(bright jingle) – [Falcon] Open world maps are always full of interesting things, but sometimes the interesting points aren't necessarily points of interest. Sometimes they're old homes
that chill your bones. Hi, folks. It's Falcon. And today on "Gameranx." 10 Strangely Creepy Houses
Found in Open World Games. Starting off at number 10, it's the creepy Volga
house from "Metro Exodus." Now, this list isn't about
places that are horrific or terrifying or the
most scary things ever. No, today we're looking at
places that take a moment to sink in just how creepy they are. And like, they hit you
a little unexpectedly 'cause you're in a huge open world. And a lot of these games
do have horrific elements. These places are usually
abandoned and empty. Sometimes they don't even have
anything dangerous in them. But by the very nature of
these randomly spooky places, being in an open world game,
they're a lot more memorable. That's especially true when it's 2:00 AM and you're in the gamer days,
if you know what I mean. Those times where you sort of zone out playing an open world game, just wandering around
collecting stuff mindlessly, then you suddenly notice this random place you wandered into just,
it's not right somehow.
And you sort of sit up and take notice. These places, they're never gonna be the scariest locations in games ever, but they managed to be memorable 'cause they feel like places
you randomly stumbled into and that you really shouldn't be in. The unnamed house in the
first open world region of "Metro Exodus" is
probably the perfect example. It's an abandoned structure in the South Central section of the map. When you go inside, it seems
like your generic loot house, but as you explore, the amount of skeletons
just keeps piling up. There are people dead in
chairs, some are falling over, some are just slumped down in place. (air quivering) (water splashing) (monster groaning) (water splashing) Further into the house, there's a corpse of a
guy who hung himself. That stands out 'cause
all the other corpses look like they died instantly. But this guy had to have still been alive. So, maybe something a little
more unpleasant happened here. There's only a few things to loot, so it's not really a lot to find.
But on your way out, suddenly
you start seeing these visions of people living in the
house alive and happy. It's a little eerie, but then the radiation
level start increasing, so you gotta put a gas mask on. It's weird enough, but it really goes into the strangely creepy
area when you put the mask on, but suddenly there's a six-hour time skip. So, what happened? Did you guys silently stand
there for six hours or what? This place is already creepy,
but that hidden little detail makes this location
legitimately unsettling. (soldier gasping deeply) (timer beeping) (monster groaning) (heartbeat thumping) And number nine is "Mad
Max," the hidden Dunes house. Most random locations in "Mad
Max" aren't exactly memorable, but this one really stands out both for its uniqueness in the setting and just how hidden it actually is.
In an extremely easy to miss spot in the middle of the empty
desert area of the map, there's some random bits of shelter and a ladder that leads underground. Going down there, you think
you're finding a bunker or maybe a submerged shipping
container or something. But as you progress through the tunnel, you find there's actually
a broken wooden wall which leads to this extremely
creepy abandoned house that's practically trapped in time. It's an entire suburban house
just buried under the sand. You enter through the wall
into the children's room that connects to the master bedroom. The only sign of life in the area is this dead raider on top of a bloody bed and a skeleton in the bathtub.
Leaving the room, you can actually go down
the stairs in the main hall. There's a couple rooms to explore. It's super eerie going through this house 'cause there's nothing like
this in the entire game. (air quivering) (animal yipping) (air quivering) (animal yipping) (air quivering) In "Fallout", these kinds of
houses are a dime a dozen, but in "Mad Max", you almost never see the remnants of the old world like this. Everything is either a
pile of industrial scrap or completely obliterated. So, seeing a lot of these
details is very surreal. There's no enemies, no ghosts
or jump scares of any kind.
Just an atmospheric
and unsettling location with a lot of creepy little details. (fire crackling) (footsteps plodding) (fire crackling) (footsteps plodding) (animals yipping) And number eight is "Red Dead
Redemption 2's" Osman Grove. There's so much creepy stuff hiding away in unexplored places in "Red Dead 2." And I've talked about a
lot of it over the years. But there's one mundanely
disturbing location I've never actually gotten
a chance to bring up. So, what better time than the present? In New Hanover, east
and just slightly south from Emerald Station, there's an innocuous little stone cabin that
the game calls Osman Grove. It's a place you can easily
pass by a dozen times without thinking twice about it. But for the people who have actually bothered
to check the place out, there's an unpleasant
surprise waiting inside. To get inside, the door
has to be forced open and the inside is a grizzly site.
(wood thumping) (crow cowing) (wood crashing) (footsteps plodding) (floorboard creaking) An entire family of corpses slumped over as if they died suddenly and unexpectedly. There's a father at the dinner table, mother on the floor,
grandfather up in the loft. And the most disturbing thing here is the child slumped over a rocking horse, and the grandmother behind
him on a rocking chair. The whole place is filled up with smoke. And if you look around, you'll notice that the
furnace pipe is busted, filling the room with smoke that obviously must have
suffocated the family.
It's a disturbing scene made somehow worse by the lack of any supernatural influence. It's just a tragic thing that happened, and that's all that there is to it. Nobody even knows that this family died and they could remain here
undiscovered for years for all you know. Imagine if some house
you drove past every day just had a dead family in it
and you just never noticed. There's something so creepy
about this just being there. And if you hadn't
bothered to check it out, you'd never know. (footsteps plodding) (utensils clattering) (liquid sloshing) At number seven is
"Starfield", The Colander. This location's a little more guided. It's more of a type of thing you'd expect from a creepy location list.
But it's so easy to miss, that to me at least it still stands out.
In the Schrodinger system, you can find it abandoned
ship orbiting Schrodinger 3. When you enter, it's clear that this was some kind of large science vessel that people had been
living in for a while. But as you explore, there's no trace of any
actual human beings anywhere. At least at first. It doesn't take long to start
finding mysterious notes detailing some kind of dangerous creature they brought on board to study. The ship is dark and foreboding. It's a sort of creepy location you rarely actually run
into in "Starfield." And there aren't that
many places like this.
So, regardless of if you
find it early or late, it's stands out just because these kinds of abandoned ships in
the game are really rare. The way this place builds
tension is absolutely excellent. You might notice some
creatures skittering around in the corner of your eye,
but it's not until the end that you finally get a look at the thing. (mechanical door swooshing) – [Andreja] I hope you can succeed at that before we are discovered. (guns firing) And it's pretty dangerous. The creature can mess you up
if you're not prepared for it. There's no quest, no big reward. Just a nasty alien
monster that ambushes you after a perfect build up of tension.
Yes, calling this a house
is a bit of a stretch, but it's a spaceship that people lived on. There's signs of life
everywhere, so I think it fits. What other chance do I have to talk about one of "Starfield's"
best points of interest, might I add? (atmosphere rumbling) (gun cocking) (water sloshing) And number six is "Mafia 3." You can come in, but
you can never come out. It's like the Eagles
song, "Hotel California." In the Southwest corner of the map, deep in the bayou, there's
an unmarked compound. Getting inside is easy,
at least it used to be. For whatever reason, I seem to not be able
to get in there anymore. Maybe they patched it. Maybe it's actually tied
to a DLC. I don't know. But used to be able to enter this place by entering this burned down building and climbing down some stairs,
then jumping over a wall.
Nothing particularly
creepy about this place. Well, the burned down building beside it is a little suspect, but the actual compound isn't
anything to write home about. (crickets chirping) (frogs croaking) (crickets chirping) (footsteps thudding) (crickets chirping) Until you turn around to leave and realize there is no way out. All the doors are locked,
all the gates are closed. There is no way out of this place. You are trapped forever. Well, at least until you load a save. But still, there's something unsettling about an unmarked, unknown
area that seems like it would be important in
some way, but just isn't. Places like that make your mind wander. Thinking about what
these places could be for and what purpose they serve. When the game first came
out, it was nothing. It was just a weird and mysterious place. Hidden deep down in a section of the map that's already underserved. The entire bayou in "Mafia 3" feels like cut content or something. It's a huge area with almost nothing in it other than a few main game
missions and a race or two.
So, actually finding something down here is interesting enough. And when you go in and can't
come out, that makes it creepy. I'm almost certain this place is related to a mission and a sign of times DLC, so that's probably what it's for. But the rest of it's still creepy. Maybe it's just memories
of getting stuck here that makes it lingerer in my mind. But we've all experienced something like that in
open world games, right? Maybe it's just me. (footsteps plodding) (crickets chirping) (gunshot booming) (gun cocking) (bullets whizzing) And number five is "Animal Well." So, "Animal Well," it's more
of a puzzle Metroidvania than a true open world game.
But you can tack with
challenges in any order, making it more open than a
lot of games of its type. But the real important thing here is it has one of the most weirdly
creepy houses in any game. So you know, if it's
construable as open world, we gotta talk about it. If you've played this, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's the house you reach after beating the game for the first time. There's a lot of stuff that
makes this place creepy. For one thing, there's
nothing else like it anywhere else in the game. The entire game, you're exploring
this weird ancient ruin, and suddenly you open a door and you're in this modernish looking house with light fixtures and a TV and a couch.
It's really odd. And there's nothing
actually dangerous here, but it's super uncanny to be in. Kind of a liminal-ish space. (water glugging) (bubble popping) (graphic blipping) (bubble popping) (graphic blipping) It's importance to the rest
of the game makes it creepier. The place is full of little secrets like the TV you can change channels on and mysterious locked door upstairs. It requires a special key
that can only be obtained by getting all the eggs in the game, which is its own complicated process.
It's a mystery house with layers. And it plays an important part in getting all the endings of the game. And while the whole game has
this kind of eerie atmosphere, this place dials up the strangeness. It's got this droning slightly
off music track playing while you're in the house, and
all the many strange secrets. It's weird. And number four is
"Cyberpunk 2077", Room 301. Usually when I imagine a creepy house, I think of someplace
isolated deep in the woods and far away from civilization. This entry is far from that. It's an apartment smack dab
in the middle of Night City. But there's so many opportunities for creepy locations in the game, and this one delivers
in absolutely every way. There's a seemingly abandoned
apartment building in Heywood with nothing in it identifying it as a place you can go into. But if you approach the doors, they'll open into nearly
pitch black halls.
The building creepy enough on its own. You can seriously barely
see anything here. But if you find the staircase
and go up to Floor 3, there's an especially
unpleasant apartment. Normally you can only see
through the cracks and the door. There is blood and indecipherable
writing on the walls. It's a effectively creepy spot that feels like you're seeing something you're not supposed to.
(eerie foreboding music) There's no way to actually
get inside this place. It's meant to be closed off. But with a little cheating,
you can peek inside fine. There's riding and scribbling anywhere and a broken wrench on the floor. Maybe this place relates to another quest and you just don't know about it, or it's really just meant
to be a creepy Easter egg. I don't know. It's almost creepy you're
not knowing honestly. And number three is "Elden
Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree", Midra's Mansion. Getting into this place is scarier than actually being there. You reach the classic gothic mansion by going through a bunch of
nearly unkillable monsters who are essentially horror monsters straight from a completely
different genre of game. In contrast, the actual
mansion is regular enemies, but that doesn't stop
it from being creepy. It's just a sinister place. Everything's smoldering. Dead bodies are left for
display in the entrance and little details are everywhere chronicling the House of Usher style.
History of death and
madness in the mansion. It's by far the most traditional
spooky house on the list, but it's not a straight up horror either. There's no jump scares. It's actually fairly well lit. But it's still extremely
creepy despite that. The base game only hinted at Lovecraft-style Eldridge Horror. This place leans right into it. The entire mansion burns
with the flames of frenzy that drive anyone who encounters it mad. And it's all in service of building up to the boss at the end of the mansion, which is one of the best
and creepiest fights in the entire game. (eerie foreboding music) (fire whooshing) (ominous ethereal music) (rousing sinister vocalizing) (fire whooshing) (rousing sinister vocalizing) It's not an entry about the
boss, it's about the house. So, we won't get too far into that. But it's got everything you could want from a spooky mansion. It's got ghosts, giant
rats, pitch black rooms, gigantic burning libraries. It's such a strange space. It's really hard to describe
just how creepy it is, and just showing it doesn't do it justice.
It's one of those things you
really have to find it yourself to be truly unsettled by it. And number two is "Oblivion",
scariest Skingrad house. Bethesda are the undisputed kings of strangely creepy houses. And this is a good example of why. In Skingrad, there's an unmarked
and easily ignored house called Nerastarel's
house in the game files. There's no character
named that in "Oblivion", and it still counts as
trespassing if you go inside. So, what's up with that? The outside of the house
looks completely normal. When you go inside, it's clearly
been abandoned for years. It's dark and disheveled. Dungeon music plays when you're inside, and for some reason it's got zombies. Nobody in town mentions the house. There's nothing else
anywhere that references it. It's just a really creepy
place to wander into by mistake that serves no other function than being a extremely creepy place to wander into by mistake.
(wraith screeching) (swords clashing) (burn sizzling) (wraith screeching) (hero grunting) (swords clashing) (hero grunting) It's the perfect example
of that kind of house. It's spooky enough on its
own, but the lack of detail, the mystery of what this place actually is and why it's here, it's never answered. And those are things that
make a generic zombie house and make it really memorable,
especially in a game where there is a lot of lore about. And finally at number one is "Fallout 3's" Plunger Room of Death. This innocuously titled shelter, one of many unmarked areas
in the game, it's bizarre. I think the devs were going for goofy, but it's so strange that
under the right circumstances it's less funny and more
of just straight up creepy. You'd think something
like a trail of plungers that start at the door, climb the walls and go up to the ceiling
would just be funny. But the bloody hand print
in the nearby skeleton combined with the already
creepy interiors of "Fallout 3" make this whole area come
off as disturbingly weird.
There's a statue head that couldn't possibly
fit in there normally. A fridge full of human skulls and a garden gnome with
syringes stuck in its head, eyes in hands, et cetera. There's mannequins everywhere. There's plunger statue
on a surgeon's table. It's really, really weird. I think it will probably leave most people freaked out entering it. "Fallout 3" is one of those games where even though it's
not really all that scary, it leaves you feeling
paranoid and kind of jumpy after playing it for
extended periods of time. I blame the creepy ambient music when you're exploring buildings. Combine with the creepy green
glow off your pipboy light, obviously there's probably more to it, but whatever secret sauce this game has, it's just able to feel freaky even though you're basically
not in danger most of the time. That's the power of "Fallout 3." And the way they just hide
these bizarre little secrets around the world only makes
the experience creepier.
Even in parts like this, where I'm pretty sure it's
just supposed to be goofy. And that's all for today. Leave us a comment, let
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right here on "Gameranx.".