Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem

Developed by: Silicon Knights

Published by: Nintendo

Genre: Horror/Adventure

Emotions it inspires: Fear, doubt, paranoia

How the game inspires emotion : Gameplay, storyline, characters

Fear is a genuine human emotion that most videogames seem to get right. Series like Resident Evil and Doom creeped gamers out with their shock moments and grotesque monsters. But there was one game that took it one step further and started messing with the player’s minds in order to create a genuinely terrifying experience. That game was Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem.

Released for the Gamecube in 2002, Eternal Darkness first started its life as a Nintendo 64 game. The title was a very ambitious one in terms of story and gameplay. Players would take on the role of many characters across time and history as they all battled one common evil, one that threatened to plunge all of humanity into eternal darkness. The game starts with Alex Roivas as she learns that her grandfather was murdered at his mansion. When the police are clueless as to how to solve the mystery Alex sets out to make sense of it all. She discovers the Tome of Eternal Darkness at her grandfather’s study. When she reads the words in the pages she is transported across time to discover an evil that may be connected to her past.

The storyline is simply brilliant, with the character’s actions deeply affecting the development of the plot and the dangers they will face later on. But what truly puts Eternal Darkness over the top is the use of sanity effects.

Eternal Darkness employs a sanity meter (which can be seen at the top of the screen). Whenever a character is attacked and loses health the sanity meter slowly drops. When it drops, weird things begin to happen, many which break the fourth wall and bring the player into the game’s world. Both the character and the player will begin to see hallucinations that will test their courage. Some are mild and happen in the game’s world, like the character dying as soon as he or she enters a new area or their limbs begin to fall. But easily the most frightening, and creative, are those that fool the player.

Just as you are about to be ambushed by a horde of monsters, the game will tell you that the Gamecube controller has been disconnected, letting you watch the character get defeated while you are powerless to do anything about it. The scene then flashes white, and it was all just a trick. As the game progresses the insanity effects get weirder and scarier, making the players question the game itself as they are lured into many false moments of safety.

Other moments include the game crashing and leading to a blue screen, a skeleton face adorning the pause screen, and hearing screams and yells when nobody is there. So innovative was this approach to survival horror that no other game has dared to put their spin on it. Such was the impact this had on players.

Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem is a magnificent survival horror game that didn’t quite set the sales charts on fire. But the players that dared to face its madness came out questioning the fabric of existence, and loving every minute of it.