Top 20 Most Disturbing Songs (Video Games Edition)
As you'll understand if you read the first vlog years ago, music has the potential of disturbing you more than any other artistic aspect. This can be taken as an axiom or as a golden rule by connoisseurs of this type of entertainment. Video game original soundtracks are no exception to this rule. There's times when music is all a scene needs to become uncanny beyond belief. Players can almost tell what is about to happen next in a video game storyline based solely on the music that's being played at the moment. Rooms can be as scary as the designers visually make it but without proper music, the eerie factor will undoubtedly be decreased. Before we start, I want to give all credit for the music to the respective composers of each song. With all that said, brace yourselves! This are the 20 most uncanny and eerie songs found within video game soundtracks!
Rules and Parameters:
1. One entry per game. More than one game per franchise may happen
2. You won't see a list made up of horror game original soundtracks exclusively
3. No music that wasn't made for the soundtrack of a videogame, even if said music appeared in a game
With that being said, let's start:
20. "Forest of Fear"
Game: Wario Land 3, 2000
System: Game Boy Color
It's been said many times that "River Twygz Bed" and "World of Nothing" are the most unsettling songs to come out of a mario game. This lesser known song is often overlooked. It's one of the best examples on how to use silences and pauses in music to create an eerie vibe. Listening to this song for the first time can be quite an experience. The Game Boy sound chip quality enhances the way this song sounds. The low quality sound works in its favor. This is one of those cases where simplicity works perfectly...
19. "Soul Asylum"
Game: Mega Man X7, 2003
System: Playstation 2
A really unexpected song. There's certainly no other song like this one throughout all of the Mega Man franchise OST catalogue. The contrast between the rest of the music in this game and this song makes it stand out as something particularly strange. Its sound design makes it difficult to tell if any of its tracks are played in reverse, which adds an eerie element of confusion to the song. All of this makes it an unsurprisingly sinister sounding piece...
18. "Wrecked Ship"
Game: Super Metroid, 1994
System: Super Nintendo
This song is the reason why I would mute my T.V. as a kid when I got to this section of the game. Another good example of how to properly use pauses and silences to create horror. Also, this is a perfect example on how drums can make the overall sound of a song twice as eerie. Its sound fits the place it was chosen for perfectly. Its sounds often bring the terms "supernatural" and "evil" to the listener's mind...
17. "Who Is Herbert?"
Game: ObsCure, 2004
System: Playstation 2, Xbox, PC
Latin choruses can be some of the most peaceful and beautiful vocal arrangements. However, they can also be one of those elements that can scare certain people to the point of driving them away from the source. The reason being the occult context that these have gotten over the years on the media. This song's latin choruses make it one of the most disturbing audio experiences in video games out there. The youthful voices of the chorus just enhance the freightening feelings this song exhudes...
16. "Playrooms"
Game: Shadow Man, 1999
System: Windows, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Dreamcast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Contrary to what other video game OST pieces do, this song relies almost completely on sound effects. It does so in a smart way. The song eases the listener in, creating a façade of innocence and then breaking it to produce shock. It starts out as nursery song. Next, laughter and squeak toy sounds come in. After this, you'll hear a mixture of sound effects that imply something bloody and graphic is going on...
15. "Netherrealm"
Game: Mortal Kombat Deception, 2004
System: Playstation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, PSP
Background music for the Mortal Kombat universe's equivalent of hell. The ambiance this song expresses feels empty, vast and eerie. It conveys feelings of fear of the unknown and being alone in the darkness quite well. The sound effects that slowly appear bit by bit make this song as freightening as it is. Very unnerving...
14. "Drought"
Game: Pokemon: Ruby & Sapphire, 2002 / Emerald, 2004 / Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire, 2014
System: Gameboy Advanced, Nintendo 3DS
From a personal standpoint, this song never fails to unsettle me every time I hear it. Both versions have that minimalist quality to them, that simplicity and stone coldness to it that make it as menacing and creepy as it is. Even if isn't anything else but a short loop of sound, it gives off a strong "bad omen" vibe. This song has the quality of making the listener think something bad is about to happen, or maybe it implies something's happening as we hear it...
Original Game Boy Advanced version:
Nintendo 3DS Version:
13. "Ceremony"
Game: Secret of Mana / Seiken Densetsu 2, 1993
System: Super Nintendo, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, PC
This is a haunting piece of music. The sheer insanity it expresses within the first 10 seconds has deeply disturbed many listeners. The more you listen to this song, the more you get a sense of some kind of "controlled chaos" vibe that lies beneath its initially percieved madness. It's like this song knows how it makes its listeners feel and deliberately uses this information to make the feelings of dread worse and worse as we listen. There's layers and layers of sound within this song, yet there is one which consists of a single sustained note. That one layer is what gives this song that "evil" quality to it...
12. "Induction"
Game: Eversion, 2008
System: PC
A really disturbing song from a very fitting game. It has to be one of the most misleading games to have ever been created. This song expresses 3 feelings, and does so spectacularly. Those would be: despair, emptiness, and fear of the dark. There's something about the circumstances in which this song appears that makes it deeply disturbing. Be it the original or the remake, it still feels like an overly dark and scary song...
Original Verison:
Remake Version:
11. "Bitores Mendez"
Game: Resident Evil 4, 2005
System: GameCube, Playstation 2, PC, Wii, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch
A heavy reverb and distortion effect conceals the string tensions and dissonances that build up this song's instrumetal base. That's what this song's feel is entirely based on: creating tension and nervousness. The art design behind the scene in the game where this piece is played also enhances the experience as something horrifying...
Original version:
Remake Version:
10. "Dementors"
Game: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, 2004
System: Game Boy Advance
The sound of this song can be described as panic-inducing. When horror elements suddenly come from an unexpected source, the scare factor is enhanced greatly. This is certainly what we're looking at here. In a game set in arguably the most famous wizards and magic saga ever written, the horrible creatures known as dementors aren't that much unexpected. Yet, the song that accompanies them the first time they're seen is a really notorious contrast with the tone for the rest of the game...
9. "Ripple Star Catacombs"
Game: Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, 2000
System: Nintendo 64
This is another great example of unexpected contrast greatly enhancing the horror factor. This song appears in a game who's protagonist is considered the cutest and loveliest character nintendo has ever made: Kirby. The contrast is enormous this time. Therefore, the feelings of dread this song emits are way stronger this time. Another element that appears here once again are sound effects. Once again, they deform the experience into something way more disturbing than what we would expect from games like this. Metal clinking and sinister drones as the base work wonders for making this song even more anxiety-inducing...
8. "Undead"
Game: Conker's Bad Fur Day, 2001
System: Nintendo 64
The question arises: how it can be that somewhere beneath one of the funniest and silliest games ever made lies an example of such raw dread and fear? The answer is simple: this game's aim was to be transgressive. A song like this, even with its goofy sounding tumpet line, still isn't as unexpected and contrasting as others have been. This fact, however, does not take away from the fact that this song has been described by some as "literal fear of the dark made into a song". Personally, I think this song emits childhood fears of dark rooms at night...
Original Version:
"Live & Reloaded" Version:
7. "Virage Embryo"
Game: Legend of Dragoon, 1999
System: Playstation
"Something bad is about to happen..." That's what this song's ambiance and intentions attempt to make the listener think. The ominous tone and those high pitched sounds make a horrifying combination. It doesn't change much as it goes on but it's been said that the longer you listen to this song, the worse those feelings of dread get...
6. "Tomb Of The Ancients"
Game: Rayman 2: The Great Escape, 1999
System: PlayStation, Playstation 2, Nintendo 64, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Sega Dreamcast, PC
This "cartoon-ey", goofy and comedic game is divided into 4 sections (or mask doors). All along the journey, the game transmits an atmoshpere of both cheerfulness, and light-hearted drama and mystery. There's an ongoing feeling of darkness all along, but it's never too present. The 1st stage from the fourth mask door area is named "Tomb Of The Ancients". It's music is something that sounds like it came from an M rated horror game. Once again, a heavy contrast to the light-hearted ambiance the game had going on until then works wonders in terms of horror. Piano, strings, brass and xylophone are all this song needs to be as scary as it is...
5. "Ikana Valley"
Game: Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, 2000
System: Nintendo 64, Nintendo 3DS
A song from what many consider the darkest entry in its series. Its sound is very dark. A feeling of being at a place where you know you shouldn't be is ever-present as the song goes on. Its unconventional melody and dissonances make of this song something very unnerving and evil-presaging...
4. "Trail Of Blood"
Game: Final Fantasy VII, 1997
System: Playstation, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, PC
It's been said that this song's mise-en-scène is one of the most suspenseful examples to come out of a video game. It feels like build-up for something, and that feeling grows and grows as the song goes on. The song's setting, in combination with it's title make it a song of legends among the well-versed in terms of videogames. As a whole, we can conclude that this song has the reputation it holds for a reason...
Original version:
Remake version, 2020:
3. "The Place" (a.k.a. "Cave of the Past")
Game: Earthbound / Mother 2, 1994
System: Super Nintendo
This piece consists in a very strange, short sound loop. However, it's a really scary song. It's very distorted and confusing. Some say that it's very hard to tell if you're listening to it in reverse or not. Whatever the samples used to make up the instrumental tracks that were included in this song were, they for sure take full advantage of the Super Nintendo sound chip. This resulted in one of the most ominous and unsettling songs of its kind and time...
2. "My Heaven"
Game: Silent Hill, 1999
System: Playstation
There's something about the sound design of the first Silent Hill game, something that makes gamers shiver more than a decade and a half after its creation. This song is very hard to describe. The high-pitched drone sound that serves as the base for the song was shrouded in mystery for years. That alone has been the source of many reactions over said years. Same with the percussion. It adds feelings of tension and anxiety to the experience as a whole. Youtuber Caddicarus once described this song as "a series of menacing and static noises; and heavy, forceful, and highly percussive blows to the soul". A very accurate, yet dramatic depiction of this song...
1. "Jesus Loves Me"
Game: The Binding of Isaac, 2011
System: PC
This song is a repurpose of the christian hymn "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know" composed by Anna Barlett Warner in 1859, made to sound as disturbing and shocking as it can get away with. Historically, to give a cheerful, religiously orientated song malicious or blatantly evil context is perceived by many as one of the most, if not THE most disturbing change one can make to a song. The distorted voice is disturbing enough on its own, yet the composers didn't stop there. The rest of the song's sounds add an unsettling atmosphere to the song. This in combination with the overly disturbing in-game context results in one of the hardest pieces of music to listen to from start to finish ever composed...
And there you have it! I hope you enjoyed this list and learned a thing or two from it. Don't forget to leave a comment. All feedback is appreciated. Share this vlog to whoever you think would find it interesting, or just merely enjoy it. With all that said, good luck trying to sleep tonight...
