7 Most Unsettling Things Found in Open World Games

Open world games let you go anywhere and do anything, but all that space and freedom to explore brings with it a darker side: creepy, scary or unsettling secrets, hidden in corners of the world that most players will simply breeze past, never knowing of the horrors that lurk just off the critical path. See for yourself with these 7 most unsettling secrets in open world games, and subscribe for more videos from Outside Xbox!

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[aperson]

What I always found a disturbing detail in Fallout 4 wasn't a single thing, but rather the amount of skeletons you find next to toilets - people who survived the initial nuclear blasts, only to die from radiation sickness, vomiting their insides up. Thanks for that lovely little detail, Bethesda!

[Formoka]

I actually find Pickman least unsettling. The man was possessed by an Eldritch horror and still maintained enough of a moral compass to only target and kill the people who hurt civilians. Considering how scrambled your brains would be with an indescribable horror living in them, his restraint is freaking steel. Honestly the sandwich is scarier.

[brghtfll]

With the AC Valhalla one, you can actually notice that there are cracks in the earth around the area and gasses coming out of them, which you can burn away using a torch. It's a subtle way of telling you that the gasses are causing hallucinations.

[stashmerkin]

Pickman in FO4 is a direct H.P. Lovecraft reference. Pickman's Model is one of his lesser known stories and is also about an unsettling artist.

[docette]

I think at this point it would be more of a surprise to stumble across an isolated family or tiny village in an open world game. . .and have it NOT be full of cannibals. Like, these are just people who have carved out a life in a rather remote spot and are genuinely just friendly to visitors because they don't see people much. The player would be SO TENSE waiting for that other shoe to drop for the rest of the game. XD

[chrisball]

The stone circle mystery in AC Valhalla is actually based on folklore. There are several stone circles in England (e.g. Long Meg and her Daughters in Cumbria and the Rollright Stones on the Oxfordshire/Warwickshire border) that are said to be uncountable, and myths about standing stones being people petrified by evil spirits or a curse are common.

[LtBasil]

The reaper leviathan skeleton down in the inactive lava zone from Subnautica always disturbed me. Up to that point in the game, reaper leviathans have been the most terrifying creatures that you've seen across the entire map (aside from void leviathans, potentially). They can kill you in one hit, destroy your seamoth in three hits, and if they spot you, will pursue you relentlessly. They hunt by echolocation, not sight, so turning off your lights won't protect you like it would with most of the other predators, and they have no bioluminescence and thus can sneak up on you easily. And then you find a skeleton of one about 1200 or so meters down. If you scan said skeleton, your PDA will inform that the reaper was eaten. The biggest, scariest, most aggressive predator in the ocean that has been hounding you ever since you first crashed, got EATEN. By something bigger.

And then the sea dragon shows up.

[grimmscuriosities]

Ah, yes. Haunted stones, ghosts, Truly the most terrifying assortment of things.

[WildfireMagni]

The giant sandwich just screams 'we don't know who put that there but if we move it the game falls apart' to me.

[pedroportillo]

The “Gary” vault in Fallout 3 was horrifying! It so simple, yet so scary! Just a destroyed vault, with all the inhabitants being cloned Garys!!!

[Sunprism]

I was once driving down the train tracks in GTA Online, when I noticed something by the warehouses and had to stop to check it out. Two NPCs, women in medical scrubs and big aprons, covered in blood...Both smoking cigarettes outside a warehouse door. The warehouse itself had no interior, couldn't enter it...Just two calm nurses, covered in blood, outside a locked warehouse.

[ASLTheatre]

When you mentioned Halo I thought you were going to talk about the crazed Flood survivor you meet just before encountering the Flood. What you added really surprised me.

[inevitabletraitor]

I feel like the entirety of “Outer Wilds” could qualify as an unsettling mystery, but following the quantum stones gets especially spooky when you realize the only way to progress is to turn off your flashlight, plunging into complete darkness and quantum flux.

[Lark]

Lot's of crazy stuff in Cyberpunk 2077 too. I don't remember the details, but there was a part out side of the city where you could find find a dead man out side of a shelter and behind a locked door there was a man and a woman. Turns out this crazy guy kidnapped this woman in order to "protect her." He later kidnapped a young man to keep her company so she wouldn't be so sad. The man had a heart attack and died so his prisoners starved to death.

[TheRealCodeBlack]

These are becoming a real mainstay for the open world genre. I can't wait for Star Wars: Outlaws to have the player discover some kind of ancient Sith torture chamber or take a detour into the Screaming Citadel or any number of horrifying things brimming under the surface of the Star Wars universe.

[Dradeeus]

I remember Valhalla having quite a number of them. Areas where a number of people are hanging silently from a large dead tree, some creepy liminal abandoned locations, and the areas that have spooky filters/sounds until you destroy an evil totem or something.

[TransGamerNerd]

There's a cannibal couple in Witcher 3 too. They're in the village of Erde which was added as part of Hearts of Stone

[philiphunn]

Pickman’s knife is excellent in the early game, until you can go double-turbo-Lovecraft with the Kremvh’s Tooth dagger.

[modelmajorpita]

In a sewer near Diamond City in Fallout 4 there is a cave where a pre-war serial killer made art out of his victims because they did that twice in one game.

[zacharysmith]

Two lists within 24 hours?! You spoil me Oxbox! 😌