Eye Tracking horror games to boost your Halloween

So, it’s time for Halloween. If that means anything to you, it’s usually one of three things:

a) going all out on cosplay without any judgement,

b) stuffing your face with candy, or

c) celebrating all things horror.

Or maybe all of the above, because why limit yourself?

My favorite way to get into the seasonal spirit is to get all up on the horror genre, especially by playing scary games. (It’s not usually my genre of choice. I’m a total chicken and it interferes with another big passion in my life, which is sleeping.)

Last week I got to play a horror game with eye tracking for the first time. Now I’ll spend the rest of the year with the lights on 24/7 and being terrified of any small noise.

Worth it.

Scary eye tracking features

Eye tracking makes scary games even more effective in the sense that it… just does. It goes a bit beyond the added levels of immersion that puts you right in the character’s shoes.

There are actually features that are developed exclusively for the horror genre with the specific intent of just creeping you the F out.

Peripheral Effects

This feature is all about maximizing that chill-in-your-spine feeling by taking advantage of your peripheral vision — that is, the places you aren’t looking at. You know that feeling that something is lurking in the corner of your eyes? It’s not just in your head.

Flashlight Control

The whole flashlight thing in horror games is particularly terrifying to me because I just know that something must be hiding in the darkness, ready to maul me.

When you control the in-game flashlight with your eyes it kind of adds an entirely new dimension of fear as you become physically engaged in exploring the environment and looking around for possible threats.

SOMA has a pretty effective implementation of this and other features to boost the “horror factor”, check it out on the video above. 

Zombie Awareness 

OK, this might not be the scariest of features, but it’s one that I find particularly cool. As seen in Dying Light, the zombies can sense if you are looking at them and then come towards you to check out your brains. 

Available horror games with eye tracking

If you want to try out for yourself, here’s a list of Halloween-appropriate eye tracking games:

• SOMA
• Dying Light
• 7 Days to Die
• Glimpse of Fear
• Layers of Fear
• Among the Sleep
• Spectrophobia
• Monstrum

That’s the treat I have to offer, folks. Please turn to the real life environment if you’re looking to score some candy.

Getting hyped on sugar may also maximize the effects of horror games.

Happy Halloween’ing! 🎃