Top 10 Freaky Audiologs in Video Games

Sometimes it’s what you don’t see that gets to you. Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we’ll be counting down our Top 10 Video Games with Scary Audiologs.

While audiologs have been the butt end of jokes in the modern landscape of gaming, when done well they’re an excellent tool for providing backstory, character depth, and in this case, fear. For this list we’re focusing on those games that constantly have us looking over our shoulder with their exceptional use of unsettling and creepy audio logs.

Zombies are a polarizing trope in horror games, and up until Naughty Dog’s masterpiece, was something fans were sure they wanted to stay dead. Heavily focusing on the human experience of the apocalypse, while there aren’t that many of them, they do an excellent job covering almost every human emotion. From the fear of a lab tech who knows he’s going to turn, to the despair of a doctor coming to terms with the fact that she can’t save everyone, these logs terrified us by hitting us with a healthy dose of reality which was much scarier than any zombie could ever hope to be.

Desolate landscapes and harsh environments are nothing compared to the most dangerous enemy in Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic franchise; your fellow man. It seems like everyone shows their sadistic true colors in their struggle to survive, and the audiologs you find scattered throughout your quest do an excellent job at driving that point home. Whether describing the fear of their firsthand experiences with the bloodthirsty scavengers, or regret at not being able to help the victims, the harsh reality of the situation is on full display.While it may have gotten lonely out there under the deceptively soothing desert sun, thinking back to all the logs we found had us convinced that it was sometimes better off that way.

Harmless on the surface, these logs hit us with a few too many existential questions for our liking. Perfectly fine being completely detached from all our nameless clones, listening to the worries of the crew members who had soul swapped one too many times and ended up losing track of the original copy immediately had us regretting all the times we carelessly watched our copies dissolve into nothing and die after completing each level. Scaling up to full blown paranoia the more we swapped; we grew suspicious of ourselves, our clones and everyone else we interacted with. Extremely effective at making us fear the core mechanic of the game, these recordings still have us lying in bed awake at night.

Furthering our deepening identity crises, Frictional Games’ source of technophobia had us uneasy right from the get-go. We like to think that we’re all special and unique individuals, but once we learned of the possibility to upload entire lives to a hard drive we were terrified of the possible real-world future. Every tiny piece of the puzzle continued to throw uncomfortable, psychologically draining questions at us, forcing us to think about all the possible implications of this haunting digital-centric world. Forcing us to come to terms with our own mortality, Soma had us scared not only of the lurking depths of the Abyss, but of our own computers as well.

Before spending some time with the audiologs left behind by the research team, it was hard to imagine anything would scare us after mowing down hundreds of the monstrous demons from Hell. Describing being lost and alone after encounters with the monsters in grotesque detail, these logs accomplished the impressive task of making us fear creatures we’ve killed hundreds of times over. All the weapons in the world couldn’t keep us feeling safe after realizing just how creepy each enemy really was. Something as simple as a few lines of dialogue put our imaginations on overdrive, and stopped us from turning down each hallway no matter how many bullets we had left.

With its’ vast emptiness and crushing loneliness, space was scary enough without these countless, hair-raising crew logs. Thrown in for good measure regardless, they’re enough fuel to kick-start any amount of nightmares. Whether detailing the synthetics or the skulking alien, these various logs which described attacks, massacres, and the abductions of the dead bodies amongst others did a great job making us not want to explore the ship, and kept us on our toes even when the Xenomorph was nowhere to be seen. Alone in the hallways of the spacecraft, we never felt safe after hearing about the big baddie stalking through the vents, and had to keep one eye behind our backs the whole way through.

The Batman universe has had decades to build up the different villains and give them each a distinct personality, but even with such an established pedigree, the Asylum Interview tapes still make our skin tingle. Each one hammers home just how ruthless and psychopathic each inmate actually is, and does an excellent job showcasingthe bleakness of Batman’s home city of Arkham. The world’s greatest detective may be on the case, but listening to the recordings of the serial killing Zsasz or the sadistic Riddler while knowing they’re on the loose was enough to threaten us at every moment. Just a little time poring through the tapes quickly shows that these are not the villains of your childhood comics.

Pioneering almost every use of audio logs that followed, each entry in this classic of the genre tells of a parasitic infection called “the Many” that takes control of its’ hosts. Sentient and self-aware, their incessant attempts to have us join them were thankfully undermined constantly by hearing the endless logs of our fellow crew member being brutally killed and turned by the alien group. Relentlessly creepy, they hid just enough details to keep us guessing as we scoured the Von Braun for a way to stop the virus. Never letting us get comfortable, System Shock 2’s audiologs are of a rare breed that continues to have us sleeping with one eye open every time we think about them.

It should come as no surprise that the spiritual successor to System Shock would feature some bone chilling audiologs. Beautiful and creepy all at once, the eerily designed city of Rapture hides many secrets waiting to be uncovered through the various collectible logs scattered throughout the Victorian stylings, and just a couple of minutes spent with them were enough to point us towards the culprits behind the city’s failure.Ranging from torture to scientific experimentation on the city’s children, Jack has exclusive access to some of the most horrific acts possible routinely performed by the awful people calling Andrew Ryan’s city home.Dark and disturbing, hearing them had us quickly going from worrying about the splicers and little sisters, to instead fearing running into the suddenly more fearsome people we heard so much about.

Doing things a little differently than the other sci-fi horror titans, these audiologs throw subtlety to the wind and let you know exactly why you should be afraid, down to every last gruesome detail.We thought Necromorphs were creepy enough, but hearing the resolve of a soldier to dismember all of his own limbs so that he wouldn’t pose a threat once he “came back” added a new, more terrifying depth to the entire experience as we started to wonder who the people were behind each monster. These collectible logs are filled with fear, hopelessness, and a looming dread that ate at our minds the entire time, and stand as some of the finest examples of scary audiologs in gaming.

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