oh btw i did a video commentary on this a while ago if you want more context and insider info on the process of making it: ruclips.net/video/qjL2mJ3uks0/видео.html
I had a RUclips channel up a while back listing some of my oob in the game destiny 2. Frankly I find going out of bounds relaxing. And I love to get to locations that you couldn’t normally get to
Cursed judge...mate u are the definition of when a computer/gaming nerd has too much testosterone and not enough sex ..and that leads to overthought bollox videos like this....Yes??!! 😂😉
When you say "dark topics" what does that mean? Do you mean like dark chocolate? Dark hardly any light in a room, or dark as in rape, assaults, abortion rights, etc.? It would be very helpful if you just write what those dark topics involve along with your warning message, so that it is known what viewers are going to be getting into. This is very vague.
As a child I had the idea to turn and look backwards during parts of The Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. It was a whole different world back there. I could see the lights, the color gels, the fog machines, service doors, and animatronic figures going dead after they're no longer in view (if facing forward). This was my first experience seeing the out of bounds. I became obsessed with the idea of getting out of the car during dark rides and exploring behind the scenes.
That is such a fascinating concept. A simpler but similar one is I remember the first time I was so bored with a movie in a theatre I looked at the projector and ceiling. You are just not supposed to do that so the experience you get is one no one purposely designed.
@@AfutureV I've been up there before, in that little projector room. It's a cool experience. It's mysterious cuz only certain people see that ya know. 📽️
What makes out of bounds scary to me is the loss of connection. No one is there to talk to or help. It's a mix of the fear of the unknown and the fear of being left behind in solitude.
Now imagine being on the edge of the map with a empty void, then you accidentally kicked a rock while taking a closer look below. Just seeing it fall, and fall, for god knows how long makes me shiver.
I won't say it feels scary to be out of bound or to be in a place where there is no connection or reason. I feel a sense of uselessness and vague(that the best words I can describe with). Like you are waiting for a lift to reach the top floor but it's taking a long time for that brief moment you get the feeling that you are all alone in that metal box suspended on metal wires. Nothing here can hurt you except time there is no monster but I am afraid cause somehow I feel lost the connection and now nobody cares basically you not really present in the world with others.
There was these bizarre beta cliffs way back then that played these creepy horns in the background around the edges of the playable space. and that was terrifying
@@tactical_slime4608 oh wow i don't know if ive ever seen that, i'd love to! any tips on where to look? its always so cool to be able to see just how far one of these early access games ends up going, and subnautica is a really neat one to look at imo :)
@@tactical_slime4608 It's speculated the cliffs were only removed as some kind of bug since they were quite realistic and seem to have just been removed from the world in a weird and unnatural way. Makes sense to me, though why and how the devs didn't notice... even with subnautica below zero out????
I used to get scared of minecraft when playing on peaceful. When the music finally ends, the silence with only the sound of my footsteps would terrify me and i would always play music to fill that emptiness.
Growing up in a city surrounded my mountains I always had a border to ground me in reality, the first time I went to the Midwest and saw how flat it was I felt like if I walked far enough I could fall off the world.
omg same but opposite! i grew up in the southwest away from any mountains and now that i live in the cascades, the sky feels like a skybox lol. esp on foggy days.
As someone from the Midwest that’s very interesting to hear. The biggest “mountains” I’ve seen are just large hills and even those give me a weird sense of vertigo, like the Earth is rolling and undulating. If I saw actual mountains my mind would probably break
@@eathamgamer patrick needs to go jump off a cliff and get stabbed by a thousand needles, that son of a bitch fucker is a drop dead ugly fucking cocksucker. I hope patrick and spongbob are buried in a 30 ton layer of cement mixed with black powder so that I can light it and watch their organs and flesh go flyinh
I think there's one thing terrifying you didn't notice/mention. If you keep going into the void of nothingness, there's a good chance you'll get lost. Trying to go back seems reasonable until you realize a hairpin turn sends you in a completely different direction... since it's a game it's fine but imagine getting that lost irl, like being lost at sea but worse.
It sounds a bit like what Age-Of-Sail ocean exploration must have been like. Unless you're really good at tracking stars, once you're out of sight of land... That's it. It's just you, your boat, a couple dozen other guys, and The Void. Your tiny bubble of normalcy, floating on an endless, featureless ocean that may as well go on forever in all directions. I'm getting uncomfortable just thinking about it.
My first experience with this was San Andreas. I managed to no clip while inside an interior, used the jetpack and flew around. Staring into nothingness was extremely unsettling. Boy did it get worse when I realised the interior I was just on had now unloaded because I flew too far and now I'm stuck here. Genuinely terrifying in a very unusual and eerie way.
@@tba113 For a moment, I thought "Age-Of-Sail" was a video game title and I was about to look it up, until I realized that you're talking about the actual age of sailing ships. Now I want them to make a game like that: open ocean, star navigation, and the very real possibility of getting completely lost. But what would they call it..?
There's also something called _Nitrogen Narcosis_ or _Rapture of the Deep_ , that's the loss of the sense of direction when you're in the water that some scuba divers experiment
Seeing a picture of a liminal space reminds me of visiting school at night. A place you normally see full of life is nothing but emptiness. Unnerving in a sense.
Back when I did robotics in school, we would sometimes be there until 11:30 at night cramming before an event. All the lights in the halls had turned off by the time we left, and the handful of us were the only ones left in the entire building. It was incredibly unnerving.
It doesn't scare me. It just makes me think I'm breaking some law by being there too late at night. Heck, my town had laws against being in basically any public space at night. Unless you were driving in a car, you were basically automatically guilty of loitering.
Back in school we had a book club with a few people in it and we would sometimes do a sleepover reading night at school and it was one of the best things ever. There was something so mysterious and almost forbidden feeling staying in school as a kid at a time you would never be there normally, especially because most of the lights everywhere were completely turned off
The single biggest skin crawl for me came from Duke Nukem 3D. Using noclip, an early teenage me discovered the ability to transcend what was meant to be explored, only to stumble upon "You're not supposed to be here." Suddenly, it was made clear that the authority I thought I was defying, was right there with me, beyond what was supposed to be.
“There’s a point where the idea of a monster becomes less scary than the lack of one.” This is what made the backrooms so terrifying, but now it’s a damn tourist attraction with “entities” or whatever.
Definitely, whenever I saw a backrooms video start talking about monsters and what not, I could only feel disappointment. Monsters are entertaining, but they aren't scary. Maybe monsters can make you jump, but they dont give you the fear of death. When you die to a monster in game, you just gotta try again. But when you're immersed in the true backrooms, there's nothing. Being in the backrooms is death, the dread of never moving forward or knowing more; permanently away from your life, with nothing to happen and nothing to experience. The best possible outcome is for a monster to exist.
@@maddyschad6649 have always framed it as an endless, eternal void. There is nobody and nothing. Just you. You never hunger, never thirst, never feel tired. You just exist. How would you look after a thousand years? A million?
Out of bounds areas never really scared me. They fascinated me. I loved seeing how elaborate yet fickle the illusions were, as well as the different approaches to crafting them. It was like a weird incarnation of the allegory of the cave. I guess that contributed to my love of science since early childhood. In a way, I want to find the universe’s out of bounds and see what it’s like.
I get why it scares some people, but I've always been drawn to those places and actively seek them out. I guess a comparison could be drawn between early explorers and those who stayed behind.
i always thought the escape pod ending HAD to be intentional, seeing as how the door you need to backpedal through quickly is the only place in the game where you can do that, the narrator instantly goes silent instead of, say, finishing his line, and the eerie feeling it gives off is so strong that i figured it was deliberately crafted to make you feel that way, similarly to other moments like the games ending
Thats because its intentional. The 'mod' that adds in more to the ending got the narrator to say more lines, rather than the lines already being there. I think that point weakens the author's credibility a bit.
@@N.Doughnut the debug log actually shows the narrator is supposed to be there, since the average player wouldn't have found that and using cheats to keep the narrator makes the cutscene play normally it is certainly a bug
It’s definitely intentional. There wouldn’t be a path for you to play out otherwise. I’ve never once heard anyone say it was unintentional before this guy.
There's a clip from that Jerma Among Us VR livestream where he phased into the wall and he was terrified, I found it hilarious. I haven't yet had the opportunity to play VR games yet, but I imagine it's scary.
Absolutely, I've clipped out of so many VR games and it is just depressing. Falling off the map in Rec Room is really scary, mainly because I don't wanna have to leave am rejoin, but also you're just so lonely
@@TheCursedJudge seeing uncleard frames violently flash no matter where you look. Witnessing floating point errors that distort and disturbly jostle the verticies when you move... its horrifying...
Something that also terrifies me is when video game soundtracks just suddenly stop. You're just left there in pure silence, anticipating what my happen even though nothing is there. It feels as if as soon a a soundtrack stops, something just starts watching you or something. Idk personally it's very scary to me when something just stops. It like some other very menacing thing is going to happen in its place.
When I was like 12-13 I had a friend stay overnight and we fell asleep listening to the Donkey Kong Country soundtrack. Well unbeknownst to me at the time, that OST has hidden tracks at the very end of it, separated from the last proper track by 24 silent tracks so the hidden tracks don't play just immediately. The hidden tracks are the tunes that play when you win or lose a bonus game, and when you lose a life. Hearing those, in the blackness of the middle of the night, after the music proper had stopped playing, just filled me with a weird existential dread for some reason. I had heard those tunes so many times before, but hearing them out of context like that just felt wrong.
@@shreyaskadam7633 not really. The actual issue is that you are interrupted by “but nobody came,” and a slow drone. I have to applaud Toby’s unique take upon storytelling through video games, but the one game I know that truly makes a point on violence is Hotline Miami. At no point are you simply condemned immediately upon killing. In undertale you are constantly reminded of your sins, always up in your face. Hotline doesn’t. It only asks you a very pointed question. “Do you like hurting other people.” No “look at what you done,” or “you are a murderer.” Only a single question that penetrates the mind and FORCES you into thinking, “wait, why do I enjoy hurting other people?” It’s an amazing game.
@@bull1085 True, also cause in undertale you have to go out of your way and kill every single monster in the area for genocide so it's basically asking for a dark route.
I used to lead groups out of bounds in Lord of the Rings Online. The different reactions from awe and appreciation, to absolute fear really stuck with me. We all knew it was just a game, but when you take a multiple thousand-hours character to the edge of "reality" there can be an overwhelming wave of dread. Honestly as good as a game is, seeing what you shouldn't will always be my favorite part. I wish more developers would embrace the void without making it accessible. Guild wars 2 with all those very well-hidden Jumping Puzzles are some of the best electronic experiences I have ever had. I have a somewhat recurring dream of falling out of bounds. After awhile ghostly shapes start to form. Behind them, and impossibly gargantuan malevolent face slowly grows. Maybe I'm broken, but those dreams make me feel so alive. Wonder and dread holing hands into the abyss. Dam I started rambling again... Sorry!
I had those dreams, well, they were nightmares to me as a child, too. I was existing and focused on something small and tangible when something infinitely large appeared above and slowly descended. The helplessness shook me
@@xandernabors13I used to dream that the sky was full of huge space stations. I felt dread at the size of something above me, but also relief that humans had gotten good enough at surviving that at least a few million on us were out of harm’s way if something sweepingly terrible happened on the ground. This was back when I was still rooting for humans. Maybe I stopped having this dream because I kept hanging out with humans and got to know them a little better.
Yep! This is similar to sneaking into Hyjal in the old World Of Warcraft (before Cataclysm) when Hyjal was an unfinished zone and you could only sneak into there by doing some tricky jumping along the edge of a wall and taking advantage of physics bugs. Hyjal was a beautiful zone but obviously unfinished and you were not supposed to be there.
I thought I was the only one who found out-of-bounds areas terrifying. I can't even look at the screen when I accidentally leave the area, the feeling of what feels like dread is so strong. EDIT: It's been 4 months and I still get notifications from this comment, lol. I think my fear stems from the feeling of "this isn't correct" that out-of-bounds areas have, as well as a fear of the pure nothingness that is there. It's worse when it's a Bethesda game and the skybox starts glitching out if you've escaped an interior; the weird duplication effect is nauseatingly surreal. I also think it's because I personally struggle with mental health issues, specifically dissociation, where I will have deja vu episodes and moments of unreality. Out-of-bounds areas feel like a space outside of the 'reality' of the game, thus triggering those feelings of dissociation. Anyways play Deltarune.
Personally the Minecraft Far Lands are what scare me the most, the amount of secrets people have found there generated by pure, simple math really makes you question how deep the rabbit hole of existence goes (not to mention people actually teleported to infinity)
It's the uncanny valley. You get used to the natural terrain, the Minecraft world generation. When you exit beyond the limits of these standard and normal worlds, it's different subtlety. Not so little that it's unnoticeable, but not so severe that it is entirely unrecognizable
By "actually teleported to infinity", do you mean in the way that someone got to the highest integer limit the game can recognize, or something else I'm unaware of? Because I've never heard anyone describe the former that way, but it does seem quite fitting.
To me, it feels very related to the imagined feeling of being on a spacewalk and losing your grip without a rope. Every second you get further and further away from life while being completely helpless.
I agree, just knowing that there’s nothing you can do to prevent your lonely eternity is horrible. I don’t want to imagine drifting through space for infinity it’s absolutely terrifying
I had a dream few years ago kinda similar to this but also a bit different. The dream started normal, calming even. I'm in a beautiful mountain side flower meadow. A river is flowing right next to me. I can hear the sound of birds singing and the sound of the river flowing. It's feels like an absolute paradise. Or I may say it's suppose to feel like an absolute paradise. But something just doesn't feel right... something is just off. I start to walk by the river and notice, no matter how much I walk, the view is not changing. Every flower bush, every small rocks, the clouds in the sky everything is repeating like the minecraft duplication and repeatation seeds. Suddenly I realized all the sounds are also repetitive. Like a recorded sound clip of birds chirping and a river flowing playing on a loop. I also saw that the river wasn't actually flowing. The water was still. Impossibly still. There were many other odd things in that place as well. Like I couldn't feel any sort of air flow. And there were no living animals let alone humans. There was only sound of birds but I couldn't see any. I picked up a small stone and tried to throw it. But to my surprise it didn't land anywhere. I looked and saw it was laying exactly where I picked it from. This entire dream made me feel one of the most intense sense of fear, anxiety and loneliness I have ever felt. The feeling was almost claustrophobic even though the place was practically open and infinite.
@@blesskurunai9213 It's not too unlike those memes where people piss in the toilet and look up to see the foot of their bed. I hate those dreams so much, I used to get them every night and It started affecting my daytime. It's very scary to not know what's happening.
For me the scariest thing about out of bounds in the complete lack of control and predictability. Thinking of OG Pokémon glitches in particular, it’s like reality stops working. The laws of physics no longer apply and your actions no longer have any power. You just have to watch as the world crumbles and eventually, your existence along with it.
for me out of bounds feel the closest to physically defining anxiety. nothing is really there, but you make things there thats unsettling. Then you learn to drop it and find peace
Sounds like it could be an after death theory. Falling through the void until peace is found within yourself and then you get reborn or truly die or whatever.
As a kid and even now I actively tried to get out of bounds. I enjoy it rather than fear it. To me it’s like I have my own personal path in a game. It’s hard to describe but it’s comforting
Yesss me too. One of my favourites was in the original Mercenaries where I’d make myself invincible so the air strikes couldn’t kill me then go exploring the restricted areas lol
I recall when I was young accessing some out of bounds in PC's Unreal Tournament (1999); skyscraper city level tossing translocator (teleporter disc) off a fall that would normally be fatal, to get so unintended floor to walk on down low; noclip flying cheats to explore levels better ex Facing Worlds (although at the beginning of a level you get that ability anyways before starting match); I even discovered that the intro video was in fact a level, and if you noclip fly around you can stop the autofly path and explore that level at your leisure. I also recall N64 GoldenEye (I think it was that game?) walking outside on a snowly mountain-bordered flat landscape way farther than intended, and discovering at the border by mountains a small facility entrance that I couldnt access. I didnt play much of the game so I may be misremembering. I guess its not the same thing but gave me similar feeling, unintended playing area. Actually, I also recall that in PC 1st Serious Sam, walking outside a desert level and getting further away from "city...?" and finding no limit to how far I can go, just will take me just as long to turn around and go back. Again perhaps I misremember or didnt notice an invisible wall at a certain point, but felt like an infinite navigatable world outside the intended game area...
I love going out of bounds because it makes me feel powerful being able to break the boundaries put in place by digital gods so I always try to find ways to do so in singleplayer / co-op not competitive games though because I see that as cheating
this is immersive/explorative gameplay where the player exercises metastrategies (like dominant strategies, perception of invisible walls/boundaries). in many games, this type of gameplay is simply not economically viable, and is less stimulating than killing enemies or collecting points. but i feel like people who are passionate about design have a tendency to enjoy this type of experience
When I was younger, I used to play halo reach a lot, and I used to get scared when I went out of bounds in the campaign because I was freaked out by the low quality things and phase through objects. Whenever I walked through a tree or rock out there, it would just unsettle me so much since I guess my brain thought thats not how objects are supposed to work in real life and didn’t know how to react. Great video though!
Speaking of creepy Reach, Halo Reach forge world occasionally gave me this weird "you're not alone and something is watching you" feeling. Like an empty Garry's mod map.
It's the feeling of security leaving, everything in the playable area has been designed with purpose for players, if anything happens in here, there's a good chance many others have as well. But out of bounds areas don't have this safety feature, it's chaotic. You feel like there's an infinite possibility of something bad happening, and you'll have no idea how to defend yourself.
You know, the backrooms were scarier before the monsters were made part of it. Because what makes the backrooms scary is that you are completely alone, there is nothing To focus on, nothing To do, just endless corridors and rooms. Even if there were monsters To be scared of, it just replaces the horror of lonelyness with horror of something that can kill you. Making it just a normal horror game. In my opinion. 1.1k likes, I have never ever gotten this much. Thank you! :)
This reminds me of that experiment everyone’s been talking about recently. How many people would rather give themselves an electric shock than sit in a room for fifteen minutes doing nothing. Some people’s horror is their own mind. I have family members who would prefer the monster in the backrooms because playing a game without would be boring to them. They’re not going to fall into the introspective thoughts that you just wrote about here. They’re not bad people, or even shallow, but they live life on the fly and don’t think about their fears in their own world like some of us do. They want an electric shock, a monster to run from. I’ve confronted my shadow self, my fears, and ai’m comfortable looking at them. I can sit with myself. And a backrooms without anything at all-that’s what I like. Bringing me back to tickle the dragon. Touch on those deepest fears again. Relearn how to sit with myself. But of course nothing like this is a dichotomy and there’s lots of ways to enjoy horror. And lots of ways to sit in an empty room for 15 minutes.
So true - the uncanny nature of the backrooms, the idea of being lost but with the tantalising opportunity that every turn could bring rescue or escape. It was far scarier as a psychological idea than as a space with monsters running around.
The monsters ruined the backrooms for me. If people want monsters so bad, a better way to do it would be to make them purely psychological. Anyone trapped in the backrooms would effectively be undergoing white room torture and would lose their mind with enough time. The monsters shouldn't be real, they should be hallucinations by people who are going mad. This also brings up an interesting theme: The backrooms aren't what's actually tormenting you. It's your own mind. You're a victim of demons you created for yourself. Nothing is out to get you, except for yourself.
Personally, going out-of-bounds in a video game is a terrifying experience. I just can't explain it, but every time I do, my anxiety builds up like crazy and it's so difficult for me to even look at the screen until I'm back into the map. It's refreshing to know that I'm not the only person who thinks going out-of-bounds is uncomforting and anxiety-inducing.
This ends up changing after you do enough game creation. Out of bounds turns into an insightful look on how someone else made something, and little more
Was never a game developer, but I was never really scared of going out of bounds, it's always been something I actually enjoyed doing I'm various games, battlefront, overwatch, battlezone, halo, subnautica, you name it. Was always intrigued to figure out how to leave the expected areas of maps
I'm a game dev, and honestly, the out of bounds for me sounds a bit funny, I mean, something like (WoOoOh, Im FaLlInG oFf ThE mAp!!!) but, if I imagine I'm the person in there and the way the video says, it really gets me scared.
yes, that or how you can make something more about the out of bounds experience....like for example in the from software games (or souls specifally). the stuff you have there, be it whole cities, castles, scrapped stuff etc is the fcking BEST and so interesting and even mysterious. which is why the scene is so big in this franchise
I thought this would be a review of a game called out of bounds, but it feels like so much more, like recognizing a dread and wonder I’ve always felt, something that’s a part of me but also nothing.. I love this existentialism and I want to explore it as much as I can
When I was a kid I was scared of the basement, I couldn't really tell you why I was scared of it. Just that I was. Looking back, I now realize that it was a place filled with the dark and damp, an uneasy settling feeling for a child. Things we normally don't like or don't need. Some people have their laundry machines there, some use it for storage, but regardless rarely is a basement a regular place that you go in your house. At least that's what my child brain believed. So of course my mind made up stories of what could be in the basement aside from just clothes and Christmas ornaments you only pull out once a year. Now unlike a liminal photograph there is a sign of humanity in a basement through. Those things you keep there, but it's eerie in its own right because they are things that were discarded. Or devalued, if only for a time. Like the abandoned house that has no life but a history of one. The stairs leading down as a child felt like you were entering the out of bounds. A place you shouldn't be. It's not cheerful, it's simple basic function is to put the things you don't want to see on a regular basis. Sometimes it would feel like the items left there were depressed because they knew they were not as useful as the things upstairs. There's a reason why we all fear the basement subconsciously. We pause in horror games when we have to descend stairs into a basement level or area. We know that something could be lurking. Why is that? Why are we all so scared of a basement? Is it because we know deep down that the only things that go down there are the undesirables? Is it because every story we have read has said for some reason that the scariest of monsters lurk there? Or is it just because the true out of bounds are the things we choose not to think about. Our anxieties. The limitations we put on ourselves to branch out into the unknown. Outside our comfort zone. As a kid we choose not to enter those "scary" places purely because we are made to believe or have convinced ourselves they are scary. The mice however view the basement as their comfort. Maybe to them our bedroom is the out of bounds because they know they will get caught or killed. The only nightmares in the out of bounds are the ones we conjur up. Regardless though, every time I enter a basement my heart still skips a beat. Even as an adult. The mind is really good at playing tricks, but how do you know your mind is playing tricks if it's convinced you the tricks are real? What if there is something down there? In the basement, it has been all along.
this is an unbelievable comment - seriously, very well done. i never could put a finger on why they felt so scary; it wasn’t for fear of monsters or “bad guys”, it was a combination of smell and the emptiness preoccupied by objects that are loved during certain times - the magic is lost outside of those times and they fully transcend what we loved them for; they take on the smell of dust and solitude rather than pine needles and the warmth of a fire. this comment really made me think, it took almost a therapist approach of retracing. thank you!! 💗
As a kid I would be scared of turning back randomly or seeing the back of old pictures don’t really know how to explain it but looking backwards is spooky to me not much anymore I mean in hallways and In my garage I still can’t be looking back/behind me lol but that’s because ik none else is there I don’t wanna catch something lacking like a ghost probably lol
I have a utility room instead of a basement in my house, and I was never really scared of it till I was about 9 when I suddenly got a really bad fear of concrete rooms bc I thought something was going to cave the ceiling in, pick me up with a *g i a n t* hand, and squash me flat as a pancake for fun. It ain’t as bad now, but I still hate going in there
Not out of bounds, but a similar feeling: The original Myst game had no monsters, you couldn't die, there were no time limits or threats. But it was very creepy because even though you were totally alone, it felt like someone was watching you the whole time and there would be some random jumpscare.
I got serious uncanny valley feelings from the myst game. Like omg that game brought a true sense of isolation. Sure there were a lot of structures, but where are all the people? And there's like no ambience either. It's like that time when I was camping in the woods all over again. The crickets stopped, and there were no animal sounds for a good hour. It was late night, and cloudy so no moon, which made it worse.
.... I completely agree!!! BUT... I thought you actually find someone in Myst eventually? Maybe that wasn't the "Original" Myst but instead the 2nd or 3rd game? ... I just remember watching my mom play when I was very young & eventually she looked into / opened a room, & BOOM! there was a creepy guy in a chair out of nowhere... I think he even chases you too!
@@infinitedeath1384dude if the crickets and shit just suddenly stopped making noise that means there was something or someone in the vicinity, that's a telltale sign of something being nearby in the wild.
Had a moment like this in Dead Space 3 that was creepy. Was going to my objective when I wondered what would happen If I backtracked VERY far. Had no need to go back, no rewards. Doors opened fine until I reached a room that that was long, twisted, T shaped, and had multiple rooms. Once I entered, the doors ALL turned red and locked, trapping me inside. I thought there might be a way out, or that monsters would spawn and try and kill me, but instead I found nothing, just me, the room, and silence.
I feel like that scene with Squidward in the void with Alone repeating until he goes insane perfectly encapsulates the feeling youre trying to describe here.
This video essay is so good. Opened it in a hurry to add to “watch history” to continue later and I just couldn’t turn it off until the end.. I fell out of bounds of my own impatience and I really glad about it
That would be horrible. I sometimes imagine that if you were a being that has lived for all time, from the Big Bang to the evaporation of the last atom, then no matter how long the universe had been doing things for, you would all ways end up in darkness for infinitely longer.
i get it one of my fears is trapped in a void with nothing not even your mined is their and no one will come for all of eternity and you wont even know its happening -edit that wood make a good horror game right
Well that'd be just like what being in space is like. As long as you've got a breathable atmosphere and gravity still (for some reason), you'd be free falling like on an endless parachute jump. If you don't have gravity, you're just... stuck. If you also don't have an atmosphere, then don't worry, you won't be experiencing that for very long.
The worst part about out-of-bounds for me is when the music from the area you glitched out of keeps playing. Especially when it's dramatic, orchestral or contains a choir.
I added this mod to Skyrim where basically everyone had a disease (more or less a zombie apocalypse) and somehow I completely broke the save because the battle music randomly started looping indefinitely.
part of why being alone is so scary is because humans are a social species. we're literally built to socialize and interact with one another, negatively or positively, and whether we like it or not. the backrooms are scary because there's no people - it's basically just indefinate solitude, which peels our minds apart
even if we are not talking to others, just being around someone is essential to human joy. people with social anxiety or agoraphobia, may isolate themselves by "choice" (using that word lightly), but in places like the backrooms or out of bounds, is that while theyre still alone, its not by choice. with isolating yourself, you can go and interact with people, both online and in person. but with being alone, you cant call for help or even talk to someone, even if you tried. its a loss of control, which most people are also instinctively frightened by.
I think another part of it, is our monkey brain screaming that something is supposed to be there, somewhere, and when we can't find it the prey instinct kicks in of not being able to find what you're sure is there. Seeing a Spider isn't scary, no longer seeing that spider is
I’m surprised you didn’t mention it, but in the Escape Pod ending in TSP, every floor you go up has a glass window which always shows the first office space with all the lights off and the doors closed. It’s extremely eerie looking into it with nothing on except maybe one computer screen, and this loops for the 6 or so floors you climb. Really adds to the creepy and supernatural part of it.
I’ve always loved thinking about a different kind of liminal space. A space that isn’t eerie, but just… closed for the day. Imagine a high school over the weekend, a restaurant just after the last customer leaves, a grand wedding hall in the morning, an office before the start of a work day, or a convention center hours before an event. Lights are on, floors are clean. Objects are not scattered about, but rather placed intentionally, ready for a new day. Everything is as intended, yet no one is around, and not in a scary way. You are truly alone, and you know irl Alone just for now, and just here. This is where my idea begins to differ. Unlike most people into the backrooms, I love the idea of KNOWING you are alone. Not scared of what is lurking about, no. It’s just you, alone for the time being, in a place meant for hundreds or thousands. A calm atmosphere and a carefree sense of temporary freedom. It’s just you, and as far as your legs and curiosity will take you…
I want more backrooms games like that. I hate jumpscares or monsters, but I like the combined fear and freedom of exploring those spaces alone, never knowing what the next place may be like...
I work night shifts at a church and have to be the last person in the buildings due to security reasons. Everything gets pitch black: the preschool, sanctuary (the “main” building), etc just to name a few. I get the feeling, it’s depressing, eerie, yet interesting to me.
YES. I felt so odd for this and didn't think other people would get it. I'm not sure how my brain was getting the sense of scale so well tbh. I want to ask you if you feel something like this when you're standing next to very tall/large objects in real life?
At 16:14 is an actually REAL playground in my local neighborhood I used to go to all the time as a kid, this isn't even a "oh it looks familiar to me" thing. This is legitimately a real place I've been and that somehow makes this picture all the more scary.
I feel ya there this park looks like a park I used to go to when I was a child too. my memory isn’t the best since I was a child at the time but it kinda looks like the millennium park in lake charles louisiana, before it burnt down and was rebuilt. not exactly sure if that’s where your from though. 😅
yeah i have a playground like that to. i think its because almost every child has been to ONE of these and its a common design as we now know and thats what makes it so much more familiar to the point where you know youve been somewhere like that or exactly like that
It's the same type of feeling you get when walking away from a camp fire in the dead of night. Waiting for your fate, something which may end you in the next second or not at all. The terror of the out of bounds is the idea of waiting for something which may never happen. It's related to liminal spaces but is not the same thing.
Yesss when people started introducing human groups and all it felt wrong like... The most perfect form of the backrooms is just... Nothing. No other stage than the first one we know. Just endless, endless closed structures that makes no sense but yet feels always the same
@@LTNetjak the idea of immortality itself is absolutely terrifying, for me after a long time existing you start to lose your mind, you lose little by little your sanity and at the end you end up doing nothing and... being nothing...
@@calizuyou should look at liminal spaces communities. It’s basically the back rooms but more tame and without the monsters. I think the back rooms should have stayed mysterious and without a bunch of creepy crawlies everywhere
it freaked me out when I was a kid, and there are still a few games that freak me out even now. there have even been a few times in real life where I've been in an area where I felt I wasn't supposed to be. And I think that's what it is, that sense of "you don't belong here".
"It's places that we've all seen or experienced that were designed to be full of life, people moving, talking, humans doing human things, but without us, it's artificial. It feels like everything is placed intentionally, mimicking the complexity and decay and life of our worlds, but falling flat, landing squarely in the uncanny valley." That actually scared the shit out of me. Also that's some damn good writing.
Great video. I recall playing Halo 2 on the OG Xbox. On the level Delta Halo I was mucking around with vehicles and the terrain before the first elevator ride and found a way to clamber up the terrain. I grabbed a ghost for its speed, and discovered you could go around the entire map, including the far side of the lake, as well as the lake bed. I vividly remember this sensation of unease, as though I was being watched or wasn't alone. Such a strange sensation.
I have a pretty major case of being absolutely terrified of out-of-bounds areas. Hanging just below bedrock in Minecraft while being in creative? Pure dread. Kind of like being scared of heights, but also a little different. Super glad this subject is getting some more coverage! Really amazing video :>
I also used to be terrified of the Minecraft void, to the point that I covered up my eyes when I saw it, and I also had a few dreams or nightmares about falling into the void that's similar to the Minecraft one, I remember only one right now and I was unable to scream for help while falling, like I tried but my body physically wouldn't, also after a little while I felt I started falling much slower untill I eventually froze in place as if I hit some kind of bottom that wasn't physical like some kind of very thick invisible substance that I couldn't feel but still got caught up in it I'm not scared of the Minecraft void anymore, but I discovered Subnautica and now I'm terrified of the Subnautica void, I don't fear it as much as I used to fear Minecraft void, but it still gives me a very uncomfortable feeling in my stomach, and I also saw it in my dreams a few times, thankfully in those ones I didn't fall into it and managed to get away from it
I love the out of bounds. Finding the edge of the world where I can fall forever. Exploring the places where gamemakers never meant for us to go. It's seeing a secret I was never meant to see.
yes!!!! i went out of bounds on bugsnax a few times... I went up to the top of an invisible ceiling and i also just kinda went off the map where falling into the void was a risk. I also just climb really high up in the moss blanket in slime rancher (also curse those evil cliffs that you just slide off of)
I always had a big fear of jumpscares, i became paranoid about getting jumpscared when i was younger and this kind of...scenario always made and still makes me anxious, for me its a fear that something that shouldnt be there will suddenly show up for a scare.
The "out of bounds" is a way out; I don't see it as a terrifying abyss, more than an enticing escape from what was meant for you. There is always more to a game than meets the eye. Often times you'll see secrets out of bounds to reward you for your outward thinking, maybe a developer comment or two to show that the people who developed the game are human, too; perhaps the feat itself is enough of an award. If you harness the "out of bounds," it can bring you places. Look at speedrunning!
that stanley parable ending was such a perfect example to use, even with your narration on top of it i instantly got chills from it really hope this video blows up because you deserve infinitely more views
This is the first time ever in my life I see somebody touch upon that topic. It's really interesting to see I'm not alone in this, honestly I thought I'm weird my whole life. However, my scenario is still a little different than for most people I think. I always love breaking the boundaries of games, falling under the map etc. but it always gives me HUGE anxiety, I think that I have a very intense phobia of empty voids. As long as I look up, it's okay, but if I look down and see that I'm falling into this endless void - I just freak out. To put it more into the perspective, I can play Minecraft normally and it never scares me, even under bedrock (somehow) but if I do it in any other game with realistic graphics - it becomes scary because it's something unusual in a realistic looking world. I remember the first time I glitched under the map in Forza Horizon 3, where the sky underneath was purely black. I panicked. I also once glitched under the map in Google Maps in 3D, and the same disturbing feeling came. To give you more fresh example, Flight Simulator scares me the most out of all games when I glitch to the highest point you can go and see the earth very far away. Most of the times, this feeling goes away when somebody is around, when I'm talking to someone or just see that they're standing right next to me. This feeling also doesn't happen only in games, if I were in the middle of an ocean in real life with nobody around me I would probably freak out the same way I do with games. And I've never seen anybody who feels the same as me, so it's interesting to finally somebody else talking about that.
If it helps thalassophobia is the fear of open large bodies of water, or more accurately this video is tapping into kenophobia, the phobia of open voids or empty spaces that can induce anxiety. So it's definitely not just you. I've even seen a few youtubers who also freak out about the vastness of the open ocean, a well known one is Markiplier with his Subnautica series which is basically him dealing with his fear. Interestingly one (Wendigoon) in a video pinned his fear of the ocean to playing a video game when he was young that had an out of bounds kind of glitch on an ocean. It is an interesting topic to watch out for.
You are not alone. Funny you say you always thought you were weird for that, as so did I! I’m happy I found this video. Even though it gave me extreme anxiety watching I’ve never heard anybody touch on this very interesting topic.
If you have ever played Minecraft with the TekkitLite mod pack, there is a mod in there that is called Dimensional Doors. Using these doors transports you to different dimensions, some very dimly lit or even pitch black where you can fall off the edge of a platform. Falling or dying in these dimensions can send you to 'Limbo', another world of nothingness that is dimly lit and very creepy. There is also very limited ways to get back to the overworld so it makes it even creepier. The first (and last) time I ended up there I was filled with anxiety and dread. Warping to home with console commands left me with such a huge relief. Afterwards I did not want to explore for a long time.
when i was a kid, i was REALLY REALLY scared of the minecraft void. it gave me the exact feeling you described. nowadays, i think i can tolerate it because i've been there so much, but when i think about it, and look down, i still get a little feeling of emptiness
just for some feedback, your script was amazing, probably one of the best i've heard. This video is so mindblowing and opening to me, it unfolds so much of what I thought was just a natural feeling, the fear of the unknown. It is interesting to me that the intention behind the creation of something can affect us so much, even if there was not much intention at all. It is crazy how liminal spaces will make us feel this empty void, like there is something missing, but spaces which were supposedly 'not meant to be seen' or 'not meant to be discovered' do not inflict the same feeling. I suppose that is the difference, what feeling we get when we find a secret passage in a game, versus clipping out of bounds. It is a completely different experience, with slightly different intention behind both of those. I've noticed you've also tied something interesting into this, that not just liminal spaces and empty, infinite voids inflict this feeling, but unfinished spaces also inflict it upon us. For example, the Stanley Parable escape pod. The escape pod was supposedly someday supposed to be a secret place to find, a place that was secretly open for player activity and discovery, but was unfinished. It was completely void of anyone, and despite the intention that it was, someday, supposed to be explored, but never was finished, is begging us to question what could have been.
There was one niche first person puzzle game that I remember playing a few years back. It had very simple graphics, yet was absurdly laggy at max settings. During a map transition, I found that turning the settings all the way up and walking backwards quickly clipped me out of the map, and I landed on a landscape used only for backgrounds. It was just grass and distant mountains, but the feeling of climbing these distant shapes so far from the intended path was something I've never experienced anywhere else. Not necessarily scary, but felt I should share anyways.
Closest thing I can find to what your describing is a 2016 steam game called the witness. Edit if you can confirm this I’ll see if I can recreate your experience since I found this super interesting and unique
@@KenShiraishiPlease it sounds like he’s talking about a title tht came out some years ago called “the witness” I remember playing it and it wasn’t game breaking glitchy for me but it was a first person almost cartoon like puzzle game that would bug alot
honestly yeah, it's some really interesting I think about a lot and I love how terrifying it is I love how everything in the world somewhat has an out of bounds, a place no one exists, a place no one is supposed to see, just imagine being in the earth's out of bounds, devoid of any living person, creature, plant, or life in general Just you, the darkness, and whatever light sources may guide you
The out of bounds especially in older games always freaked me out. Even now as an adult it freaks me out more than it should. Expecially those out of bounds, that aren't just dark or a single colour but those that have an "effect" to them. Like I remember there being a game, where if you look into the out of bounds you see a "static image" of the last thing and/or object you looked at and if you turn your camera slightly back, where only a part of the object is visible again, that part of the "static image" is replaced. Or there was also an effect that was similar as that effect on Solitaire, when the cards fall and create a path of copies. I hope I could explain it well enough and that you understand what I meant :D These were and still are the things that freak me out the most. I always get a chill down my spine and have to lift my feet off the ground and place them on my chair as I sit on them. Oh. Another thing that burned it's way into my mind was in GTA San Andreas. There was a method, where you go out of bounce in the mission, where you go to Libery City. I jumped over one wall and was "free" to explore the city but after a few seconds, I fell through the floor and fell or literally a few minutes. I saw structures like a windmill placed literally in the void as I passed it while falling. There were also fences that you find on farms. Then the worst thing, that made me quit the game instantly was that I hit water that I couldn't even see. That was the last time I EVER went out of bounds in San Andreas ever.
The Hall of Mirrors effect! Because on a low level, displaying any "moving objects" on a screen works just by repeatedly drawing them in a new place, and erasing them in the old place. And when there's nothing behind the object, often (especially in older games) the old image doesn't get erased at all. The classic Doom is probably the most famous example of it aside from Solitare, with its simple noclip cheat and small levels. The extra interesting thing about Doom is that the floors and ceiling of the rooms don't really "end" behind the walls, and instead just stretch forever in endless stripes of whichever sector is the closest to you.
I honestly thought I was the only scared one of going out of bounds in a game. When I was much younger I felt an irrational fear of falling into the void, even in creative mode, especially in the end. I was afraid of what I could have found.
I was always creeped out that something might be lurking in the darkness in the out of bounds part of peach’s castle in Mario 64… something about this pure black…
I had a bad acid trip about two years ago where I felt that my mind had fallen off the stream of reality. Out of bounds. I thought from that point forward I was gonna be lost in my mind forever. It was perhaps the most terrifying moment of my life. Still recovering from that
I hope you're doing OK buddy. Traumatic bad trips are some of the most terrifying things that can happen to a person. Reading your comment even gave me a little 'jolt' of that feeling again - I get what you're saying because I experienced it too. It does get easier with time. God bless you.
As someone that used to love psychedelics. I honestly think they're not good anymore. I haven't tripped in a few years now, and glad I haven't. Funny how the media pushes psychedelics like every other degeneracy they push on us now. If the big media or mainstream narrative pushes for something, its probably not good
Interesting how different people react to this feeling. I had the same moment a few years back and it felt exciting and new for me. I wanted to explore this new place. Sorry that it felt so much worse for you, hope you're getting better!
@@funkie1221 i think in the long run it was for the better, for the reason of it giving me something I’ve never experienced before, but it was certainly damaging. I don’t think it was permanently damaging though. It was also a lesson to pay attention to safety when preparing to do drugs. I did a lot of dumb stuff that contributed to it going so bad. I wish that feeling was exciting, but the concept of falling out of reality scares the shit out of me and has for as long as I can remember
I've also explored liminal spaces through procedural terrain and structure generation, and it's for much the same reason you outline here: an uncanny fear of an infinite world, beyond which nothing else can exist. For me the origin was our family holidays when I was a kid. I live in Australia, which is the closest thing to an infinite nothingness this planet has. All our cities are day-long drives from each other, separated by cast expanses of hills, plains, forests, bush, and desert. We used to go interstate, drive for two days, and end up in a place much like home: the same shops, burger bars, cinemas, maybe different scenery but all the same tropes. And I found my child self wondering if we could drive forever and always find more of the same but slightly different things. The Mandelbrot set visualisation is a perfect example of an infinite liminal space; every part of it produces unique and beautiful patterns, but in the end, they are all the same formless, spiraling curlicues dividing into similar smaller curlicues. You recognise a Mandelbrot image from a photo of a forest simply because of it's characteristic formlessness. My goal is to create a driving game, like GTA or Need For Speed, but with procedurally generated terrain, cities, and roads. You can drive onto the freeway and drive for ever, and you will pass through mountains and forests, deserts and seas, always changing, never the same place twice, and yet - somehow all of it becomes the same in the end. You can exit the freeway at any junction, onto another freeway or into a city, and all you will ever find is houses, and office blocks, and factories, even people walking around - and none of it has anything that distinguishes it from any other similar location in the game. You can drive into a small country town, and you'll see its gas station, and its school, and playground, and war memorial with its names of the honoured dead; but so does every other small town you ever drive into. You can drive onto the rural back roads, past never-ending paddocks of sheep, cows, wheat and corn, until you come to another town or freeway. As you play the game, you will dive ever deeper into this liminal world, finding out at last that there is no life, no reason, no centre, no edge, nothing that is ever special or unique, despite every place being a bit different to every other place. No matter how far you drive, you will never find anything else. You can see an example of my procedural generation system and its infinite expanse of rolling green hills and farms that go on forever, in my video: ruclips.net/video/RHWjqpwYnK8/видео.html
Now imagine out of bounds in space irl... this could explain why i loved breaking games and going out of bounds in them! The art of endless exploration while also unsettling is just so fascinating!
Subnautica’s dead zone is probably the best and most horrifying way to set an out of bounds area imo, it really keeps you within the maps borders if you know what’s beyond the boundary.
this video was perfect for me as i remember sea of thieves out of bounds and the sea would just turn red and slowly destroy your ship and going into that with no prior knowledge and not knowing your going out of bounds it is super scary, although its the same with subnautica its kind of hard to see whether its out of bounds or if its the void and it is horrifying when experiencing it the first time
This video reminded me of a horror novel I read, written by Mark Z. Danielewski, called House of Leaves. It tells the tale of a man and his family who discover that their house is essentially a hole in reality. A door that would otherwise lead through a wall onto the roof instead leads to an infinite expanse of pitch black rooms and corridors. It holds a parallel to the backrooms, even though this book was published 3 years before 4chan even existed. Never have I felt genuine horror from a book than from House of Leaves. I highly recommend buying it and reading it for yourself.
A game I am so terrified of getting out of bounds of is Euro Truck Simulator. The way the developers built the map makes it so realistic, but once you manage to zoom out of the map, it’s just bunch of roads surrounded by fake mountains and farmlands in the distance, and the map beneath is just pitch black. I always look away from the screen when I do this
I remember being a kid and telling my friends how I was scared of falling into the void in Minecraft cause I thought I'd get stuck falling forever and they laughed at me. Your video has helped me realize that I was not wrong in my fears lol
I remember how I managed to save my prawn suit. The pressure would destroy my suit before I got to the bottom (and respawned somewhere safe) so what I did was that I held into the edge of the crater as I was falling, and whenever the prawn suit got too damaged, I would exit it and the sprawn suit would remain on that place if close to the wall, so I used that opportunity to fix the suit and I did so many times before I got to the bottom, and my prawn was saved. Gotta admit though, I was terrified the entire time.
DUDE. I'm not the ONLY ONE that gets that creeped out/intrigued feeling from out of bounds? This video... This is one I will always remember. I will never forget that somebody, finally, somebody connected with me on this very very rare and often overlooked feeling!!! Thank you!
The Vacant Rooms segment reminds me of There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury, where a smarthouse continues the routines its inhabitants had set even though they've long since died, and even when the house itself has been destroyed, the alarm clock still calls out the time and date endlessly. "The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants, big, small, servicing, in choirs. But the gods had gone away."
Skyrim does an excellent job at giving you a sense of a world outside of the game's playable boundaries. If you're far north, you can see Red Mountain. If you find a way to go high enough on the map on a clear day, you can see Cyrodiil and even the White-Gold Tower. Just knowing all that is there makes the world feel less isolated and connected.
I remember when I was much younger, while exploring Portal 2, I turned on noclip and just found myself being terrified by this void. My stomach just hated how uncomplete it all was, how in different positions the void would turn pure black or pure white because we were never meant to see it.
Seeing the out of bounds of a game is like seeing the muscles and organs inside of a person. You always know in the back of your mind that it's there, but the horror only sets in once it's right in front of you
“There is a point where the point of a monster is less scary than the lack of one” It’s like being in the woods alone, every time I go out in those woods I feel like I’m watched, the point where it gets to you is when you aren’t.
The fact of the distance the car went into the void was horrifying to me. It reminded me of just how far apart things are in space. Most people don't fully understand those lengths, but that gave a good approximation. A really great video, albeit making my spine tingle a bit.
I know I can't imagine the size of space. Knowing, not believing, that something is out there makes me okay with space. I personally love space and that is one of the reasons: reach
You were able to explain something that I struggle to put into words, as to how, even though not out of bounds, Gone Home creeps me out. The idea of an environment absent of other people and any kind of threat still can’t turn off the fear in my mind that something could be there. Even when I know there should be nothing.
You won't believe it, but this video appeared in my recomendations shortly after clipping out of bouds in battlefront 2. Ngl, it's a big coincidence and I got chills. I had never seen a video of this channel before btw. Anyways, good video.
This is stunning. You took a concept almost impossible to put into words, and articulated it beautifully. Please keep at this, because with enough perseverance, you WILL be successful in the content creation scene.
I'm not really affected by out of bounds as far as I can tell, but being in water in a game, especially if I can't see through that water, is utterly terrifying.
same i dont think out of bounds are scary because i usually discover a glitch or i somehow noclip through the map, its more annoying than scary because then if there is no reset button you can't respawn, so you have to leave and re-join
I have called this "digital aquaphobia" and attempted to explain why swimming in video game water is terrifying. The best I can do is, "because it's one of two things: one, the developers have put some big, nasty bad guy out there to pop up and scare the living **** out of the player, or two, there's absolutely nothing at all, and it just goes on forever."
@azraelle6232 I specifically hate not seeing through the water I'm in, and the more space there is, the worse it is because the bigger the creature there could be. And of course falling forever in water is something I don't like, (I'm looking at you, Subnautica Deadzone).
I've been waiting for years to put into words how much scarier the line about millions of square rooms is infinitely scarier than the monster implied, and how the layers or entity ruin what makes that post so good. Your connection to the empty, unintended out of bounds does such a good job of conveying that, very very well put.
One of the craziest dreams I’ve had is one where I was in a video game, living life on this floating island. The island was similar to cruise ship, probably cause I had not long came back from a cruise. When you looked out to the distance you would see many different biomes , like deserts and jungles etc, and I had always looked at them and wondered if they were real. So one day I hijacked a small plane and flew there, I got pretty far out, but then the engines cut out , as if the game was trying to stop me, and the plane was about to crash, so I had to jump. The fall would have killed me but I landed on some sort of big plant which broke my fall. The rest of the dream was pretty crazy, it was similar to the idea of the back rooms where it’s all extra assets that was never used for the game, they had been sitting there so long that they were mostly withered away. The most notable part of the dream was when I was in the ruins of a stone building, it was only walls ( kinda looked like the ones from BOTW ), and this lion appeared in front of me. It had a strong sense of judgement, almost like a God. It stared me down until it eventually pounced at me, the last thing I heard was it’s strong roar and then I woke up. The more I thought about the dream the more it made sense
I think the most terrifying map I played was the modern nuke town, with the human like dolls. It doesn't feel rotten and abandoned, but yet it is. It isn't entirely empty because of the dolls, but actually it is. It feels like there is life in the map, but the further you go there isn't.
I'd never get scared about out of bounds areas in games when I was younger, I'd always simply be curious or sometimes find them funny. (mario kart, sky landers, minecraft servers, hollow knight etc) But ever since I had this weird derealisation thing happen to me (which i'm almost out of I think) things like the backrooms, liminal spaces, things were reality could seem fake and fall apart have scared me a lot. The idea of infinite or finite nothing you mentioned, or the monster that isn't there. The game One Shot is really interesting with it's concepts and create this feeling of reality collapsing, Undertale too with the timeline reset and gaster and sans lore, steins;gate sort of, and also DDLC. The block game you mentioned where you can finally die after completing all the puzzles after an infinite amount of time could possibly pass is strange to think about too. Living in the greater scheme of things isn't really the way to go I think. I like your videos btw :)
I have constant derealisation for 9 years. And when I learned the backroom concept, I was shocked by the fact things act this way in my disorder ! The dream never ends, it's strange and very frightening. I'm used to it but the beggining was hard and it's still hard but that's what I have now. Things that I did years before this are there. The things aren't changed that much in the way they work. In fact every dissociative disorders can enter in this category. It can be also described as the Matrix.
@@freestalkerdotfr6391 The symptoms of DPDR can go away as fast and unexpected as they came, there are lots of reports of people that struggled with derealisation for 10 years or more and it suddenly was gone. Never lose hope :) you are not alone You know what‘s funny? I irregularly upload youtube videos and one of them was an out of bounds video of the map kino der toten. When I saw my footage in the beginning of this video, it just felt unreal… like uncanny in a way I can‘t describe
so I wasn't the only one that found the out--of-bounds area kinda, uncanny and scary. I feel like there's something on my back when I get out-of-bounds. I feel like its empty. too empty.
Midnight in Vietnam and this is one of...no, no "one of" anymore. This is the most interesting video I've ever seen on RUclips. I use RUclips for this kind of video. Your perspective about "out of bounds" touched something in my soul. Thank you!!!
21:13 The script was fantastic. The way everything tied together at the end with "a vacuum of absolute truth" was incredibly satisfying, and the deep philosophical look into such an interesting concept, while also putting words on the feelings we experience and why they happen, was great! Definitely glad I subscribed to you from the "Minecraft block that doesn't exist" video, which actually seemed related to this concept, though in that case it was less horror and more curiosity.
For me out of bounds areas are wonderful! They show so many things about what the devs were up to. Where they made decisions to start something or test something. The potential of what could have been. I see alot of humanity in those places.
Going out of bounds is very scary, but one particular part of it that makes it worse is when the game warns you that you are going out of bounds. It's like it's warning you "You better turn back or else something is gonna happen."
The new star wars Jedi survivor game does this. I found a way to bypass certain areas using a certain ability, and get into an area I'm not meant to be in yet. Immediately the game came up with a warning, giving me the option to reload a save or continue but consider consequences for breaking story sequences.
I dont know if this applies but when I was little I used to get really scared of caves in minecraft. I would be mining with no worries until I suddenly felt scared and I didnt know why but even the music turned disturbing from my perception. Thinking back It was probably because I abruptly realized I was alone in a dark place with a frankly unnerving music playing in the backround. I so hated when that happened.
I stopped this video to go experience that escape pod ending in the Stanley Parable and that had to be one of the most eerie things I've ever experienced. The way it was designed and left behind made something I'd never felt before and one that thoroughly startled me when I got too close. Thanks for teaching me something new.
I find it interesting that people were scared of these areas. I've always done my best to break games and get out of bounds because I thought it was fun and interesting, and pay close attention to what makes up a skybox.
Thank you for making this video describing how I feel about OoB areas that no one's ever spoken of accurately. Most people sadly talk about this topic in a very superficial and lazy way such as uhh "liminal," "lonely," and basically describing the backrooms.
I find it funny that you mention the boundaries of Borderlands 2, as that franchise has been one of the most fun games for me to explore the world outside of those boundaries. I remember driving around below T-Bone junction, jump around outside the inside potion of Bloodshot Stronghold, and accessing inaccessible red chests on Athenas.
you touched perfectly on the point about liminal spaces, when i see these videos or games with monsters in these spaces it always feels like too much, like no that's not the point, it's not THIS type of scary... it's the emptiness and the void. amazing video!!! please keep analyzing thes little thoughts on our chronically online brains
I think one reason for the eerieness of out of bounds areas is that it reminds us of the "dream argument": When we dream, we often don't realize we are dreaming. The senses we trust to make sense of reality are unreliable. The fact that we create and enjoy toy realities through videogames tells us that we are willing and eager to immerse ourselves in worlds of our liking. Now imagine a videogame so immersive and so enjoyable that it allows us to live the life of our dreams. This videogame would allow us to make all of our dreams come true, but only in this simulated reality. In real life, we would be in a life support bubble sustaining our consciousness. Now imagine that, after making all of your dreams come true in this videogame, you suddenly wake up and realize that instead of saving the world or becoming a celebrity, you instead sat on your ass for days while the world passed you by. Your entire existence, history, memories, relationships and achievements are nothing but fleeting experiences that mean nothing once you woke up. Now imagine if somehow what we call "reality" is such a simulated reality. All of our current existence, history, memories, relationships and achievements are nothing but fleeting experiences that mean nothing in whatever strange reality exists beyond out own. That's the scary part of going out of bounds in games. We fear the fact that we're never truly sure our existence really means anything. We fear waking up in an entirely alien existence where all of our life history was nothing but a dream.
And life is but a dream, the only thing we can ever truly be sure of is that our own consciousness is real, and even then we would never know if we truly do exist or if our bodies are simply reflections of a greater existence were our true consciousness lies
@@slacky4787 The fear is subconscious, the only way to know if you fear it is if you think about dying. Could you die tomorrow and be content with the fact that you have to leave everything behind? If yes, you don’t have that fear. Could you be content with the possibility of there being nothing after death? If yes, you don’t have that fear.
" All of our current existence, history, memories, relationships and achievements are nothing but fleeting experiences that mean nothing in whatever strange reality exists beyond out own." This is true regardless of whether you're living in a dream or simulation or not. It makes no difference. It's all temporary either way.
What’s so interesting about being out of bounds is being alone. There’s no music, characters to talk to, task to do, or end goal. It’s just a boundless empty space with no point in exploring. Most people are terrified of facing the void. Without a plan one simply wanders the earth
I always feels a bit stressed when I'm outside of the boundaries of games. I feel like something will go wrong at any moment and for some reason it's a lot more stressful than doing anything else that would probably crash a game like overloading it with physic objects or getting stats to stupid numbers
I don't really understand the fear behind the out of bounds, they always just made me curious about what there may be if it isn't just a black void through which you fall. I find it fun to explore those areas for things that might exist there, even if there isn't any
When I dropped through the map in Minecraft creative mode it was immensely scary 😅 Minecraft is scary overall, those textures creep me out, but seeing a big picture of the world above was terrifying and gives me shivers to think of
His first statement about there not being a monster is scarier then having one, that's really because of the isolation. You no longer really see you as you, you start seeing the character as you. Even more so in VR. Now, the isolation can bring up a trace amount of apeiraphobia, the fear of being alone. Think about this in your head,a monster is chasing you, now shift your thoughts to being fully alone. Nothing there. Just you in a void. Which one seems a lot worse?
oh btw i did a video commentary on this a while ago if you want more context and insider info on the process of making it: ruclips.net/video/qjL2mJ3uks0/видео.html
ok thanks im wathcing the video now and eating an bannana
B
I had a RUclips channel up a while back listing some of my oob in the game destiny 2. Frankly I find going out of bounds relaxing. And I love to get to locations that you couldn’t normally get to
Cursed judge...mate u are the definition of when a computer/gaming nerd has too much testosterone and not enough sex ..and that leads to overthought bollox videos like this....Yes??!! 😂😉
When you say "dark topics" what does that mean?
Do you mean like dark chocolate? Dark hardly any light in a room, or dark as in rape, assaults, abortion rights, etc.?
It would be very helpful if you just write what those dark topics involve along with your warning message, so that it is known what viewers are going to be getting into. This is very vague.
As a child I had the idea to turn and look backwards during parts of The Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. It was a whole different world back there. I could see the lights, the color gels, the fog machines, service doors, and animatronic figures going dead after they're no longer in view (if facing forward). This was my first experience seeing the out of bounds. I became obsessed with the idea of getting out of the car during dark rides and exploring behind the scenes.
You turned around during Pirates of the Caribbean? You're a psychopath! 😨
That is such a fascinating concept. A simpler but similar one is I remember the first time I was so bored with a movie in a theatre I looked at the projector and ceiling. You are just not supposed to do that so the experience you get is one no one purposely designed.
You got a chance to see the old, " man behind the curtain"
@@AfutureV I've been up there before, in that little projector room. It's a cool experience. It's mysterious cuz only certain people see that ya know. 📽️
@@AfutureV great way of wording that.
What makes out of bounds scary to me is the loss of connection.
No one is there to talk to or help. It's a mix of the fear of the unknown and the fear of being left behind in solitude.
That’s honestly the perfect description for it
Exactly, just like you are an astronaut whose strap broke and now is floating in mid space with endless darkness,
it emerges from tribalism and survival of the group in early humanity.
Now imagine being on the edge of the map with a empty void,
then you accidentally kicked a rock while taking a closer look below.
Just seeing it fall, and fall, for god knows how long makes me shiver.
I won't say it feels scary to be out of bound or to be in a place where there is no connection or reason. I feel a sense of uselessness and vague(that the best words I can describe with). Like you are waiting for a lift to reach the top floor but it's taking a long time for that brief moment you get the feeling that you are all alone in that metal box suspended on metal wires. Nothing here can hurt you except time there is no monster but I am afraid cause somehow I feel lost the connection and now nobody cares basically you not really present in the world with others.
The abyss in Subnautica terrified me more than any other location in the game, and there wasn’t even anything there
You.... Haven't found anything in the abyss?? Those ghost leviathans are almost always there.
@@coal9205 I think it's more like, there's no terrain to make it scarier, like the blood kelp zone (?), it's the emptiness and the leviathans.
There was these bizarre beta cliffs way back then that played these creepy horns in the background around the edges of the playable space. and that was terrifying
@@tactical_slime4608 oh wow i don't know if ive ever seen that, i'd love to! any tips on where to look? its always so cool to be able to see just how far one of these early access games ends up going, and subnautica is a really neat one to look at imo :)
@@tactical_slime4608 It's speculated the cliffs were only removed as some kind of bug since they were quite realistic and seem to have just been removed from the world in a weird and unnatural way. Makes sense to me, though why and how the devs didn't notice... even with subnautica below zero out????
I used to get scared of minecraft when playing on peaceful. When the music finally ends, the silence with only the sound of my footsteps would terrify me and i would always play music to fill that emptiness.
all fun and games till you hear a block break on peaceful mode
@@MelancholicMelody43hergine
@@arandomstreetcathergrine?
@@Admiral-7293hergine
@@enzibub89 Hergine
Growing up in a city surrounded my mountains I always had a border to ground me in reality, the first time I went to the Midwest and saw how flat it was I felt like if I walked far enough I could fall off the world.
omg same but opposite! i grew up in the southwest away from any mountains and now that i live in the cascades, the sky feels like a skybox lol. esp on foggy days.
oh my god same i thought i was super weird for being scared of flat states! the first time i went to arizona i felt so small and alone somehow
As someone from the Midwest that’s very interesting to hear.
The biggest “mountains” I’ve seen are just large hills and even those give me a weird sense of vertigo, like the Earth is rolling and undulating. If I saw actual mountains my mind would probably break
As someone who grew up on a small Island in the Caribbean I can relate
Yeah bro flat land is strange
out of bounds is so terrifying becuase if I drop my hamburger it is gone
Beautiful.
Kel is that you ?
@@hallucination0 No this is Patrick.
😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢
@@eathamgamer patrick needs to go jump off a cliff and get stabbed by a thousand needles, that son of a bitch fucker is a drop dead ugly fucking cocksucker. I hope patrick and spongbob are buried in a 30 ton layer of cement mixed with black powder so that I can light it and watch their organs and flesh go flyinh
I think there's one thing terrifying you didn't notice/mention.
If you keep going into the void of nothingness, there's a good chance you'll get lost. Trying to go back seems reasonable until you realize a hairpin turn sends you in a completely different direction... since it's a game it's fine but imagine getting that lost irl, like being lost at sea but worse.
It sounds a bit like what Age-Of-Sail ocean exploration must have been like. Unless you're really good at tracking stars, once you're out of sight of land...
That's it.
It's just you, your boat, a couple dozen other guys, and The Void. Your tiny bubble of normalcy, floating on an endless, featureless ocean that may as well go on forever in all directions.
I'm getting uncomfortable just thinking about it.
My first experience with this was San Andreas. I managed to no clip while inside an interior, used the jetpack and flew around. Staring into nothingness was extremely unsettling. Boy did it get worse when I realised the interior I was just on had now unloaded because I flew too far and now I'm stuck here. Genuinely terrifying in a very unusual and eerie way.
@@tba113 thats kinda like saying "if you aren't good at seeing things, thats it, there is nothing else to see." navigation by stars was the norm then.
o
@@tba113 For a moment, I thought "Age-Of-Sail" was a video game title and I was about to look it up, until I realized that you're talking about the actual age of sailing ships.
Now I want them to make a game like that: open ocean, star navigation, and the very real possibility of getting completely lost. But what would they call it..?
It's kind of like looking beneath you while you're in the ocean and not being able to see the bottom. It's undeniably spooky
subnautica is my favorite horror game
There's also something called _Nitrogen Narcosis_ or _Rapture of the Deep_ , that's the loss of the sense of direction when you're in the water that some scuba divers experiment
When you stare at the void the void stares back
@@blizzard_the_seal9863 subnautica is horror? I havent actually played it but i thought it was just classed as survival.
It is survival but i guess you could see i as horror as well though
Seeing a picture of a liminal space reminds me of visiting school at night.
A place you normally see full of life is nothing but emptiness. Unnerving in a sense.
Back when I did robotics in school, we would sometimes be there until 11:30 at night cramming before an event. All the lights in the halls had turned off by the time we left, and the handful of us were the only ones left in the entire building. It was incredibly unnerving.
Oh please when I have to work late there is nobody in the building, just lonely but I get more done.
Anyone notice he showed the rick Astley never gonna give you up, arches?
It doesn't scare me. It just makes me think I'm breaking some law by being there too late at night. Heck, my town had laws against being in basically any public space at night. Unless you were driving in a car, you were basically automatically guilty of loitering.
Back in school we had a book club with a few people in it and we would sometimes do a sleepover reading night at school and it was one of the best things ever. There was something so mysterious and almost forbidden feeling staying in school as a kid at a time you would never be there normally, especially because most of the lights everywhere were completely turned off
The single biggest skin crawl for me came from Duke Nukem 3D.
Using noclip, an early teenage me discovered the ability to transcend what was meant to be explored, only to stumble upon "You're not supposed to be here."
Suddenly, it was made clear that the authority I thought I was defying, was right there with me, beyond what was supposed to be.
I think there is also an easter egg like that in the out of bounds area in GTA 3
I remember that message clearly. Left by Level Lord himself. It was as if you had been caught red-handed by the creator himself. Very spooky.
@@nukemaster1799there are no Easter eggs up here or smth like that
It was San Andreas I'm pretty sure
@@jekish6625 yeah its on the golden gate bridge or whatever its called in gta
Thank you, chad thundercock
“There’s a point where the idea of a monster becomes less scary than the lack of one.”
This is what made the backrooms so terrifying, but now it’s a damn tourist attraction with “entities” or whatever.
i agree
Definitely, whenever I saw a backrooms video start talking about monsters and what not, I could only feel disappointment. Monsters are entertaining, but they aren't scary.
Maybe monsters can make you jump, but they dont give you the fear of death. When you die to a monster in game, you just gotta try again. But when you're immersed in the true backrooms, there's nothing. Being in the backrooms is death, the dread of never moving forward or knowing more; permanently away from your life, with nothing to happen and nothing to experience. The best possible outcome is for a monster to exist.
@@maddyschad6649 have always framed it as an endless, eternal void. There is nobody and nothing. Just you. You never hunger, never thirst, never feel tired. You just exist. How would you look after a thousand years? A million?
Tbh I think expecting those entities would make a lack of monsters hit harder
@@totally_not_a_bot A really fed up person.
Out of bounds areas never really scared me. They fascinated me. I loved seeing how elaborate yet fickle the illusions were, as well as the different approaches to crafting them. It was like a weird incarnation of the allegory of the cave. I guess that contributed to my love of science since early childhood. In a way, I want to find the universe’s out of bounds and see what it’s like.
I get why it scares some people, but I've always been drawn to those places and actively seek them out. I guess a comparison could be drawn between early explorers and those who stayed behind.
i always thought the escape pod ending HAD to be intentional, seeing as how the door you need to backpedal through quickly is the only place in the game where you can do that, the narrator instantly goes silent instead of, say, finishing his line, and the eerie feeling it gives off is so strong that i figured it was deliberately crafted to make you feel that way, similarly to other moments like the games ending
Thats because its intentional. The 'mod' that adds in more to the ending got the narrator to say more lines, rather than the lines already being there. I think that point weakens the author's credibility a bit.
@@N.Doughnut the debug log actually shows the narrator is supposed to be there, since the average player wouldn't have found that and using cheats to keep the narrator makes the cutscene play normally it is certainly a bug
@@matthewcaffee2125 i would love to see some source for that.
pixel guy man
It’s definitely intentional. There wouldn’t be a path for you to play out otherwise. I’ve never once heard anyone say it was unintentional before this guy.
Out of bounds is much worse in vr, the endless void and everything familiar just fading away until you are left in pure darkness
There's a clip from that Jerma Among Us VR livestream where he phased into the wall and he was terrified, I found it hilarious. I haven't yet had the opportunity to play VR games yet, but I imagine it's scary.
Absolutely, I've clipped out of so many VR games and it is just depressing. Falling off the map in Rec Room is really scary, mainly because I don't wanna have to leave am rejoin, but also you're just so lonely
@@TheCursedJudge seeing uncleard frames violently flash no matter where you look. Witnessing floating point errors that distort and disturbly jostle the verticies when you move... its horrifying...
@@TheCursedJudge yeah, anything can scare you in VR even if its not scary
GORILLA TAG OUT OF BOUNDS IS HORRIFYING COS IF YOU FALL YOUR GAME CRASHES
Something that also terrifies me is when video game soundtracks just suddenly stop. You're just left there in pure silence, anticipating what my happen even though nothing is there. It feels as if as soon a a soundtrack stops, something just starts watching you or something. Idk personally it's very scary to me when something just stops. It like some other very menacing thing is going to happen in its place.
pokemon gsc/hgss outside bell tower lol
Undertale genocide run
When I was like 12-13 I had a friend stay overnight and we fell asleep listening to the Donkey Kong Country soundtrack. Well unbeknownst to me at the time, that OST has hidden tracks at the very end of it, separated from the last proper track by 24 silent tracks so the hidden tracks don't play just immediately. The hidden tracks are the tunes that play when you win or lose a bonus game, and when you lose a life. Hearing those, in the blackness of the middle of the night, after the music proper had stopped playing, just filled me with a weird existential dread for some reason. I had heard those tunes so many times before, but hearing them out of context like that just felt wrong.
@@shreyaskadam7633 not really. The actual issue is that you are interrupted by “but nobody came,” and a slow drone. I have to applaud Toby’s unique take upon storytelling through video games, but the one game I know that truly makes a point on violence is Hotline Miami. At no point are you simply condemned immediately upon killing. In undertale you are constantly reminded of your sins, always up in your face. Hotline doesn’t. It only asks you a very pointed question.
“Do you like hurting other people.”
No “look at what you done,” or “you are a murderer.” Only a single question that penetrates the mind and FORCES you into thinking, “wait, why do I enjoy hurting other people?” It’s an amazing game.
@@bull1085 True, also cause in undertale you have to go out of your way and kill every single monster in the area for genocide so it's basically asking for a dark route.
I used to lead groups out of bounds in Lord of the Rings Online. The different reactions from awe and appreciation, to absolute fear really stuck with me. We all knew it was just a game, but when you take a multiple thousand-hours character to the edge of "reality" there can be an overwhelming wave of dread.
Honestly as good as a game is, seeing what you shouldn't will always be my favorite part.
I wish more developers would embrace the void without making it accessible. Guild wars 2 with all those very well-hidden Jumping Puzzles are some of the best electronic experiences I have ever had.
I have a somewhat recurring dream of falling out of bounds. After awhile ghostly shapes start to form. Behind them, and impossibly gargantuan malevolent face slowly grows.
Maybe I'm broken, but those dreams make me feel so alive. Wonder and dread holing hands into the abyss.
Dam I started rambling again... Sorry!
I enjoyed reading this! Especially the part about your dream, although I imagine it's much less enjoyable to experience
Sounds like you're dreaming about going to the edges of Subnautica's map.
I had those dreams, well, they were nightmares to me as a child, too. I was existing and focused on something small and tangible when something infinitely large appeared above and slowly descended. The helplessness shook me
@@xandernabors13I used to dream that the sky was full of huge space stations. I felt dread at the size of something above me, but also relief that humans had gotten good enough at surviving that at least a few million on us were out of harm’s way if something sweepingly terrible happened on the ground. This was back when I was still rooting for humans. Maybe I stopped having this dream because I kept hanging out with humans and got to know them a little better.
Yep! This is similar to sneaking into Hyjal in the old World Of Warcraft (before Cataclysm) when Hyjal was an unfinished zone and you could only sneak into there by doing some tricky jumping along the edge of a wall and taking advantage of physics bugs. Hyjal was a beautiful zone but obviously unfinished and you were not supposed to be there.
I thought I was the only one who found out-of-bounds areas terrifying. I can't even look at the screen when I accidentally leave the area, the feeling of what feels like dread is so strong.
EDIT: It's been 4 months and I still get notifications from this comment, lol. I think my fear stems from the feeling of "this isn't correct" that out-of-bounds areas have, as well as a fear of the pure nothingness that is there. It's worse when it's a Bethesda game and the skybox starts glitching out if you've escaped an interior; the weird duplication effect is nauseatingly surreal.
I also think it's because I personally struggle with mental health issues, specifically dissociation, where I will have deja vu episodes and moments of unreality. Out-of-bounds areas feel like a space outside of the 'reality' of the game, thus triggering those feelings of dissociation.
Anyways play Deltarune.
I talk about Manifold Garden twice in this video, but it really embodies that feeling in its entirety. I suggest it if you wanna explore that feeling.
Whenever I fell into the void in Minecraft I'd have anxiety attacks. It was so scary-
@@nojoke3898 I think it’s just that you don’t and are making assumptions about other people.
@@nojoke3898 also, your “no joke” gimmick isn’t funny.
@@H3LIVM not trying to be rude but please describe to me how and why.
Personally the Minecraft Far Lands are what scare me the most, the amount of secrets people have found there generated by pure, simple math really makes you question how deep the rabbit hole of existence goes (not to mention people actually teleported to infinity)
Normal minecraft void creeps me XD
Imagine it's like that for the universe. Like go too far beyond the observable universe and the math spazzes out and nothing looks right
It's the uncanny valley. You get used to the natural terrain, the Minecraft world generation. When you exit beyond the limits of these standard and normal worlds, it's different subtlety. Not so little that it's unnoticeable, but not so severe that it is entirely unrecognizable
By "actually teleported to infinity", do you mean in the way that someone got to the highest integer limit the game can recognize, or something else I'm unaware of? Because I've never heard anyone describe the former that way, but it does seem quite fitting.
The way I see it, it's just more infinity for us to explore, free from the limits of mortality and a glimpse into being finally, truly, infinite.
To me, it feels very related to the imagined feeling of being on a spacewalk and losing your grip without a rope. Every second you get further and further away from life while being completely helpless.
I agree, just knowing that there’s nothing you can do to prevent your lonely eternity is horrible. I don’t want to imagine drifting through space for infinity it’s absolutely terrifying
I had a dream few years ago kinda similar to this but also a bit different. The dream started normal, calming even. I'm in a beautiful mountain side flower meadow. A river is flowing right next to me. I can hear the sound of birds singing and the sound of the river flowing. It's feels like an absolute paradise. Or I may say it's suppose to feel like an absolute paradise. But something just doesn't feel right... something is just off. I start to walk by the river and notice, no matter how much I walk, the view is not changing. Every flower bush, every small rocks, the clouds in the sky everything is repeating like the minecraft duplication and repeatation seeds. Suddenly I realized all the sounds are also repetitive. Like a recorded sound clip of birds chirping and a river flowing playing on a loop. I also saw that the river wasn't actually flowing. The water was still. Impossibly still. There were many other odd things in that place as well. Like I couldn't feel any sort of air flow. And there were no living animals let alone humans. There was only sound of birds but I couldn't see any. I picked up a small stone and tried to throw it. But to my surprise it didn't land anywhere. I looked and saw it was laying exactly where I picked it from. This entire dream made me feel one of the most intense sense of fear, anxiety and loneliness I have ever felt. The feeling was almost claustrophobic even though the place was practically open and infinite.
@@blesskurunai9213 jesus christ, did you just invent a new fear? this feels like something that an underrated indie horror game would do
@@blesskurunai9213that's horrifying.. i agree with what goldenpig said. this is perfect for an indie psychological horror game.
@@blesskurunai9213 It's not too unlike those memes where people piss in the toilet and look up to see the foot of their bed. I hate those dreams so much, I used to get them every night and It started affecting my daytime. It's very scary to not know what's happening.
For me the scariest thing about out of bounds in the complete lack of control and predictability. Thinking of OG Pokémon glitches in particular, it’s like reality stops working. The laws of physics no longer apply and your actions no longer have any power. You just have to watch as the world crumbles and eventually, your existence along with it.
for me out of bounds feel the closest to physically defining anxiety. nothing is really there, but you make things there thats unsettling. Then you learn to drop it and find peace
Yeah what I've heard "less tells more"
I think it applies well to writing but it can apply to everything.
Sounds like it could be an after death theory. Falling through the void until peace is found within yourself and then you get reborn or truly die or whatever.
paranoia
As a kid and even now I actively tried to get out of bounds. I enjoy it rather than fear it. To me it’s like I have my own personal path in a game. It’s hard to describe but it’s comforting
Yesss me too. One of my favourites was in the original Mercenaries where I’d make myself invincible so the air strikes couldn’t kill me then go exploring the restricted areas lol
I recall when I was young accessing some out of bounds in PC's Unreal Tournament (1999); skyscraper city level tossing translocator (teleporter disc) off a fall that would normally be fatal, to get so unintended floor to walk on down low; noclip flying cheats to explore levels better ex Facing Worlds (although at the beginning of a level you get that ability anyways before starting match); I even discovered that the intro video was in fact a level, and if you noclip fly around you can stop the autofly path and explore that level at your leisure.
I also recall N64 GoldenEye (I think it was that game?) walking outside on a snowly mountain-bordered flat landscape way farther than intended, and discovering at the border by mountains a small facility entrance that I couldnt access. I didnt play much of the game so I may be misremembering. I guess its not the same thing but gave me similar feeling, unintended playing area.
Actually, I also recall that in PC 1st Serious Sam, walking outside a desert level and getting further away from "city...?" and finding no limit to how far I can go, just will take me just as long to turn around and go back. Again perhaps I misremember or didnt notice an invisible wall at a certain point, but felt like an infinite navigatable world outside the intended game area...
I love going out of bounds because it makes me feel powerful being able to break the boundaries put in place by digital gods so I always try to find ways to do so in singleplayer / co-op not competitive games though because I see that as cheating
this is immersive/explorative gameplay where the player exercises metastrategies (like dominant strategies, perception of invisible walls/boundaries). in many games, this type of gameplay is simply not economically viable, and is less stimulating than killing enemies or collecting points. but i feel like people who are passionate about design have a tendency to enjoy this type of experience
I like going out of bounds cause it's fun
When I was younger, I used to play halo reach a lot, and I used to get scared when I went out of bounds in the campaign because I was freaked out by the low quality things and phase through objects. Whenever I walked through a tree or rock out there, it would just unsettle me so much since I guess my brain thought thats not how objects are supposed to work in real life and didn’t know how to react. Great video though!
@@nojoke3898 I agree, and Thank you!
Halo has the best out of bounds warnings.
Speaking of creepy Reach, Halo Reach forge world occasionally gave me this weird "you're not alone and something is watching you" feeling. Like an empty Garry's mod map.
It's the feeling of security leaving, everything in the playable area has been designed with purpose for players, if anything happens in here, there's a good chance many others have as well. But out of bounds areas don't have this safety feature, it's chaotic. You feel like there's an infinite possibility of something bad happening, and you'll have no idea how to defend yourself.
why are you scared of noclipping
You know, the backrooms were scarier before the monsters were made part of it. Because what makes the backrooms scary is that you are completely alone, there is nothing To focus on, nothing To do, just endless corridors and rooms. Even if there were monsters To be scared of, it just replaces the horror of lonelyness with horror of something that can kill you. Making it just a normal horror game. In my opinion.
1.1k likes, I have never ever gotten this much. Thank you! :)
This reminds me of that experiment everyone’s been talking about recently. How many people would rather give themselves an electric shock than sit in a room for fifteen minutes doing nothing. Some people’s horror is their own mind.
I have family members who would prefer the monster in the backrooms because playing a game without would be boring to them. They’re not going to fall into the introspective thoughts that you just wrote about here. They’re not bad people, or even shallow, but they live life on the fly and don’t think about their fears in their own world like some of us do. They want an electric shock, a monster to run from.
I’ve confronted my shadow self, my fears, and ai’m comfortable looking at them. I can sit with myself. And a backrooms without anything at all-that’s what I like. Bringing me back to tickle the dragon. Touch on those deepest fears again. Relearn how to sit with myself.
But of course nothing like this is a dichotomy and there’s lots of ways to enjoy horror. And lots of ways to sit in an empty room for 15 minutes.
You, uuuh, wrote a reply To my comment. I think im dumb.
So true - the uncanny nature of the backrooms, the idea of being lost but with the tantalising opportunity that every turn could bring rescue or escape. It was far scarier as a psychological idea than as a space with monsters running around.
I have a massive paper roll.
The monsters ruined the backrooms for me. If people want monsters so bad, a better way to do it would be to make them purely psychological. Anyone trapped in the backrooms would effectively be undergoing white room torture and would lose their mind with enough time. The monsters shouldn't be real, they should be hallucinations by people who are going mad.
This also brings up an interesting theme: The backrooms aren't what's actually tormenting you. It's your own mind. You're a victim of demons you created for yourself. Nothing is out to get you, except for yourself.
Personally, going out-of-bounds in a video game is a terrifying experience. I just can't explain it, but every time I do, my anxiety builds up like crazy and it's so difficult for me to even look at the screen until I'm back into the map. It's refreshing to know that I'm not the only person who thinks going out-of-bounds is uncomforting and anxiety-inducing.
I do the exact same thing, if I can't get back to yhe game I just close the game and reopen it
Same, the farlands in minecraft scare me
Same
I don't think you should be allowed to play video games if you can't understand they're not real
@@satsu3098 Of course I know that, but that's not at all what I was talking about
This ends up changing after you do enough game creation. Out of bounds turns into an insightful look on how someone else made something, and little more
Lol yep. As a kid, going out of bounds was a surreal experience. But now as a game developer I lost that specific feeling
Was never a game developer, but I was never really scared of going out of bounds, it's always been something I actually enjoyed doing I'm various games, battlefront, overwatch, battlezone, halo, subnautica, you name it. Was always intrigued to figure out how to leave the expected areas of maps
I'm a game dev, and honestly, the out of bounds for me sounds a bit funny, I mean, something like (WoOoOh, Im FaLlInG oFf ThE mAp!!!) but, if I imagine I'm the person in there and the way the video says, it really gets me scared.
Same thing for me, who has done a ridiculous amount of research and insight searching involving video games.
yes, that or how you can make something more about the out of bounds experience....like for example in the from software games (or souls specifally). the stuff you have there, be it whole cities, castles, scrapped stuff etc is the fcking BEST and so interesting and even mysterious. which is why the scene is so big in this franchise
I thought this would be a review of a game called out of bounds, but it feels like so much more, like recognizing a dread and wonder I’ve always felt, something that’s a part of me but also nothing.. I love this existentialism and I want to explore it as much as I can
same
When I was a kid I was scared of the basement, I couldn't really tell you why I was scared of it. Just that I was. Looking back, I now realize that it was a place filled with the dark and damp, an uneasy settling feeling for a child. Things we normally don't like or don't need. Some people have their laundry machines there, some use it for storage, but regardless rarely is a basement a regular place that you go in your house. At least that's what my child brain believed. So of course my mind made up stories of what could be in the basement aside from just clothes and Christmas ornaments you only pull out once a year. Now unlike a liminal photograph there is a sign of humanity in a basement through. Those things you keep there, but it's eerie in its own right because they are things that were discarded. Or devalued, if only for a time. Like the abandoned house that has no life but a history of one. The stairs leading down as a child felt like you were entering the out of bounds. A place you shouldn't be. It's not cheerful, it's simple basic function is to put the things you don't want to see on a regular basis. Sometimes it would feel like the items left there were depressed because they knew they were not as useful as the things upstairs. There's a reason why we all fear the basement subconsciously. We pause in horror games when we have to descend stairs into a basement level or area. We know that something could be lurking. Why is that? Why are we all so scared of a basement? Is it because we know deep down that the only things that go down there are the undesirables? Is it because every story we have read has said for some reason that the scariest of monsters lurk there? Or is it just because the true out of bounds are the things we choose not to think about. Our anxieties. The limitations we put on ourselves to branch out into the unknown. Outside our comfort zone. As a kid we choose not to enter those "scary" places purely because we are made to believe or have convinced ourselves they are scary. The mice however view the basement as their comfort. Maybe to them our bedroom is the out of bounds because they know they will get caught or killed. The only nightmares in the out of bounds are the ones we conjur up. Regardless though, every time I enter a basement my heart still skips a beat. Even as an adult. The mind is really good at playing tricks, but how do you know your mind is playing tricks if it's convinced you the tricks are real? What if there is something down there? In the basement, it has been all along.
this is an unbelievable comment - seriously, very well done. i never could put a finger on why they felt so scary; it wasn’t for fear of monsters or “bad guys”, it was a combination of smell and the emptiness preoccupied by objects that are loved during certain times - the magic is lost outside of those times and they fully transcend what we loved them for; they take on the smell of dust and solitude rather than pine needles and the warmth of a fire.
this comment really made me think, it took almost a therapist approach of retracing. thank you!! 💗
Texans:
As a kid I would be scared of turning back randomly or seeing the back of old pictures don’t really know how to explain it but looking backwards is spooky to me not much anymore I mean in hallways and In my garage I still can’t be looking back/behind me lol but that’s because ik none else is there I don’t wanna catch something lacking like a ghost probably lol
I have a utility room instead of a basement in my house, and I was never really scared of it till I was about 9 when I suddenly got a really bad fear of concrete rooms bc I thought something was going to cave the ceiling in, pick me up with a *g i a n t* hand, and squash me flat as a pancake for fun. It ain’t as bad now, but I still hate going in there
are you a poem writer or something
Not out of bounds, but a similar feeling: The original Myst game had no monsters, you couldn't die, there were no time limits or threats. But it was very creepy because even though you were totally alone, it felt like someone was watching you the whole time and there would be some random jumpscare.
I got serious uncanny valley feelings from the myst game. Like omg that game brought a true sense of isolation. Sure there were a lot of structures, but where are all the people? And there's like no ambience either. It's like that time when I was camping in the woods all over again. The crickets stopped, and there were no animal sounds for a good hour. It was late night, and cloudy so no moon, which made it worse.
.... I completely agree!!! BUT... I thought you actually find someone in Myst eventually? Maybe that wasn't the "Original" Myst but instead the 2nd or 3rd game? ... I just remember watching my mom play when I was very young & eventually she looked into / opened a room, & BOOM! there was a creepy guy in a chair out of nowhere... I think he even chases you too!
@@SadTown99 Haha look at that, I also watched my mum play it when I was a kid. Such an eery game, not many others similar to it.
Yes, this. There was always this sense that something was deeply wrong.
@@infinitedeath1384dude if the crickets and shit just suddenly stopped making noise that means there was something or someone in the vicinity, that's a telltale sign of something being nearby in the wild.
Had a moment like this in Dead Space 3 that was creepy. Was going to my objective when I wondered what would happen If I backtracked VERY far. Had no need to go back, no rewards. Doors opened fine until I reached a room that that was long, twisted, T shaped, and had multiple rooms. Once I entered, the doors ALL turned red and locked, trapping me inside. I thought there might be a way out, or that monsters would spawn and try and kill me, but instead I found nothing, just me, the room, and silence.
In dead space that is a terrifying scenario
which mission was this? i want to expereince that aswell
Sounds intentional. And good
Omg.
I feel like that scene with Squidward in the void with Alone repeating until he goes insane perfectly encapsulates the feeling youre trying to describe here.
Finally! A place where I can be all... Ａｌｏｎｅ
This video essay is so good. Opened it in a hurry to add to “watch history” to continue later and I just couldn’t turn it off until the end.. I fell out of bounds of my own impatience and I really glad about it
Well, just imagine reality breaks
And you just fall endlessly into nothing and more nothing, i actually had nightmares like that.
That would be horrible. I sometimes imagine that if you were a being that has lived for all time, from the Big Bang to the evaporation of the last atom, then no matter how long the universe had been doing things for, you would all ways end up in darkness for infinitely longer.
you slip into the backrooms
i get it one of my fears is trapped in a void with nothing not even your mined is their and no one will come for all of eternity and you wont even know its happening -edit that wood make a good horror game right
Well that'd be just like what being in space is like.
As long as you've got a breathable atmosphere and gravity still (for some reason), you'd be free falling like on an endless parachute jump. If you don't have gravity, you're just... stuck. If you also don't have an atmosphere, then don't worry, you won't be experiencing that for very long.
Almost makes you wish for 'Nuclear Winter', amirite?
The worst part about out-of-bounds for me is when the music from the area you glitched out of keeps playing. Especially when it's dramatic, orchestral or contains a choir.
Nah when it’s happy cute music. Holy shit.
Pokemon b&w (?) having an out of bounds theme
@@echo-wj6ls really? i searched up “pokemon out of bounds theme” but there’s nothing about it that i can see.
@@furballisticfinn6881 its mystery zone
I added this mod to Skyrim where basically everyone had a disease (more or less a zombie apocalypse) and somehow I completely broke the save because the battle music randomly started looping indefinitely.
part of why being alone is so scary is because humans are a social species. we're literally built to socialize and interact with one another, negatively or positively, and whether we like it or not. the backrooms are scary because there's no people - it's basically just indefinate solitude, which peels our minds apart
I immediately thought of someone peeling the outer layer of the brain like a banana
even if we are not talking to others, just being around someone is essential to human joy. people with social anxiety or agoraphobia, may isolate themselves by "choice" (using that word lightly), but in places like the backrooms or out of bounds, is that while theyre still alone, its not by choice. with isolating yourself, you can go and interact with people, both online and in person. but with being alone, you cant call for help or even talk to someone, even if you tried. its a loss of control, which most people are also instinctively frightened by.
@@c0d3_888 YES!!! exactly what i'm getting at + very well worded btw
@@c0d3_888social anxiety and agoraphobia are definitely up to a certain extent. A human cannot exist in total isolation without experiencing insanity
I think another part of it, is our monkey brain screaming that something is supposed to be there, somewhere, and when we can't find it the prey instinct kicks in of not being able to find what you're sure is there. Seeing a Spider isn't scary, no longer seeing that spider is
I’m surprised you didn’t mention it, but in the Escape Pod ending in TSP, every floor you go up has a glass window which always shows the first office space with all the lights off and the doors closed. It’s extremely eerie looking into it with nothing on except maybe one computer screen, and this loops for the 6 or so floors you climb. Really adds to the creepy and supernatural part of it.
I’ve always loved thinking about a different kind of liminal space. A space that isn’t eerie, but just… closed for the day. Imagine a high school over the weekend, a restaurant just after the last customer leaves, a grand wedding hall in the morning, an office before the start of a work day, or a convention center hours before an event. Lights are on, floors are clean. Objects are not scattered about, but rather placed intentionally, ready for a new day. Everything is as intended, yet no one is around, and not in a scary way. You are truly alone, and you know irl Alone just for now, and just here.
This is where my idea begins to differ. Unlike most people into the backrooms, I love the idea of KNOWING you are alone. Not scared of what is lurking about, no. It’s just you, alone for the time being, in a place meant for hundreds or thousands. A calm atmosphere and a carefree sense of temporary freedom. It’s just you, and as far as your legs and curiosity will take you…
That is "the comfort in liminal spaces". There is a video just about that.
I want more backrooms games like that. I hate jumpscares or monsters, but I like the combined fear and freedom of exploring those spaces alone, never knowing what the next place may be like...
I work night shifts at a church and have to be the last person in the buildings due to security reasons. Everything gets pitch black: the preschool, sanctuary (the “main” building), etc just to name a few. I get the feeling, it’s depressing, eerie, yet interesting to me.
I couldn't have explained it better. I salute you.
another one of my favorite one of these is a skating rink, just after closing.
For me it's Space Engine. Approaching a giant celestial object or a black hole terrifies me. It's an overwhelming feeling that chokes you.
hope you played outer wilds
Outer Wilds will give you thus feeling of truly going out of bounds
I thought I was the only one, specifically if you turn around and there’s an unexpected big object next to you gave me enough panic attacks lmao
Outer wilds angler planet vibes
Also no man’s sky
YES. I felt so odd for this and didn't think other people would get it. I'm not sure how my brain was getting the sense of scale so well tbh. I want to ask you if you feel something like this when you're standing next to very tall/large objects in real life?
At 16:14 is an actually REAL playground in my local neighborhood I used to go to all the time as a kid, this isn't even a "oh it looks familiar to me" thing. This is legitimately a real place I've been and that somehow makes this picture all the more scary.
I feel ya there this park looks like a park I used to go to when I was a child too. my memory isn’t the best since I was a child at the time but it kinda looks like the millennium park in lake charles louisiana, before it burnt down and was rebuilt. not exactly sure if that’s where your from though. 😅
there's a park like that in my hometown as well, though it's surrounded by trees.
yeah i have a playground like that to. i think its because almost every child has been to ONE of these and its a common design as we now know and thats what makes it so much more familiar to the point where you know youve been somewhere like that or exactly like that
This park was copied and pasted around the country of the US.
Everyone grew up close to a “timber town” lol
It's the same type of feeling you get when walking away from a camp fire in the dead of night. Waiting for your fate, something which may end you in the next second or not at all. The terror of the out of bounds is the idea of waiting for something which may never happen. It's related to liminal spaces but is not the same thing.
What you said about the monsters in the backrooms is so true. The backrooms were much scarier when you knew there was just pure nothing
Yesss when people started introducing human groups and all it felt wrong like... The most perfect form of the backrooms is just... Nothing. No other stage than the first one we know. Just endless, endless closed structures that makes no sense but yet feels always the same
Yep, have to agree. While it's fine as its own thing, it definitely is very different from what made the Backrooms so interesting in the first place.
@@LTNetjak the idea of immortality itself is absolutely terrifying, for me after a long time existing you start to lose your mind, you lose little by little your sanity and at the end you end up doing nothing and... being nothing...
@@calizuyou should look at liminal spaces communities. It’s basically the back rooms but more tame and without the monsters. I think the back rooms should have stayed mysterious and without a bunch of creepy crawlies everywhere
If you haven’t already I recommend the novella “A Short Stay in Hell” which explores this concept of nigh infinity.
it freaked me out when I was a kid, and there are still a few games that freak me out even now. there have even been a few times in real life where I've been in an area where I felt I wasn't supposed to be. And I think that's what it is, that sense of "you don't belong here".
a lack of humanity, i guess is another way of putting it
@@3jesus3christ3 yes 🥸
@@3jesus3christ3 what do you mean?
"It's places that we've all seen or experienced that were designed to be full of life, people moving, talking, humans doing human things, but without us, it's artificial. It feels like everything is placed intentionally, mimicking the complexity and decay and life of our worlds, but falling flat, landing squarely in the uncanny valley."
That actually scared the shit out of me.
Also that's some damn good writing.
thank you
Ended up reading this as it was being said.
@@TheCursedJudgeNo, thank >you
Ah yes the uncanny valley, talking about the uncanny valley, imagine this.actually nvm
Great video.
I recall playing Halo 2 on the OG Xbox. On the level Delta Halo I was mucking around with vehicles and the terrain before the first elevator ride and found a way to clamber up the terrain. I grabbed a ghost for its speed, and discovered you could go around the entire map, including the far side of the lake, as well as the lake bed. I vividly remember this sensation of unease, as though I was being watched or wasn't alone.
Such a strange sensation.
I have a pretty major case of being absolutely terrified of out-of-bounds areas. Hanging just below bedrock in Minecraft while being in creative? Pure dread. Kind of like being scared of heights, but also a little different. Super glad this subject is getting some more coverage! Really amazing video :>
I like giving myself effects that make me invincible and turning on survival just to stick it to the void and show it can’t kill me. Lol.
First world issues lol
How tf do u get dread from that
@@emmanuelmty22 dead ass bro
I also used to be terrified of the Minecraft void, to the point that I covered up my eyes when I saw it, and I also had a few dreams or nightmares about falling into the void that's similar to the Minecraft one, I remember only one right now and I was unable to scream for help while falling, like I tried but my body physically wouldn't, also after a little while I felt I started falling much slower untill I eventually froze in place as if I hit some kind of bottom that wasn't physical like some kind of very thick invisible substance that I couldn't feel but still got caught up in it
I'm not scared of the Minecraft void anymore, but I discovered Subnautica and now I'm terrified of the Subnautica void, I don't fear it as much as I used to fear Minecraft void, but it still gives me a very uncomfortable feeling in my stomach, and I also saw it in my dreams a few times, thankfully in those ones I didn't fall into it and managed to get away from it
I love the out of bounds. Finding the edge of the world where I can fall forever. Exploring the places where gamemakers never meant for us to go. It's seeing a secret I was never meant to see.
Exactly. Getting through the barrier feels like a goal to me. I made buildings below ground in fallout 4, just perfect 👌
Same! I always try to find them
I have did that once in lego marvel superheroes i fell past the harrier elevator
You would like Boundary Break. But on occasion I'll get a little weird feeling when he goes out of bounds
yes!!!! i went out of bounds on bugsnax a few times... I went up to the top of an invisible ceiling and i also just kinda went off the map where falling into the void was a risk. I also just climb really high up in the moss blanket in slime rancher (also curse those evil cliffs that you just slide off of)
I always had a big fear of jumpscares, i became paranoid about getting jumpscared when i was younger and this kind of...scenario always made and still makes me anxious, for me its a fear that something that shouldnt be there will suddenly show up for a scare.
I can really relate to this, I get very easily scared and I’m glad someone else experiences something similar with me
So true…
Who isn't afraid of jumpscares anyway?
@@yourbigfan1777 There is a difference of getting scare by a jumpscare that being afraid of jumpscares all the time
Expecting jumpscares is worse than experiencing them.
The "out of bounds" is a way out; I don't see it as a terrifying abyss, more than an enticing escape from what was meant for you. There is always more to a game than meets the eye. Often times you'll see secrets out of bounds to reward you for your outward thinking, maybe a developer comment or two to show that the people who developed the game are human, too; perhaps the feat itself is enough of an award. If you harness the "out of bounds," it can bring you places. Look at speedrunning!
that stanley parable ending was such a perfect example to use, even with your narration on top of it i instantly got chills from it
really hope this video blows up because you deserve infinitely more views
I appreciate it
which one lol? the freedom one i assume
@@42carlos isn't the freedom one the one the narrator wanted to get?
What's the ending
@@mega6076 the broom closet ending
This is the first time ever in my life I see somebody touch upon that topic. It's really interesting to see I'm not alone in this, honestly I thought I'm weird my whole life. However, my scenario is still a little different than for most people I think. I always love breaking the boundaries of games, falling under the map etc. but it always gives me HUGE anxiety, I think that I have a very intense phobia of empty voids. As long as I look up, it's okay, but if I look down and see that I'm falling into this endless void - I just freak out. To put it more into the perspective, I can play Minecraft normally and it never scares me, even under bedrock (somehow) but if I do it in any other game with realistic graphics - it becomes scary because it's something unusual in a realistic looking world. I remember the first time I glitched under the map in Forza Horizon 3, where the sky underneath was purely black. I panicked. I also once glitched under the map in Google Maps in 3D, and the same disturbing feeling came. To give you more fresh example, Flight Simulator scares me the most out of all games when I glitch to the highest point you can go and see the earth very far away. Most of the times, this feeling goes away when somebody is around, when I'm talking to someone or just see that they're standing right next to me. This feeling also doesn't happen only in games, if I were in the middle of an ocean in real life with nobody around me I would probably freak out the same way I do with games. And I've never seen anybody who feels the same as me, so it's interesting to finally somebody else talking about that.
If it helps thalassophobia is the fear of open large bodies of water, or more accurately this video is tapping into kenophobia, the phobia of open voids or empty spaces that can induce anxiety. So it's definitely not just you. I've even seen a few youtubers who also freak out about the vastness of the open ocean, a well known one is Markiplier with his Subnautica series which is basically him dealing with his fear. Interestingly one (Wendigoon) in a video pinned his fear of the ocean to playing a video game when he was young that had an out of bounds kind of glitch on an ocean. It is an interesting topic to watch out for.
You are not alone. Funny you say you always thought you were weird for that, as so did I! I’m happy I found this video. Even though it gave me extreme anxiety watching I’ve never heard anybody touch on this very interesting topic.
In GOOGLE MAPS! Hell naw.
If you have ever played Minecraft with the TekkitLite mod pack, there is a mod in there that is called Dimensional Doors. Using these doors transports you to different dimensions, some very dimly lit or even pitch black where you can fall off the edge of a platform. Falling or dying in these dimensions can send you to 'Limbo', another world of nothingness that is dimly lit and very creepy. There is also very limited ways to get back to the overworld so it makes it even creepier. The first (and last) time I ended up there I was filled with anxiety and dread. Warping to home with console commands left me with such a huge relief. Afterwards I did not want to explore for a long time.
when i was a kid, i was REALLY REALLY scared of the minecraft void. it gave me the exact feeling you described. nowadays, i think i can tolerate it because i've been there so much, but when i think about it, and look down, i still get a little feeling of emptiness
just for some feedback, your script was amazing, probably one of the best i've heard.
This video is so mindblowing and opening to me, it unfolds so much of what I thought was just a natural feeling, the fear of the unknown.
It is interesting to me that the intention behind the creation of something can affect us so much, even if there was not much intention at all. It is crazy how liminal spaces will make us feel this empty void, like there is something missing, but spaces which were supposedly 'not meant to be seen' or 'not meant to be discovered' do not inflict the same feeling. I suppose that is the difference, what feeling we get when we find a secret passage in a game, versus clipping out of bounds. It is a completely different experience, with slightly different intention behind both of those.
I've noticed you've also tied something interesting into this, that not just liminal spaces and empty, infinite voids inflict this feeling, but unfinished spaces also inflict it upon us. For example, the Stanley Parable escape pod. The escape pod was supposedly someday supposed to be a secret place to find, a place that was secretly open for player activity and discovery, but was unfinished. It was completely void of anyone, and despite the intention that it was, someday, supposed to be explored, but never was finished, is begging us to question what could have been.
I imagine a mansion where only one person lives must be as scary and uncanny as this
That feeling of vast emptiness
The Wayne mansion:
There was one niche first person puzzle game that I remember playing a few years back. It had very simple graphics, yet was absurdly laggy at max settings. During a map transition, I found that turning the settings all the way up and walking backwards quickly clipped me out of the map, and I landed on a landscape used only for backgrounds. It was just grass and distant mountains, but the feeling of climbing these distant shapes so far from the intended path was something I've never experienced anywhere else. Not necessarily scary, but felt I should share anyways.
Dang, what's the name of it? If you can remember, that is.
You got me curious too
Closest thing I can find to what your describing is a 2016 steam game called the witness.
Edit if you can confirm this I’ll see if I can recreate your experience since I found this super interesting and unique
Do you remember the name?
@@KenShiraishiPlease it sounds like he’s talking about a title tht came out some years ago called “the witness” I remember playing it and it wasn’t game breaking glitchy for me but it was a first person almost cartoon like puzzle game that would bug alot
This is probably one of the best videos I’ve ever watched and i watch RUclips like 3 hours a day 7 days a week. Keep it up man for real
Thank you
Only? but yes it was great
honestly yeah, it's some really interesting I think about a lot and I love how terrifying it is
I love how everything in the world somewhat has an out of bounds, a place no one exists, a place no one is supposed to see, just imagine being in the earth's out of bounds, devoid of any living person, creature, plant, or life in general
Just you, the darkness, and whatever light sources may guide you
The out of bounds especially in older games always freaked me out. Even now as an adult it freaks me out more than it should. Expecially those out of bounds, that aren't just dark or a single colour but those that have an "effect" to them. Like I remember there being a game, where if you look into the out of bounds you see a "static image" of the last thing and/or object you looked at and if you turn your camera slightly back, where only a part of the object is visible again, that part of the "static image" is replaced. Or there was also an effect that was similar as that effect on Solitaire, when the cards fall and create a path of copies. I hope I could explain it well enough and that you understand what I meant :D
These were and still are the things that freak me out the most. I always get a chill down my spine and have to lift my feet off the ground and place them on my chair as I sit on them.
Oh. Another thing that burned it's way into my mind was in GTA San Andreas. There was a method, where you go out of bounce in the mission, where you go to Libery City. I jumped over one wall and was "free" to explore the city but after a few seconds, I fell through the floor and fell or literally a few minutes. I saw structures like a windmill placed literally in the void as I passed it while falling. There were also fences that you find on farms. Then the worst thing, that made me quit the game instantly was that I hit water that I couldn't even see. That was the last time I EVER went out of bounds in San Andreas ever.
The Hall of Mirrors effect! Because on a low level, displaying any "moving objects" on a screen works just by repeatedly drawing them in a new place, and erasing them in the old place. And when there's nothing behind the object, often (especially in older games) the old image doesn't get erased at all.
The classic Doom is probably the most famous example of it aside from Solitare, with its simple noclip cheat and small levels. The extra interesting thing about Doom is that the floors and ceiling of the rooms don't really "end" behind the walls, and instead just stretch forever in endless stripes of whichever sector is the closest to you.
I honestly thought I was the only scared one of going out of bounds in a game. When I was much younger I felt an irrational fear of falling into the void, even in creative mode, especially in the end. I was afraid of what I could have found.
The driving game called Driver 2 has the scariest out of bounds area and falling in to the void on that game was terrifying for me as a kid.
I was always creeped out that something might be lurking in the darkness in the out of bounds part of peach’s castle in Mario 64… something about this pure black…
@@Sireington Driver 2 had a even scarier out of bounds glitch. They would happen in Chicago and Havana and Rio de Janero and Las Vegas on that game.
I had a bad acid trip about two years ago where I felt that my mind had fallen off the stream of reality. Out of bounds. I thought from that point forward I was gonna be lost in my mind forever. It was perhaps the most terrifying moment of my life. Still recovering from that
I hope you're doing OK buddy. Traumatic bad trips are some of the most terrifying things that can happen to a person. Reading your comment even gave me a little 'jolt' of that feeling again - I get what you're saying because I experienced it too. It does get easier with time. God bless you.
Take your sensitive ass outta here lol
As someone that used to love psychedelics. I honestly think they're not good anymore. I haven't tripped in a few years now, and glad I haven't. Funny how the media pushes psychedelics like every other degeneracy they push on us now. If the big media or mainstream narrative pushes for something, its probably not good
Interesting how different people react to this feeling. I had the same moment a few years back and it felt exciting and new for me. I wanted to explore this new place. Sorry that it felt so much worse for you, hope you're getting better!
@@funkie1221 i think in the long run it was for the better, for the reason of it giving me something I’ve never experienced before, but it was certainly damaging. I don’t think it was permanently damaging though. It was also a lesson to pay attention to safety when preparing to do drugs. I did a lot of dumb stuff that contributed to it going so bad. I wish that feeling was exciting, but the concept of falling out of reality scares the shit out of me and has for as long as I can remember
I've also explored liminal spaces through procedural terrain and structure generation, and it's for much the same reason you outline here: an uncanny fear of an infinite world, beyond which nothing else can exist.
For me the origin was our family holidays when I was a kid. I live in Australia, which is the closest thing to an infinite nothingness this planet has. All our cities are day-long drives from each other, separated by cast expanses of hills, plains, forests, bush, and desert. We used to go interstate, drive for two days, and end up in a place much like home: the same shops, burger bars, cinemas, maybe different scenery but all the same tropes. And I found my child self wondering if we could drive forever and always find more of the same but slightly different things.
The Mandelbrot set visualisation is a perfect example of an infinite liminal space; every part of it produces unique and beautiful patterns, but in the end, they are all the same formless, spiraling curlicues dividing into similar smaller curlicues. You recognise a Mandelbrot image from a photo of a forest simply because of it's characteristic formlessness.
My goal is to create a driving game, like GTA or Need For Speed, but with procedurally generated terrain, cities, and roads. You can drive onto the freeway and drive for ever, and you will pass through mountains and forests, deserts and seas, always changing, never the same place twice, and yet - somehow all of it becomes the same in the end.
You can exit the freeway at any junction, onto another freeway or into a city, and all you will ever find is houses, and office blocks, and factories, even people walking around - and none of it has anything that distinguishes it from any other similar location in the game.
You can drive into a small country town, and you'll see its gas station, and its school, and playground, and war memorial with its names of the honoured dead; but so does every other small town you ever drive into.
You can drive onto the rural back roads, past never-ending paddocks of sheep, cows, wheat and corn, until you come to another town or freeway.
As you play the game, you will dive ever deeper into this liminal world, finding out at last that there is no life, no reason, no centre, no edge, nothing that is ever special or unique, despite every place being a bit different to every other place. No matter how far you drive, you will never find anything else.
You can see an example of my procedural generation system and its infinite expanse of rolling green hills and farms that go on forever, in my video: ruclips.net/video/RHWjqpwYnK8/видео.html
Now imagine out of bounds in space irl... this could explain why i loved breaking games and going out of bounds in them! The art of endless exploration while also unsettling is just so fascinating!
Subnautica’s dead zone is probably the best and most horrifying way to set an out of bounds area imo, it really keeps you within the maps borders if you know what’s beyond the boundary.
this video was perfect for me as i remember sea of thieves out of bounds and the sea would just turn red and slowly destroy your ship and going into that with no prior knowledge and not knowing your going out of bounds it is super scary, although its the same with subnautica its kind of hard to see whether its out of bounds or if its the void and it is horrifying when experiencing it the first time
It really makes you FEAR unintentionally *getting close* to the bounds.
This video reminded me of a horror novel I read, written by Mark Z. Danielewski, called House of Leaves. It tells the tale of a man and his family who discover that their house is essentially a hole in reality. A door that would otherwise lead through a wall onto the roof instead leads to an infinite expanse of pitch black rooms and corridors. It holds a parallel to the backrooms, even though this book was published 3 years before 4chan even existed. Never have I felt genuine horror from a book than from House of Leaves. I highly recommend buying it and reading it for yourself.
😮
I want to check this out now. Thanks for the recommendation.
thanks for the info just brought it im hyped
Hell yeah!!! I fucking love that book
Yes! Someone else with the same thought. That book leaves a deep deep impression. If you can make it through.
The quality of the edit and what is said on the video is actually insane, great great work :D
Thank you Loupphok
A game I am so terrified of getting out of bounds of is Euro Truck Simulator. The way the developers built the map makes it so realistic, but once you manage to zoom out of the map, it’s just bunch of roads surrounded by fake mountains and farmlands in the distance, and the map beneath is just pitch black. I always look away from the screen when I do this
I remember being a kid and telling my friends how I was scared of falling into the void in Minecraft cause I thought I'd get stuck falling forever and they laughed at me. Your video has helped me realize that I was not wrong in my fears lol
The scariest experience I've had in a video game was falling into the void with my prawn suit in Subnautica, and this video perfectly explains why
I remember how I managed to save my prawn suit. The pressure would destroy my suit before I got to the bottom (and respawned somewhere safe) so what I did was that I held into the edge of the crater as I was falling, and whenever the prawn suit got too damaged, I would exit it and the sprawn suit would remain on that place if close to the wall, so I used that opportunity to fix the suit and I did so many times before I got to the bottom, and my prawn was saved. Gotta admit though, I was terrified the entire time.
DUDE. I'm not the ONLY ONE that gets that creeped out/intrigued feeling from out of bounds?
This video... This is one I will always remember. I will never forget that somebody, finally, somebody connected with me on this very very rare and often overlooked feeling!!!
Thank you!
You are definitely not the only one
@@ak634 see, because I thought I was. Heck I've even LOOKED for videos like this a long time ago.
@@BuckFudweiser I thought so too and already when I saw the video on my home page I was relieved
@@ak634 cheers to not being alone.
It's not just you
The Vacant Rooms segment reminds me of There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury, where a smarthouse continues the routines its inhabitants had set even though they've long since died, and even when the house itself has been destroyed, the alarm clock still calls out the time and date endlessly. "The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants, big, small, servicing, in choirs. But the gods had gone away."
a big factor that plays in this is that one might expect running into a sickening easter egg. Perhaps even finding one that is not known to the public
Skyrim does an excellent job at giving you a sense of a world outside of the game's playable boundaries. If you're far north, you can see Red Mountain. If you find a way to go high enough on the map on a clear day, you can see Cyrodiil and even the White-Gold Tower. Just knowing all that is there makes the world feel less isolated and connected.
I remember when I was much younger, while exploring Portal 2, I turned on noclip and just found myself being terrified by this void. My stomach just hated how uncomplete it all was, how in different positions the void would turn pure black or pure white because we were never meant to see it.
Same
Seeing the out of bounds of a game is like seeing the muscles and organs inside of a person. You always know in the back of your mind that it's there, but the horror only sets in once it's right in front of you
“There is a point where the point of a monster is less scary than the lack of one”
It’s like being in the woods alone, every time I go out in those woods I feel like I’m watched, the point where it gets to you is when you aren’t.
The fact of the distance the car went into the void was horrifying to me. It reminded me of just how far apart things are in space. Most people don't fully understand those lengths, but that gave a good approximation.
A really great video, albeit making my spine tingle a bit.
exactly! and space creeps me out too. It's the fear of the unknown and how uncomprehensable it is
I know I can't imagine the size of space. Knowing, not believing, that something is out there makes me okay with space. I personally love space and that is one of the reasons: reach
You were able to explain something that I struggle to put into words, as to how, even though not out of bounds, Gone Home creeps me out. The idea of an environment absent of other people and any kind of threat still can’t turn off the fear in my mind that something could be there. Even when I know there should be nothing.
You won't believe it, but this video appeared in my recomendations shortly after clipping out of bouds in battlefront 2. Ngl, it's a big coincidence and I got chills. I had never seen a video of this channel before btw. Anyways, good video.
This is stunning. You took a concept almost impossible to put into words, and articulated it beautifully. Please keep at this, because with enough perseverance, you WILL be successful in the content creation scene.
I'm not really affected by out of bounds as far as I can tell, but being in water in a game, especially if I can't see through that water, is utterly terrifying.
same i dont think out of bounds are scary because i usually discover a glitch or i somehow noclip through the map, its more annoying than scary because then if there is no reset button you can't respawn, so you have to leave and re-join
I have called this "digital aquaphobia" and attempted to explain why swimming in video game water is terrifying. The best I can do is, "because it's one of two things: one, the developers have put some big, nasty bad guy out there to pop up and scare the living **** out of the player, or two, there's absolutely nothing at all, and it just goes on forever."
@azraelle6232 I specifically hate not seeing through the water I'm in, and the more space there is, the worse it is because the bigger the creature there could be. And of course falling forever in water is something I don't like, (I'm looking at you, Subnautica Deadzone).
@@azraelle6232Its not aquaphobia.
@@paperclip6377 pray tell, what is it, then?
I've been waiting for years to put into words how much scarier the line about millions of square rooms is infinitely scarier than the monster implied, and how the layers or entity ruin what makes that post so good. Your connection to the empty, unintended out of bounds does such a good job of conveying that, very very well put.
One of the craziest dreams I’ve had is one where I was in a video game, living life on this floating island. The island was similar to cruise ship, probably cause I had not long came back from a cruise. When you looked out to the distance you would see many different biomes , like deserts and jungles etc, and I had always looked at them and wondered if they were real. So one day I hijacked a small plane and flew there, I got pretty far out, but then the engines cut out , as if the game was trying to stop me, and the plane was about to crash, so I had to jump. The fall would have killed me but I landed on some sort of big plant which broke my fall. The rest of the dream was pretty crazy, it was similar to the idea of the back rooms where it’s all extra assets that was never used for the game, they had been sitting there so long that they were mostly withered away. The most notable part of the dream was when I was in the ruins of a stone building, it was only walls ( kinda looked like the ones from BOTW ), and this lion appeared in front of me. It had a strong sense of judgement, almost like a God. It stared me down until it eventually pounced at me, the last thing I heard was it’s strong roar and then I woke up.
The more I thought about the dream the more it made sense
I think the most terrifying map I played was the modern nuke town, with the human like dolls. It doesn't feel rotten and abandoned, but yet it is. It isn't entirely empty because of the dolls, but actually it is. It feels like there is life in the map, but the further you go there isn't.
I'd never get scared about out of bounds areas in games when I was younger, I'd always simply be curious or sometimes find them funny. (mario kart, sky landers, minecraft servers, hollow knight etc) But ever since I had this weird derealisation thing happen to me (which i'm almost out of I think) things like the backrooms, liminal spaces, things were reality could seem fake and fall apart have scared me a lot. The idea of infinite or finite nothing you mentioned, or the monster that isn't there. The game One Shot is really interesting with it's concepts and create this feeling of reality collapsing, Undertale too with the timeline reset and gaster and sans lore, steins;gate sort of, and also DDLC. The block game you mentioned where you can finally die after completing all the puzzles after an infinite amount of time could possibly pass is strange to think about too. Living in the greater scheme of things isn't really the way to go I think.
I like your videos btw :)
I think after human pass a certain age,they will start to fear lonely
I have constant derealisation for 9 years. And when I learned the backroom concept, I was shocked by the fact things act this way in my disorder ! The dream never ends, it's strange and very frightening. I'm used to it but the beggining was hard and it's still hard but that's what I have now. Things that I did years before this are there. The things aren't changed that much in the way they work. In fact every dissociative disorders can enter in this category.
It can be also described as the Matrix.
@@freestalkerdotfr6391 The symptoms of DPDR can go away as fast and unexpected as they came, there are lots of reports of people that struggled with derealisation for 10 years or more and it suddenly was gone. Never lose hope :) you are not alone
You know what‘s funny? I irregularly upload youtube videos and one of them was an out of bounds video of the map kino der toten. When I saw my footage in the beginning of this video, it just felt unreal… like uncanny in a way I can‘t describe
@@LiberPrimus I don't lose hope at all ! I will get out of this one day for sure !
Прости её. Она тебя очень сильно любит
so I wasn't the only one that found the out--of-bounds area kinda, uncanny and scary. I feel like there's something on my back when I get out-of-bounds. I feel like its empty. too empty.
Mhmm,,
Midnight in Vietnam and this is one of...no, no "one of" anymore. This is the most interesting video I've ever seen on RUclips. I use RUclips for this kind of video. Your perspective about "out of bounds" touched something in my soul. Thank you!!!
Exactly/same
21:13 The script was fantastic. The way everything tied together at the end with "a vacuum of absolute truth" was incredibly satisfying, and the deep philosophical look into such an interesting concept, while also putting words on the feelings we experience and why they happen, was great! Definitely glad I subscribed to you from the "Minecraft block that doesn't exist" video, which actually seemed related to this concept, though in that case it was less horror and more curiosity.
For me out of bounds areas are wonderful! They show so many things about what the devs were up to. Where they made decisions to start something or test something. The potential of what could have been. I see alot of humanity in those places.
Going out of bounds is very scary, but one particular part of it that makes it worse is when the game warns you that you are going out of bounds. It's like it's warning you "You better turn back or else something is gonna happen."
The new star wars Jedi survivor game does this. I found a way to bypass certain areas using a certain ability, and get into an area I'm not meant to be in yet. Immediately the game came up with a warning, giving me the option to reload a save or continue but consider consequences for breaking story sequences.
"Get back to the lines Soviet!"
I dont know if this applies but when I was little I used to get really scared of caves in minecraft. I would be mining with no worries until I suddenly felt scared and I didnt know why but even the music turned disturbing from my perception.
Thinking back It was probably because I abruptly realized I was alone in a dark place with a frankly unnerving music playing in the backround. I so hated when that happened.
I stopped this video to go experience that escape pod ending in the Stanley Parable and that had to be one of the most eerie things I've ever experienced. The way it was designed and left behind made something I'd never felt before and one that thoroughly startled me when I got too close. Thanks for teaching me something new.
I find it interesting that people were scared of these areas. I've always done my best to break games and get out of bounds because I thought it was fun and interesting, and pay close attention to what makes up a skybox.
Thank you for making this video describing how I feel about OoB areas that no one's ever spoken of accurately. Most people sadly talk about this topic in a very superficial and lazy way such as uhh "liminal," "lonely," and basically describing the backrooms.
Coming back to this for the third time. Such a great topic and very well executed. I always thought I was the only one scared of the endless void
I find it funny that you mention the boundaries of Borderlands 2, as that franchise has been one of the most fun games for me to explore the world outside of those boundaries.
I remember driving around below T-Bone junction, jump around outside the inside potion of Bloodshot Stronghold, and accessing inaccessible red chests on Athenas.
you touched perfectly on the point about liminal spaces, when i see these videos or games with monsters in these spaces it always feels like too much, like no that's not the point, it's not THIS type of scary... it's the emptiness and the void. amazing video!!! please keep analyzing thes little thoughts on our chronically online brains
I think one reason for the eerieness of out of bounds areas is that it reminds us of the "dream argument":
When we dream, we often don't realize we are dreaming. The senses we trust to make sense of reality are unreliable. The fact that we create and enjoy toy realities through videogames tells us that we are willing and eager to immerse ourselves in worlds of our liking.
Now imagine a videogame so immersive and so enjoyable that it allows us to live the life of our dreams. This videogame would allow us to make all of our dreams come true, but only in this simulated reality. In real life, we would be in a life support bubble sustaining our consciousness.
Now imagine that, after making all of your dreams come true in this videogame, you suddenly wake up and realize that instead of saving the world or becoming a celebrity, you instead sat on your ass for days while the world passed you by. Your entire existence, history, memories, relationships and achievements are nothing but fleeting experiences that mean nothing once you woke up.
Now imagine if somehow what we call "reality" is such a simulated reality. All of our current existence, history, memories, relationships and achievements are nothing but fleeting experiences that mean nothing in whatever strange reality exists beyond out own.
That's the scary part of going out of bounds in games. We fear the fact that we're never truly sure our existence really means anything. We fear waking up in an entirely alien existence where all of our life history was nothing but a dream.
And life is but a dream, the only thing we can ever truly be sure of is that our own consciousness is real, and even then we would never know if we truly do exist or if our bodies are simply reflections of a greater existence were our true consciousness lies
eh.... nah...........
@@slacky4787 The fear is subconscious, the only way to know if you fear it is if you think about dying. Could you die tomorrow and be content with the fact that you have to leave everything behind? If yes, you don’t have that fear.
Could you be content with the possibility of there being nothing after death? If yes, you don’t have that fear.
Thanks for even more existential thoughts
" All of our current existence, history, memories, relationships and achievements are nothing but fleeting experiences that mean nothing in whatever strange reality exists beyond out own." This is true regardless of whether you're living in a dream or simulation or not. It makes no difference. It's all temporary either way.
What’s so interesting about being out of bounds is being alone. There’s no music, characters to talk to, task to do, or end goal. It’s just a boundless empty space with no point in exploring. Most people are terrified of facing the void. Without a plan one simply wanders the earth
I always feels a bit stressed when I'm outside of the boundaries of games. I feel like something will go wrong at any moment and for some reason it's a lot more stressful than doing anything else that would probably crash a game like overloading it with physic objects or getting stats to stupid numbers
true
true
I don't really understand the fear behind the out of bounds, they always just made me curious about what there may be if it isn't just a black void through which you fall. I find it fun to explore those areas for things that might exist there, even if there isn't any
When I dropped through the map in Minecraft creative mode it was immensely scary 😅
Minecraft is scary overall, those textures creep me out, but seeing a big picture of the world above was terrifying and gives me shivers to think of
His first statement about there not being a monster is scarier then having one, that's really because of the isolation. You no longer really see you as you, you start seeing the character as you. Even more so in VR. Now, the isolation can bring up a trace amount of apeiraphobia, the fear of being alone. Think about this in your head,a monster is chasing you, now shift your thoughts to being fully alone. Nothing there. Just you in a void. Which one seems a lot worse?