Top 5 Dumbest Decisions in Horror Video Games

Maybe They Did Deserve to Die…

Fear can sometimes get the better of us all, especially when facing something not of this world. That being said, some of the choices these characters made were beyond the pale of stupidity, even going by horror game standards!

#5: Daniel Pockets the Orb
“Amnesia: The Dark Descent” (2010) 

If you deliberately wiped your own memory, chances are your past self made some fairly serious mistakes. Awakening in a strange castle without any memories, Daniel’s only clue to the truth was a self-written note advising him to kill the building’s baron. Over the course of the campaign, Daniel manages to piece together the truth, and surprise, surprise, it isn’t pretty. Turns out that during an archaeological expedition, Daniel discovered an alien orb, and in doing so summoned a sentient shadow very eager to rip him a new one. Daniel’s solution? Seek refuge with Baron Alexander…who ended up wanting the orb for himself. And the bad decisions just keep on coming.

#4: Leon & Claire Split Up
“Resident Evil 2” (1998) 

Just because something works on “Scooby-Doo,” does not mean it makes sense during a zombie outbreak. Due to “Resident Evil 2” featuring a pair of playable characters, Capcom needed to find a believable excuse to split these badasses up. A rookie cop and a college student searching for a family member, Leon and Claire parted ways almost instantly to go search for survivors and an escape route out of Raccoon City. Surrounded by hundreds of zombies, splitting up makes little to no sense, but the game needed Leon and Claire’s stories to diverge, so there you go. Of course, Leon’s fabulous hair is really all the back-up he needs…

#3: Pranking Hannah
“Until Dawn” (2015) 

Pranks are all well and good, at least until someone tries to put it on Youtube. Don’t think we didn’t see that selfie-stick Matt! A choose-your-own adventure game with a slasher twist, it begins as all great horrors do, with a group of teenagers hanging out in a cabin in the woods. Seeing an opportunity to be total jerks, the majority of the group play a disgraceful prank on Hannah, who flees out of the cabin as a result, eventually followed by her sister Beth. Given the genre, the woods are far from the safest place to be, and both siblings soon find themselves meeting a rather…steep end. 

#2: James Investigates Silent Hill
“Silent Hill 2” (2001) 

Guilt and grief can drive a person to make really terrible decisions, evident from when James Sunderland received a letter claiming to be from his deceased wife, apparently waiting for him in the town of Silent Hill. Rather than investigating the authenticity of the letter, assembling a team or better yet, throwing it away, James decides to take plunge and head on over. Taking into account the fact that Mary died years prior, the dude must have been aware that the letter could not be real, but noooope. Thanks to his overwhelming shame and inner torment manifesting itself, James’ spent most of his vacation in Silent Hill trying to avoid alone-time with Pyramid Head!

#1: Removing SHODAN’s Ethical Constraints
“System Shock” (1994) 

Playing as a nameless hacker, “System Shock” boils down to a boneheaded decision to remove an omnipotent computer’s moral compass. Caught hacking into a space station owned by the TriOptimum Corporation, our hero is offered a way out by a corrupt executive who needs the space station’s artificial intelligence to be hacked. After coming to an agreement, the protagonist removes the restrictions governing SHODAN’s decision-making process and unwittingly creates a super-villain. Untethered by any moral guidelines, the AI becomes a self-declared god and kills nearly everyone in the station. Smooth move buddy.

Be sure to check out the video below to see our picks for the Top 10 Scariest First-Person Games.