Making a list of the best scary villains in gaming is tough, as there are so many to choose from. Just this year alone, the survival horror genre is making a triumphant comeback with monsters threatening to tear us apart in the Dead Space remake, The Callisto Protocol, the Silent Hill 2 remake, and the revamped Resident Evil 4 through the holiday season. The unsettling atmosphere, the tight corridors, the claustrophobic camera angles, the blinking lights (or no lights at all), the foreboding footsteps and skittering of enemies you can’t see — what’s not to like get terrified about?
To make this list, a monster being scary alone isn’t enough. It has to leave such psychological trauma that it fuels nightmares for years. You know, the kind of monster that scars you so deeply that you bury the memory until something mentions it (like this list).
10. ReDead (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time)
The slow, shambling ReDeads appear in multiple Zelda games, but the ones in Ocarina of Time are still the creepiest. Maybe it’s their strange wooden-coffin faces, their hollow eyes, their tightly-wound teeth, or their polygonal mess of a body. But once they wrap their scraggly undead limbs around you, you learn never to get close again. Because one squeeze is already one too many.
9. Alcina Dimitrescu (Resident Evil Village)
She may be a new villain, but she’s been alive since 1914. Maybe longer. As the elegant Mistress of Castle Dimitrescu, Lady D stands over nine feet tall and can easily step on you. (Though according to the memes, some people want that.)
8. Xenomorph (Alien Isolation)
If you weren’t already scarred by the Xenomorphs from the iconic Alien movies, facing the ones in Alien Isolation will do the trick. You need to stay as cautious as possible or it will have no trouble grabbing you from a hole, sinking its inner jaw into your face, or burrowing through your chest from behind. Yikes!
7. The Witch (Left 4 Dead)
Whatever you do, don’t startle The Witch. Don’t shine a light. Don’t stand too close. Don’t mind her crying. Don’t talk too much. Otherwise, you’ll…. oop, I’m dead.
6. Iron Maiden (Resident Evil 4)
As if the shambling, regenerating Regeneradores weren’t enough, the Iron Maiden variant generates spikes on its pale, necrepid skin. Not only do they crawl faster, but they can stretch their limbs, grab you, and send you hurling towards its spikes. Well, that’s not very nice.
5. Lisa (P.T.)
P.T. might have been just a short demo, but it lives on as a legend from Hideo Kojima. (I will never delete it from my PS3.) Lisa is a truly terrifying ghost with her head twitches, bloody dress, missing eye, and persistent smile. There’s nothing you can do about her, either. If you see her, she’ll spook you, possess you, or kill you on the spot.
4. The Twin Victims (Silent Hill 4: The Room)
The Twin Victims are perhaps the most unnerving Silent Hill monster of them all. Also known as Doublehead, this seven feet-tall monstrosity appears out of nowhere and just points at you. Two creepy baby heads accusing you from afar. *shudders*
3. Kirby (Kirby, Super Smash Bros.)
Alright, just think about this one. Kirby’s certainly not a villain, but he is indeed a monster — a happy, angry blob of pink that can swallow anything and everything into its gullet with the sucking power of a small cyclone. And on top of that, Kirby can steal your essence (or something?), spit you out, and duplicate you. Yeah, no thank you. Stay away, please.
2. Pyramid Head (Silent Hill 2)
Lumbering with the slow but inevitable pace of death itself, Pyramid Head embodies all the guilt and torment brewing inside Silent Hill 2’s protagonist, James Sunderland. As a hulking executioner, he hides his face beneath his signature helm and drags a greatsword that scrapes against the floor. Created from James’s delusions and desire for self-punishment, Pyramid Head serves as a reminder that the greatest monsters can be the ones you make yourself.
1. Giygas (Earthbound / Mother 2)
Nondescript and formless, Giygas is the embodiment of evil. Your party knows little of what it is throughout the game, but you know that it is the final boss the entire time. Once you face its formless body, it becomes a screen of red wave distortion that is so alien that its attacks cannot be grasped. Some even theorize this boss fight is a metaphor for a psychic alien abortion. Whether that’s true or not, Giygas is a cosmic horror that leaves a mark on anyone who faces him.
