Abandoned or otherwise creepy hospitals are a common horror setting, video games included. Much like movies, video games are filled with examples of unsettling hospitals, though not all of them prove to be effective at eliciting fear from the player. As with other creative and technical elements of a game, establishing a compelling atmosphere is easier said than done.
Although horror games try to put the most effort into making hospitals creepy, even non-horror titles possess a few memorable examples. Regardless of the genre, the environments listed below are certainly not places where their respective video game characters want to find themselves.
7 Mount Massive Asylum – Outlast
To say that Miles Upshur gets more than he bargained for while investigating Mount Massive Asylum is an understatement. As Miles soon learns, the inmates are running the asylum......individuals not exactly in the right frame of mind. What follows is a pulse-pounding adventure that tasks players with escaping the institution with Miles' life.
Mount Massive, in addition to being a psychiatric hospital, also contains its fair share of dirty secrets. The company that ran the asylum, the Murkoff Corporation, subjected the patients to horrific experiments on a daily basis. The macabre remains of their handiwork are plain to see as players explore the horrid surroundings.
6 The Medical Pavilion – Bioshock
In Bioshock, players don't need to spend much time in the Medical Pavilion to know that something has gone terribly wrong (along with the rest of Rapture). The Medical Pavilion isn't a single hospital. Rather, it serves as the central location for the city's medical services. Nevertheless, the Medical Pavilion has seen better days by the time players visit it in the opening stages of the game.
The Medical Pavilion is run by Dr. Steinman, a crazed plastic surgeon obsessed with creating the "perfect" human body. The results of Dr. Steinman's bloody work are strewn across the Pavilion, accompanied by plenty of unsettling body horror imagery. Few other levels in Bioshock are as tense as the Medical Pavilion.
5 Arkham Asylum – Batman
For a non-horror game, Batman: Arkham Asylum can be downright creepy in particular spots. The setting has a dark, gothic vibe to it that blends perfectly with its comic book (and Lovecraftian) source material. Although the game probably won't scare the pants off anybody, Arkham Asylum itself nails its gloomy and foreboding atmosphere.
Batman's worst and most unhinged foes are locked away in Arkham Asylum, a hospital for the "criminally insane." Besides the Joker, the Dark Knight also confronts other villains, such as the Scarecrow, who periodically subjects Batman to several disturbing, hallucinogenic episodes of fear and terror.
4 Alchemilla/Brookhaven Hospitals – Silent Hill Franchise
Longtime fans of Silent Hill know that creepy hospitals are essentially a franchise staple at this point. There are two prominent locations that players are likely to remember: Alchemilla and Brookhaven Hospitals. Alchemilla is famously featured in the first game, while Brookhaven is explorable in Silent Hill 2.
Neither of these hospitals are pleasant locales. The iconic "nurses" that populate the halls are just one example of the monsters that lurk within. Atmospheric horror doesn't get much better than Alchemilla or Brookhaven.
3 Beacon Mental Hospital – The Evil Within
Similar to Mount Massive Asylum from Outlast, the Beacon Mental Hospital featured in The Evil Within holds several dark secrets as well. Run by MOBIUS, the facility experiments on its unfortunate patients in an attempt to complete the STEM project.
Beacon Mental Hospital and its environs are populated by various monstrosities, including the Haunted and the massive Sadist. The hospital itself is a huge, labyrinthine complex where escaping proves a lot harder than it sounds.
2 Shalebridge Cradle – Thief: Deadly Shadows
The Shalebridge Cradle from Thief: Deadly Shadows is yet another example of a terrifying hospital, courtesy of a non-horror game. The level design and atmosphere of the Shalebridge Cradle, an asylum that also doubled as an orphanage, are remarkably well done. Its ability to invoke a deep sense of simmering unease is hard to forget anytime soon.
Much like the introductory sequence in Amnesia: The Dark Descent, players are led to believe that danger lurks around every corner, even though there are no threats. When enemies actually do make an appearance, the effects are starling.
1 Riverside Institute – Call Of Cthulhu
Call of Cthulhu had a lot of potential as a proper adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's various tales of madness and terror. Unfortunately, the game squandered many of its unique elements in favor of more generic horror tropes. However, not everything proved disappointing; the Riverside Institute is one such example.
Many of Lovecraft's stories involve characters struggling with maintaining their sanity. The same is true for Edward Pierce in Call of Cthulhu. The sense of hopelessness that the Riverside Institute conveys is effective. The idea of being trapped in a psychiatric hospital where nobody believes your version of events is a concept the game tries to illustrate through the sinister Riverside Institute.