I don’t like jump scares, as I already said, and this means that most of the horror videogames have me rolling my eyes. Every once in a while, however, a genuinely haunting piece of narration occurs and this often happens within a videogame of a different tone. Take the 2009 role-playing game Dragon Age: Origins, a masterpiece of storytelling and worldbuilding. It incorporates many elements of horror, from the darkspawn being some sort of zombie epidemic to the grey wardens who basically curse themselves to try and fight them, from the broodmothers that are the stuff of nightmares and that cheerful moment when you meet a dwarf who cursed her own companions into become broodmothers for the sake of war science. And how do you discover that? Through a poem repeated by her captain and lover, who lost her mind.
First day, they come and catch everyone.
Second day, they beat us and eat some for meat.
Third day, the men are all gnawed on again.
Fourth day, we wait and fear for our fate.
Fifth day, they return and it’s another girl’s turn.
Sixth day, her screams we hear in our dreams.
Seventh day, she grew as in her mouth they spew.
Eighth day, we hated as she is violated.
Ninth day, she grins and devours her kin.
Now she does feast, as she’s become the beast.
Now you lay and wait, for their screams will haunt you in your dreams.
The Abandoned Orphanage however wins in my personal top ten of creepy: children there were massacred during an elven riot in Denerim, but you’d be mistaken to think they have left the place. You explore the site with audio on, following screams and creepy laughter through the dim-lit rooms, and eventually discover that it’s even worse than you thought.
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