For me it was Dead Space 2 when I was 12-ish. For reference, at this point the most gruesome/gorey/violent media I was exposed to was the Halo 3 Flood levels and the original 2 Alien movies.
I had way too much fun playing it to be traumatized by it at the time, although when i was old enough to understand the horror of the whole “your memories and experience becoming food for a god-like being that has absolutely zero respect for your existance”, that did inform my perspective of other media such as Evangelion or Childhood’s end when I watched them for the 1st time.
What was your equivalent to this? I’ve heard the Resident Evil games are quite common for this but I want to hear your perspective.
My brother and I used to play a game called Splatterhouse on Turbografx-16. It was humorously horrifying, given the highly pixellated gore on screen.
That game caused a lot of bullshit with those parent groups and whatnot. Definitely one of the better TG-16 games for sure.
Then Carmageddon and Grand Theft Auto came along a few years later lol…