For me it was Dead Space 2 when I was 12-ish. For reference, at this point the most gruesome/gorey/violent media I was exposed to was the Halo 3 Flood levels and the original 2 Alien movies.
I had way too much fun playing it to be traumatized by it at the time, although when i was old enough to understand the horror of the whole "your memories and experience becoming food for a god-like being that has absolutely zero respect for your existance", that did inform my perspective of other media such as Evangelion or Childhood's end when I watched them for the 1st time.
What was your equivalent to this? I've heard the Resident Evil games are quite common for this but I want to hear your perspective.
Silent Hill was the first video game I really played all the way through on my own (and was also on the first console we ever owned). I had played Mario, Sonic, Donkey Kong, Goldeneye, etc. at my friends’ houses, but that was the game that really started it all! I was already into horror stuff at that point, so it was right up my alley, though. I still think of Pyramid Head on foggy days.
Related, but PT was a fun experience when it first came out. Played it once on my own and then once with a group of friends!
I played Silent hill with my friend, whenever one of us got scared we threw the controller to the other one, there were times that we were playing 10 seconds each.
Same here! Silent hill 2 and 3. We usually played F-zero x or Diddy Kong racing to ease the atmosphere before wrapping up for the night. But it was so sparking creepy to go home at 3 in the night still…
I was about 13 so we played after school and before we had to go home for tea, it was super creepy though and I still feel uneasy in the fog.