through a video game, there are plenty of titles to choose from.
10"Slaughterhouse" - Hitman: Contracts
Hitman: Contractstook the stealth-action series in a much darker direction than ever before. In fact, no other game has taken it this far. Jesper Kyd paired it up with an engrossing, oppressive listen, with the 6-minute track “Slaughterhouse.” It sounds like paranoia-incarnate and wouldsend almost any would-be assassin insane, barring 47 himself.
Very slowly, the instrumentation gradually thickens, along with the unsettling ambiance. The synths, bass, and gradual implementation of drums begin to gel into one another, almost as if the entire song is resembling sanity on the brink of crashing and falling apart. Four-and-a-half minutes in, the song stops, and the distorted sound of a squeaky door (that sounds more like a pain-filled scream) blares out before the rest of the track continues.
9"SCHIZOPHRENIA" - Song Of Saya
From the perspective of Sakisaka Fuminori, the world around him is made up of rotten flesh and skin. Everything smells disgusting, words sound like burbling sludge, and the opening track to thehorrifying visual novelSong Of Saya, “SCHIZOPHRENIA,” perfectly encapsulates his damaged view of the world.
The guitar that plays is wrapped with so much compression that it cuts fiercely, and the bass imposes itself harshly alongside. After a brief solo where notes are strummed almost with no sense of rhythm or direction, the track picks up again with added drums and percussion. It all sounds unnatural and obscene - perfect for creeping players out from the very first minute.
Dying in a co-op game likeLeft 4 Deadwasn’t just bad for the surviving teammates who are left to fight zombies for themselves. “Left 4 Death” plays when a player dies and while the camera focuses on their corpse.
After the first few notes kick in at full force, a haunting choir sings to the sound of a humming synth in the background. Soon enough, a keyboard plays along, which really amps up how impactful dying is in the game… until the dead person is rescued from a nearby closet 100 feet away, that is. Still, the song remains as heart-clutching as ever each time it plays.
7"Intro" - POSTAL & POSTAL Redux
POSTAL, as a series,wasn’t always tongue-in-cheek and ridiculous. It started off in 1997 as a very disturbing and controversial top-down shooter that had a crazed gunman blasting down hostiles across the town of Paradise. It was remade almost 20 years later inPOSTAL Redux.
It’s difficult to pick out which of the menu tracks are scarier, to be perfectly honest. The original by Christian Salyer sounds more metallic, likely compressed to save memory, but that makes it all the more unnerving. In the remake, the echoing voices are mixed in with more modern instrumentation by Takumi Sekiguchi Sloan, and the end result sounds monstrous. Either way, both are nightmarish.
6"Lavender Town" - Pokemon Red & Blue
An all-time classic that just had to be mentioned in this list, the theme of Lavender Town was a stark contrast to the other songs in the first-generationPokemongames. After all, a lot of the tunes were happy, adventurous, and appropriately dramatic when in a battle. But the music that plays in this haunted town just feels off.
The opening sounds hauntingly melodic, while the other instruments layered atop one another seem to give the impression that it’s trying so hard to sound homely, even in the state that the player finds it in.
5"Prayer To Shin’nai (Distorted)" - Raging Loop
There’s a lot of dying in the supernatural murder-mystery visual novelRaging Loop, and it contains numerous scenes where the player discovers the handiwork of werewolves that come into a local village and kill its inhabitants, as part of an ancient ritual.
Based on the ‘Prayer to Shin’nai’ that crops up repeatedly in the game, which sounds like an off-kilter nursery rhyme, the pseudo-choirs sing along to the tune while warbling synths grind and churn around in a chaotic but unobtrusive fashion. It doesn’t gel together at all, which makes many of the scenes wherein this track plays very impactful, not to mention extremely frightening.
“The Hall Of Souls” (or just “Track 1,” as these names were made by fans and were used onthe officialQuakevinyl release) plays during the introduction, where the player chooses the difficulty and chapter, but also a number of different levels as well. And, man, does it crank up the fear factor from the very first moment?
There are distorted guitar strums that screech louder and louder, while the sharpish percussions tap alongside the single bass note that churns along throughout. All the while, layers upon layers of backmasked voices play in the background. It’s enough to make anyone feel like the song is literally tapping at one’s earbones with needles. Trent Reznor is a genius.
Aubrey Hodges’ composition for the PlayStation version ofDOOMwas vastly different from the original. When he was tasked with composing music for some of thelevels set in Hell, instead of catchy, jaunty rhythms, he added the sounds of crying babies. No, really.
The instrumentation is heavy on the bass, and each note bleeds into the other. All the while, the distorted, pitch-shifted sounds of babies crying can be heard throughout, almost like they’ve fallen out of Limbo and landed in damnation. The whole thing is twisted beyond reason and such an emotive listen.
Yes, it’s the theme from THATDoki Doki Literature Club!scene. The infamous and sudden twist in what seemed like acutesy visual novelthat gradually rears its head into dark territories surrounding mental illness. And then… it happens.
The song that plays during the scene is incredibly scary. At first, it tries to churn out the leitmotif of the game along with some gloomy synths, only to completely glitch out while a pseudo-choir slowly sings along. The leitmotif reappears, plodding along like a broken music box going out-of-tune, as the player is left to comprehend what just happened.
One of the most disturbing boss battles of the nineties comes with a selection of equally as creepy themes. Everything about the tunes that play during theEarthBoundbattle against Giygas feels so nasty and unsettling and is enough to really get under the listener’s skin. Notes sound out-of-place and scattered everywhere while the bass just blasts its way through like rapid footsteps. All the while, glitchy noises and incomprehensible growls chime out.
From eerie winds to a jumble of frightening notes, followed by a soothing keyboard composition and a relaxing lullaby that ends with a total breakdown and ear-grating static sounds, there’s just nothing that could compare to how creepy it is. It’s no wonder theEarthboundseries is held in such high regard.
