Tense Games: Creating the Perfect Atmosphere of Fear, Paranoia, and Anxiety

Building fear and anxiety into a game’s atmosphere is an art form. We’re used to fast-paced narratives and heart-pounding gameplay, but that typically comes from having multiple things happening at the same time, such as enemies shooting, guns needing reloading, and objects exploding. In tense games, it’s less about quick reflexes and more about planning, but that planning must be supported by a mood that makes you feel cautious – not overpowered.

While tension is at the heart of most storytelling, in tense games it functions as a technique to slow the player down and makes them consider things differently. To achieve that tension, developers need to make use of several different tricks.

Tense Games Make the Player Feel Vulnerable

One of the easiest ways to raise tension is to make a place feel vulnerable, and one of the best ways create that vulnerability is to make resources scarce. If health and ammo regenerate, there are fewer consequences for failure—who cares about attracting a guard’s attention if your health will return in just a few seconds of cover?

Games like Resident Evil make the player feel vulnerable, not only through the horror aspect, but also by restricting access to saves. Dying when you can’t remember your last save means you don’t know how far you’ll have to backtrack. With health packs and ammo also scarce, the tension gets even higher—you have to be careful when death could be a huge setback. Every shot needs to count because every injury brings you one step closer to losing a huge chunk of time. Succeeding in a tense game means making your skills count, and that becomes even more important when you face limited resources.

Sound Design Keeps Players on Edge

Sound design can be a huge part of tense games, as a deliberate use of sound can quickly take a dreary slog through a basement from boring to frightening.

The Last of Us is the perfect example of using sound to increase tension. In addition to a lack of resources and the slavering zombies waiting to nibble on you, the game cultivates an air of dread through sound. When wandering through infested areas, there’s nothing more frightening than hearing the telltale creak and moan of a Clicker—you know it’s there, but you don’t know where. It becomes a race to find the Clicker before it finds you—one melee attack is enough for the Clicker to take you out, making you constantly check over your shoulder for fear it’s lurking there. The sound alone is enough to fill the player with dread and keep them constantly on their toes.

Tight Spaces and Narrow Success Keep Tense Games Working

Claustrophobia is another tool that raises tension, but that doesn’t only mean navigating through tight spaces. Those are useful techniques, but claustrophobia in tense games can also be created by a narrow margin for success: a single door heavily patrolled by guards as your only escape route, for instance, or a wide-open space with limited cover.

This is something that Alekhine’s Gun does well. While the levels are open and have a lot of room for varied approaches, that also means there’s a lot of open space to be caught in. That means your every action counts. Tight corridors also heighten tense games, making you feel closed off from escape; attract undue attention and you’ll have to fight your way out without attracting even more guards. Stealth always adds something to tense games, because avoiding detection is one of the key goals—while you might just be able to shoot your way out, it’s far more rewarding to sneak in a game like Alekhine’s Gun.

Subverting Expectations Keeps Players Surprised in Tense Games

Games have been around long enough that players expect certain things. In tense games, we may expect jump scares or musical stingers to startle us when we get caught. When games don’t follow the formula, we don’t know what to expect—that means we’re constantly on edge, waiting to see what’ll be thrown at us next.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is an excellent example of thwarting player expectations. In Amnesia and other tense games, you spend a good chunk of your time exploring rather than fighting. Even when you do encounter an enemy, they may be too powerful to beat, making the game more about evading enemies than tackling them head-on. The tension comes from never knowing what you’ll find behind each corner, and being unable to fight back if you find an enemy. Combined with the vulnerability and sound cues mentioned earlier, tense games like Amnesia defy our expectations, keeping us constantly waiting for what’s going to come next.

Tension Is Great, but Tense Games Need Release, Too

While tension in games is great, what makes it worthwhile is the release. A game that’s always tense can frustrate a player beyond the point of wanting to continue. Release—the moment when you solve the puzzle, defeat the enemy, or successfully sneak through an obstacle—is the ultimate reward. You can finally breathe again, and all that work was worth it.

Tense games require these moments of release to be successful. While tension is fun, it’s the release we crave, and it’s that aspect that keeps us coming back. While player vulnerability, sound design, claustrophobia, and thwarted expectations draw us in, it’s success that keeps us hooked.

If you like tense games, check out Alekhine’s Gun. With all the tension of the Cold War distilled and infused with tactical stealth gameplay, intelligent enemy AI, and 11 open-game levels, the tension and stakes are high. Now available for PC or console!