The Virtual Stage · Listicle
Seven scares from HAUNTED, ranked and argued
From the witch rising from the floor to the phone at your back, we rank HAUNTED's seven strongest scares and explain why they work.
By The Editors · · 6 min read
Rankings are a dubious form of criticism. They reduce arguments to placings and invite quarrels about the order when the reasoning should really be what counts. On the other hand, quarrelling about the order is exactly what we love them for. British television has made a whole genre out of that appetite, from the big broadcasters’ countdown shows to the ‘100 scariest moments’ lists that return every Halloween.
We have therefore taken the liberty of ranking the seven strongest scares from HAUNTED: Are You Alone?, the mixed-reality horror game for Meta Quest. Our criterion is not volume but what each moment reveals about the craft of the scare. The game is rated PEGI 18.
Spoiler warning: This list gives away scenes from every chapter, including the twist in the puppy chapter, the finale and the epilogue. The secret chapters and their codes are left out.
7. The skull from the hole (Chapter IV)
A round hole opens in your own floor; from the depths a voice calls for help, sounding like the girl. Lean forward and you see a pale girl’s face in the shaft, rising and, halfway up, peeling into a screeching, rotting skull. It hits the player in the face with the loudest noise the game has produced so far.
Why it works: The scare exploits sympathy. You lean in to help and are punished for it. Why only number seven: The blow itself relies mainly on volume, and that is the bluntest tool in the box. The idea is better than its payoff.
6. The witch from the floor (Chapter I)
After the first chapter’s gaze phase, the lights flicker, the witch has vanished, and behind the player breathing begins. ‘Behind you.’ You turn round; there is nothing there. And then she shoots up from the floor into your face.
Why it works: The moment plays with the expectation the game has just built. The danger is announced, and it is behind you. It comes from below. That is the classic lie of the jump scare, cleanly executed. Why only number six: It is the most conventional of the seven moments, a scare you know from many horror films.
5. The doll that stops playing along (Chapter III)
A porcelain doll imitates the player’s every movement, without the game explaining what to do. You wave, she waves. You duck, she ducks. Then the music box stutters, the doll slips into wrong poses and freezes. You move, and she does not. The lights die, her head turns 180 degrees with a crack, and black eye sockets stare for two seconds.
Why it works: The horror lies in the end of a rule. The doll obeyed, and now she does not. Why number five: As a piece of theatre, the imitation game before it is actually the best thing in the whole game. The scare itself is more of a freeze than a blow, and that makes it eerier than it is loud.
4. The arm from the wall (Chapter II)
A hammering in the walls, ghostly hands, a child’s voice in the masonry. Then the hands slide down, covered in blood, and six seconds of dead silence follow. Only then does a wall break, and an arm three to four metres long, with wrongly angled joints, reaches for your head.
Why it works: The six seconds of silence are the best pause in the game. You know something is coming, but not from which wall. The arm itself is a strong monster because it is human, only wrong. Why number four: It breaks out of the wall where your own family photos might hang. That is the core of what mixed reality can do for horror.
3. The nun in the mirror (Chapter VI)
An antique mirror lies flat on your own floor. Look into it and you see a ceiling. Lean forward and you see, in the reflection, a nun with a sewn-up mouth standing behind you, her head at an impossible angle. You turn round: nothing. You look again, and she is at your shoulder, the stitches tear, and she screams.
Why it works: The mirror is one of the oldest devices of the ghost story, and the game uses it with patience. The double look, first into the mirror, then back, is a choreography of fear that lets the player trigger the scare themselves. Why number three: Because the moment begins entirely without volume. The image in the reflection is the real horror; the scream is only the signature.
The best scares in HAUNTED are the ones where you turn your own head and thereby sign off on what happens next.
2. The phone at your back (Prologue)
Ten quiet seconds, then an old rotary phone on the floor rings behind the player. On the line, a girl whispering. Footsteps shuffle through her room, and then the same footsteps begin in your own room, in sync, behind your back. ‘Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around.’ On the phone, a scream and a wet crack. Silence. Then her voice, too calm and too deep: ‘Hi. I found her. Now I’ll find you.’
Why it works: It is a scare almost without an image. Everything happens through the ear, and according to the studio the sounds come from real positions in the room. The fiction crawls down the line into your own room. Why number two: Because the moment explains the whole game before it begins. Anyone who has survived this prologue knows that their own room is no longer safe.
1. The dog on the ceiling (Chapter VII)
Warm light, soft piano, flowers growing out of the floor, and a golden puppy that runs out of the wall. You follow it on hands and knees through a tunnel that grows darker and narrower, until at the end two red eyes glow. The hellhound screams and jumps into your face. Black. And then you are back in your own room, and the dog is hanging upside down from the real ceiling, staring down. Look up and you see it burst into black smoke. ‘See? It was never a puppy.’ The withered flowers all turn towards a point behind the player.
Why it works: The moment has two blows, and the second is the better one. The jump in the tunnel is predictable. The dog on your own ceiling, after you think it is over, is not. It uses the one surface of the room you never look at in everyday life. Why number one: Because the chapter before it has worked with warmth, and because the horror does not stay in the tunnel but returns to your own room. And because the flowers that turn round at the end are the quietest and eeriest gesture in the whole game.
Honourable mention: the last call
The epilogue would have deserved a place on this list, but it is less a scare than a punchline. A final call, a request to take off the headset, and a voice that tips over. The blow at the end is loud; the idea before it is cleverer than any blow. We have therefore placed it out of competition.
Conclusion
The ranking reveals a pattern: the more a scare turns your own room against you, the higher it ranks. The wall, the floor, the ceiling, your back, the phone on the carpet: HAUNTED is at its strongest when it betrays the familiar. According to the store, the game comes from the developer Special Games, is published by ThreeFlavors LLC and is available in the Meta Horizon Store for Quest 2, Quest Pro, Quest 3 and Quest 3S. It warns on every launch of sudden loud noises and violent jump scares, and after this list you know that it means it.