10 Scariest Video Game Planets
With courage, to return to the spaceship and leave these hellish planets behind.
There is space. It’s a place with a lot of options, but also a lot of scary things that could happen. You can go to the final frontier in games like Starfield and Dead Space, but you can find strange and scary new planets in other types of fiction as well. In all kinds of genres, there are new, scary places.
The following is a list of some of the scariest planets we’ve seen in video games. There is a lot of dangerous wildlife to run away from in some of these. Others are a lot more lonely, but they make up for it with a lot of creepy sounds and images.
Earth – Pikmin Series
Pikmin is a cute game, but don’t miss the scary things that aren’t said. The whole game is controlled by a guy that’s about the size of a pill bottle. His job is to guide Pikmin to the next goal while trying not to lose too many. For something that big, almost everything is scary. There are many things that could hurt you or your Pikmin.
Not only that. The overt product placement in Pikmin 2 may be tacky, but it tells us something important: this planet has always been Earth. Which brings up the question of what went on.
Eden-6 – Borderlands
At first view, Eden-6 doesn’t look like it would be very scary. It is owned by the Jakobs arms company, which gets a lot of its wood from there. Of course, they’re a shady company, but what else do you expect?
“A lot” is the answer. What this statement doesn’t say is that most of Eden-6 is made up of scary swamps that are worse than most of Florida. There are also dinosaurs that are after you, which is both cool and scary. In general, if this place existed, we wouldn’t suggest that you go there.
Mars – Yume Nikki
Yume Nikki is a weird dream come true. It’s not scary enough to make your heart race, but it makes you feel uneasy long after you remove yourself from the computer. A spaceship with only one color and a man playing the piano is one of the most frightening parts of the game.
If you talk to him, the ship will crash-land on Mars. There is no one else on this sad, empty planet except for your thoughts. It feels like there is a lot of pressure in the air. You’re sure that some unknown horror is waiting ahead, and you can’t stop being scared.
The Pirate Homeworld – Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
The space pirates have been the bad guys in the Metaroid games since the beginning, and they’re a pretty varied group. Some of them look like weird insect-like people, some like dragons, and some look like big brains. The homeworld shown in Metroid Prime 3 is said to be just one of many planets they have, but it’s hard to imagine what could live there.
That’s because the whole planet is a hellish, empty wasteland. Acid rain falls from the sky all the time, and space pirates still live and work here even though the planet is dying.
The Ghost Ship Cave Planet – Super Mario Galaxy
There are a lot of different ideas about what a “planet” is in Super Mario Galaxy. How about a ghost ship that floats in space? What’s the harm? For a Mario game, this place is surprisingly scary. The level is filled with scary music. The underwater scenes are also scary because they keep getting darker and more dangerous, and there is a real chance of drowning.
Plus, there’s a huge ghost ship full of Boos that takes up a lot of the planet. Some parts of the place feel like they belong in Luigi’s Mansion instead of a main Mario game.
Ripple Star – Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Kirby 64 is a scary story set in space. Kirby has unimaginable cosmic power, and in this game he faces Dark Matter, an eldritch god who shapes the world in bad ways. The next-to-last level of the game is Ripple Star. Without Kirby, the planet is doomed because Dark Matter has infected almost everyone there.
The pictures are too sweet, but the music and story keep things tight. If you get the normal ending, you fight Miracle Matter, who looks more like an angel from the Bible than a Kirby figure. And everyone is still mind-controlled unless you find out the real finish.
4546B – Subnautica
In real life, we still don’t know a lot about the horrible things that live in the ocean. Most of Subnautica is based on fear of the unknown. You explore the oceans of a faraway alien planet. People who are afraid of the deep might not enjoy this game, but the rest of us a fun journey through the dangerous deep.
In Subnautica, 4546B is home to many strange people. Some of them look like more common deep-sea creatures, while others are completely out of this world. All of these things add to the magic and horror of the game, mostly horror.
Dark Bramble – Outer Wilds
With Dark Bramble from Outer Wilds, we’re continuing our mission to make everyone afraid of water. Huge, scary anglerfish live in the water around this planet. They are the only animals in Spacebar Clicker that will actively try to kill you. They’re a lot bigger than the main character, but they look just as scary as their real-life peers, who are much smaller.
It doesn’t get much better on other planets. Most of it is in bad shape and is being taken over by plants. In Dark Bramble, the mood is ominous and never lets up, which makes it unbelievably creepy.
Tau Volantis – Dead Space 3
This list frequently includes ruined, abandoned planets, but Tau Volantis in Dead Space 3 stands out in more than one way. Yes, it is full of empty, frozen wrecks that are only a shell of what they used to be. But the planet is also home to dead bodies that have changed and are now loose everywhere. In some ways, it looks like the planet Atropus from Dungeons & Dragons.
Even though Tau Volantis is a tomb planet right now, it has some important clues about the story of the game. Please do not read ahead of time, but what you discover makes the planet’s end even more sad and scary.
AT-5 – Iron Lung
Going into the depths of an ocean of blood as a doomed prisoner is not a good idea. You’re in the middle of Iron Lung’s AT-5 environment, which is not good, and yes, that is human blood you’re swimming in. You can’t say enough about how upsetting this is, especially since the ocean of human blood seems to be able to support life.
If you’re not careful, the things that live in AT-5’s blood ocean will kill you. This bloody sphere is by far one of the scariest places in games, whether they are on planets or somewhere else.