H.P Lovecraft once said, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” This is a quote that resonates with anyone who has played SCP-087. SCP-087 is a Unity-developed first-person experience based on a fictional ARG-like wiki. The SCP foundation–To Secure, Contain,  and Protect–has been creeping out those who’ve been reading it via the internet for years now, but not until recently has anything more than text come from it.  087 is one of thousands of entries to the SCP, and is said to be a never-ending staircase of the unknown located on some undisclosed campus somewhere on this wonderful planet.  Now’s your chance to decent this staircase and see for yourself if it has an ending or even anything in it at all.

Games rarely scare me and the few that do often use the cheapest of scare-tactics; which is ok but not inspiring.  SCP-087, on the other hand, challenged my ability to keep moving forward with nothing more than atmosphere and time on its side.  The second one steps into the stairwell they feel it.  The dread of darkness and the unknown lurking within it, testing your will to take another step deeper into wherever it leads.  With every passing second the tension builds, along with your expectations. With every passing second your imagination begins to wonder into places unwanted, places that begin to envelope reality. Before you know it, the mouse & keyboard at your mitts have disappeared into the darkness of the endless staircase itself.

Leave it to an indie to attempt to capture the kind of fear mainstream games have begged for. Hopefully SCP-087 can inspire more horrifying experiences to do things the right way. The best in the genre have always lived by the mantra “less is more”, and this game–if you can call it that–proves the statement to be true. If you have yet to load up SCP-087 on your desktop, you’re missing out on a extraordinary experience.  I recommend after reading this you do exactly that, not before killing the lights and tossing on the best headphones in the house.  How long will it be until you hit the ESC key back to reality… and safety?


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