Chapter 850: The Fear of Psychological Suggestion
Old P had always thought his mental fortitude was pretty solid, but after playing this game, he realized he might have misjudged himself...
Heart racing, cold hands and feet, sweat streaming down, his entire body trembling uncontrollably...
Old P couldn't even muster the courage to step back into the town's fog anymore.
He subconsciously checked the system time. From the moment he started playing, only 25 minutes had passed.
And that was just the first 25 minutes of the game!
Only one monster, only one fight with no difficulty at all, and as a horror game, there weren't even any jump-scare scenes.
Things like door scares, turn-around scares, scream scares—common in many games—were completely absent.
Of course, they might appear later, but Old P hadn't encountered them yet.
Strictly speaking, from entering the game until now, all Old P had done was run through the thick fog: from the entrance to the mountain path, to the cemetery, and then to the town...
But even this monotonous environment placed an immense psychological burden on Old P.
It was a highly sophisticated form of psychological suggestion: an abandoned town, a fog that never lifted, a deathly silent atmosphere... Every single factor relentlessly jabbed at Old P's nerves.
This approach was completely different from the "door scare" type of horror. In those horror games, terror was like a sharp knife—you never knew when it would suddenly stab you, making you scream in fright. But the horror of "Silent Hill" was like a dull blade cutting through flesh, constantly testing your threshold of endurance step by step.
On the surface, a vast white fog seemed much better than darkness and blood. It was just running around in the mist, collecting stuff—nothing too dangerous, right?
But once you lingered in that environment for ten or twenty minutes, the player's psychological stress index skyrocketed. This inexplicable sense of oppression could even make players unable to move, wanting only to kneel down, find a corner, and tremble in fear.
Old P decisively chose to exit the game.
"That's it for today. I'm done, I'm done. If I keep playing, I'll really die. Talk to me, quick. Send some danmaku, let me calm down. Hurry, I'm afraid I'll have a heart attack in the game pod."
Old P returned to the game pod's login scene, looking at the "Assassin's Creed: Origins" theme of Alexandria, watching the hardworking Egyptian people and the long river sunset at the Nile estuary. Only then did his mood slowly begin to settle.
He glanced at the danmaku and found that the viewers weren't much better off than he was.
"Holy crap, I can't take it anymore! I'm out, I can't watch this!"
"It's too oppressive, I can't stand it!"
"Someone send a high-energy danmaku to protect me!"
"I'm not watching anymore! I'll come back when you stream PUBG later!"
"It's late at night, I can't sleep now. I... I'll go watch a video to relax..."
Although the viewers had been egging him on to stream "Silent Hill," after just over twenty minutes, they were all throwing in the towel too.
Sure, most of them were watching on PCs or phones, but... it was past midnight.
Many were lying in bed, lights off, staring at their phone screens at Old P's stream, some even wearing headphones.
In that environment, the fear and oppression they felt were slightly less intense than what Old P experienced in the game pod, but not by much. Even with danmaku as a shield, the oppressive environment and atmosphere of the game kept eroding everyone's nerves.
Old P checked the viewer count.
Because Zou Zhuo and Lin Xue hadn't started streaming, Old P had over 5 million viewers when he first went live. But now, only about 3 million were still hanging on...
These viewers had urged Old P to stream "Silent Hill" hoping to see him get scared, but instead, they'd successfully scared themselves silly.
Old P really wanted to permanently delete "Silent Hill" from his game pod right now and never touch it again. But seeing many viewers still spamming "Keep streaming Silent Hill," he could only sigh: "Uh... I'll play it again tomorrow. Tomorrow... I'm done for today. My sanity is almost gone. I really can't hold on. If I keep going, I'll have to call you guys to come collect my body..."
...
Old P wasn't the only one who bought and started playing "Silent Hill" right after midnight.
Soon, the discussion board for "Silent Hill" on the Thunder Game Platform was flooded with terrified players.
"Holy crap!! This is a horror game! A horror game! High-energy warning, don't play it!!"
"I quit after 5 minutes. I really can't keep going!"
"Who the hell said this game was like 'Dark Souls'? Come out, I promise I won't kill you!"
"Damn, this game reminds me of Chen Mo's earlier game, 'Outlast'!"
"This game is on par with 'Outlast'! No, I think the atmosphere is even more oppressive than 'Outlast'!"
"Yeah, it's so weird. The first 10 minutes are just running in the fog without even encountering a monster. Why do I find it scarier than 'Outlast'??"
"Chen Mo is so malicious! Can anyone last 2 hours in this game? F*** no!!"
"2 hours for a 200-dollar skin? What a rip-off! 200 bucks trying to buy my life!"
"How could anyone last 2 hours in this game? Old P barely made it half an hour. What does 2 hours even mean?!"
Players who'd been tricked by "Silent Hill" were all venting wildly. They'd thought they were getting a bargain, but instead, Chen Mo had played them like a fiddle!
Many players had planned it out nicely. They figured they could just stand still like in "Dark Souls," enjoy the scenery, and grind out the playtime. Since there were rewards at 2 hours and 6 hours, they could idle in the VR game pod, look at the view, chat with friends, and coast through.
But once they entered the game, they realized—coast through what?
The game's first scene was an abandoned public restroom, with a faucet endlessly dripping.
Moving forward, there were mountain paths, a cemetery, and a creepy town, all shrouded in thick fog with visibility of only two or three meters, wind sounds, and eerie background music. In that environment, even idling would make your sanity plummet, right?!
Many veteran players naturally thought back to Chen Mo's earlier work, "Outlast," but "Outlast" and "Silent Hill" were two completely different kinds of horror.
"Outlast"'s horror was straightforward: dark environments, sudden monster appearances, and the fear of not being able to fight, only to flee.
But "Silent Hill" was different, especially at the beginning. There was no darkness, no monsters, and the protagonist was quite capable in combat, yet players still felt oppressed and hopeless!
This horror was more of a psychological terror, like a magic attack—ignoring armor, penetrating straight to the bone.
Many players even wondered: if the very beginning of "Silent Hill," in such a bright daytime scene, was already this terrifying...
What would it be like later on?