When you think of classic horror titles that inspired the genre, you would typically look back on Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Dino Crisis, or Fatal Frame. While those are all strong footholds on the early days of the horror genre, it is time to give credit to a title that shifted the horror genre and brought light to a growing phenomenon that continues to inspire and entertain many.

SCP, which stands for “Secure. Contain. Protect.,” is a whole entity of its own and it all started out as an online database. Much like the popularized 'creepypasta' forum, the SCP forum turned into a database of user-created entities that have all been supposedly documented by an underground secret facility. This facility, known as the SCP Foundation, prides their work on finding anomalies and entities, classifying them on a danger scale they created, and then containing them in their facility for the safety of mankind. Once in the facility, they use D-class subjects to run tests on interacting with these entities.

SCP: Containment Breach is a title by Undertow Games that has just recently had its 10th anniversary and is the main game that brought many to even know about SCP at all. In this game, players take on the role of a D-class who was in the midst of testing SCP-173, the living statue, when the entire facility has a meltdown that causes a full-scale containment breach. With nowhere in the facility being safe and the many guards and scientists dying around you, there is only one thing to do; find a way to escape!

The premise was simple, the gameplay was a direct defenseless horror style, but the experience was complex. They included a bunch of popular entities and anomalies in this game for players to encounter and interact with. You could run into SCP-173, which you would need to keep your eyes on or it would quickly snap your neck (and they have a blinking mechanic, so you can't just sit still either!), or SCP-049, the plague doctor that believes humans need to be killed to be cured, or SCP-096, the shy guy that will stop at nothing to kill you if you see his face. There are so many more in this game, but those three are easily the most popular on the list.

I remember my first attempt at this game, I took a wrong turn and ran into SCP-106. This SCP sends you to a different dimension when he touches you and in it there are eight pathways. Seven of these pathways lead to instant death while one leads to an exit. I managed to pick correctly, even though it is purely a guessing game, and found myself in a hallway with two directions. One led to a pit and the other a dangerously narrow path. Taking the narrow path led me to the worst fate that confused and scared the crap out of me! I ended up going through some portal by accident and ended up in what looked like a trench near a graveyard. I just kept moving forward but my speed slowed and overhead flew a giant moth-like creature. My vision kept getting fuzzier until the moth creature came back and I died.

This initial experience left me confused and enthralled! As a horror fan, I thought I had seen everything, but through that whole first playthrough, I had no idea what was happening nor what was going to happen. Even as I had more playthroughs of the game, I felt confused, lost, and scared all the time! Even the things that looked safe ended up being dangerous while some things that looked dangerous ended up being safe and then there are the random objects that are either very helpful or made things so much worse.

If you are a horror fan and don't know about SCP, then I highly encourage checking out the website to learn about the many SCPs that exist. However, not knowing about SCP means that you can also go into an exciting world of scares and terror with a multitude of titles. SCP: Containment Breach is a free-to-play game that can be downloaded here. Once you try that out, you can head on to Steam and try some titles like SCP: Secret Laboratory, a free-to-play multiplayer game based on Containment Breach, and even some newer ones like SCP: Pandemic, which is currently available in an early access alpha stage.

Undertow Games is now working on Barotrauma which is currently available on PC via Steam Early Access.