Horroris one of the most popular genres of video games. It’s understandable why, too. Heart-pounding scenarios, landscapes, and monsters become all the more frightful when combined with the immersion that gaming provides. Perhaps even too frightful.
Not everyone finds joy or excitement from overly scary experiences. Activating your survival instincts to their fullest can be upsetting or overwhelming. But for one reason or another, you might want to play a horror game anyway. Regardless of your reasons, here are some of the best ways to play horror games, whether you have anxiety or just get scared easily.
1Play In A Well-Lit, Comfortable Environment
This is the most common advice you’ll likely find on the topic, and for good reason! Fans of the horror genre like to encourage a game to be played in the dark to further amplify its scare factor.
The opposite is also true. Monsters, murders, and jump scares aren’t as intense when you’re in a well-lit, comfortable environment. Light some scented candles, turn the lights on, and get cozy. Suddenly, a single dark screen doesn’t seem as bad.
2Play A Little Bit At A Time
Like a delicious plate of brownies, video games are meant to be enjoyed. Sure, you COULD down the whole plate in one night. But wouldn’t it feel a lot better if you took your time?
Instead of trying to power through large portions of the game, consider blocking out smaller timeframes each day. Play up to the point where you’re starting to no longer have fun, then leave it for another day. Even 20 or so minutes a day is still progress. Plus, it gives you more time to contemplate your next move.
3Play With Friends
Everything is scarier alone. Whether it’s going to the bank or running from zombies. And the best way to mitigate the fear in both situations is to have a friend or two with you.
When things get a bit much for you, pass it off to the friend, taking turns as you go. The jokes and banter that naturally come with socializing can also really help dissolve any tension a game tries to create.
4Turn Up The Brightness
If horror games are good for any one thing, it’d be for making their environments way too dark. We get why; darkness can aid in creating a scary and uncertain environment. Fortunately for us, almost every game comes with a Brightness setting.
It’s also called the Gamma setting sometimes, and you’ll often be prompted to set it at the start of a new game. Turning this setting up not only helps make the world easier to see and interact with, but it can also help reduce the discomfort of navigating said world. It’s the in-game equivalent of the ‘Well-Lit’ suggestion.
5Change The Difficulty
This option will depend on the kind of game you’re playing. Some subgenres of horror willoffer difficulty options. Choosing the lower difficulty is a perfect way to ease the experience.
While this won’t make the actual game less scary, it will allow a greater degree of leniency for your own gameplay. That way, when you panic and fumble the controls, the game will be more forgiving before harming your character or implementing a game over.
6Check Accessibility Settings
While most folks will associate accessibility settings with things like captions and visibility options, it can also apply to gamers like us. Some games offer various gameplay modifications, like infinite health or max damage. By removing the danger of failure and being punished for moments of panic, you may spend more of your mental willpower on enjoying the game.
Unfortunately, this level of accessibility is much less commonplace in the games industry, so it likely won’t be available for every game. Some games take it above and beyond, though, offering everything fromphobia-friendly gameplayto video and audio modifications.
7Enable Developer Commentary
While not as common as it once was, many games would offer a developer commentary mode. Oftentimes, this would be a separate gameplay mode where audio snippets are intertwined with the game.
They say the best way to not be afraid of something is to understand it. Listening to developers calmly and casually talk about your experience as you’re experiencing it can help you understand the game world while also keeping you from becoming too immersed in the horror.
8Install Some Mods
If you find a particular aspect of a game too scary, whether it’s a monster or the setting, why not change that specific aspect? With modding, you can alter parts of the game to suit your needs. Add a ‘god mode’ option to stay alive, replace the giant spider with an arachnophobic-friendly option, and strengthen your flashlight.
You can also find mods to break the tension, making a once-frightening monster just silly. One example isa mod by jexbo1987, which replaces the footstep sounds of Mr. X in Resident Evil 2 with squeaky duck noises. Whatever you need, odds arethere’s a mod for it.
Unfortunately, this option is only available for PC games.
9Watch A Let’s Play First
A good book is worth reading twice, wouldn’t you say? So why can’t the same apply to a game? If you’re having a hard time playing a horror game and are too scared to continue, why not watch a YouTube video of someone else playing the game?
Going into something blindly is scary, and this can be a convenient way of letting someone else take the lead. This way, you can go back to your game a little wiser about the world and a little braver as a result.
10Have The Wii Shop Channel Music Playing In The Background
As silly as it sounds, this can be one of the best ways to play a horror game if you get scared easily. Music can be a powerful atmospheric tool, setting the mood for any emotion, including fear. By reducing the music volume in the setting and turning up the Wii Shop Channel song, you’re able to offset the horror with something far less frightening.
It doesn’t have to be that specific song, of course; anything cheery, lighthearted, and repeatable would work just as well. Try power ballads and heroic anthems to promote bravery or fierce pop hits to feel stronger. Finding the right tunes can be a game-changer.
