I'd have to say hes serious, I've played both Amnesia: DD and Minecraft, and while amnesia, a game built around horror made me more aware and jumpy of my surroundings, Minecraft scared me alot more times. Exploding green monsters that hide around corners > Moaning naked monsters that eat your face.

I hope its scary

I think you're touching the core of the issue, right here. Whether something is terrifying or not isn't just dependent on the aesthetics or semantics of the encounter. A zombie doesn't have to be more terrifying than a lowly imp or even a casual bandit. The thing that really makes an encounter scary and terrifying is the consequences of one's failure to defeat it. Especially when you feel like you're out of control. That's why surprise encounters are always more terrifying than things you except to happen.

Hopefully, Bethesda will reward us well for planning ahead and punish us severely for just throwing ourselves out there. Sure, we can just Quickload, but it becomes rather tiresome to have to quickload all the time because your mistakes are grocely penalized. But if you choose to repeat that mistake instead of learning from it (which is the risk of having too light penalties) then you're never gonna learn anything either.

Mistakes need to be heavily penalized, while bad luck or coincidences should always be solvable on the fly (by an imaginative player). Likewise, ingenuity should be rewarded, even if it means that you're slightly overpowered. Because if you are, then you know why - and the minute you start slacking, the next enemy will hit you like a truck and you will have remembered why you were OP to begin with.

I have decided, I willl no longer use Quick Saves in my games. I will now unbined those keys. Now I can play properly.

There was some pretty scary moments in TES II: Daggerfall. You'd be walking around in a dungeon, turn around a corner, and all of a sudden, there's something like a Mummy or Lich right in your face, screaming at you. I actually about jumped out of my chair and had an adrenaline rush from it once. Or it'd be real quiet, you open a door and walk through, and all of a sudden find yourself dropping dead as a crapton of spells went off the instant you walked through. Them damn Vampire Ancients and Ancient Liches were NASTY. It was pretty funny though watching them kill themself against Spell Reflection. It was also pretty scary going into a dungeon at a low level, and getting into a hard to reach area, just to come face to face with something WAY beyond you, like an Ancient Lich. I must've spent like 20-30 minutes reloading to try to kill this Ancient Lich i came across in a dungeon at Lvl 6, the only wep i had that could hurt him was a Ebony Dagger and my Fists, and my skill in Daggers was low.

A good way to scare someone is to make them feel helpless, helpless and alone. Spider webs are said to slow a player down, which is a great start. Now, if you don't see these spider webs coming before you run into them that's even better. Along those lines, make it feel like the inhabitance of the cave complex is playing around with you. Make you feel surrounded at all times, even if you aren't. That can be done with sound, or random hit and run tactics. Not much is creepier than seeing a fireball just miss you only to turn around to find nothing there.

Also, knowing when to strike. A reason I think the first Fear scared me so much is because it wasn't completely about scaring you. There were large fire fights that took your mind off the fact that this game is meant to scary you...and then boom. A 9 year old girl was looking at you smack in the face, and then when you're running away from the girl an equally creepy dude apears right around that corner. Or when you're climbing an elevater shaft. You know that an elevater is going to fall down and just miss you...you know its going to happen, but it waits. You finally are pretty much at the end so you let that deep breath go only for that elevater to pass by even closer than you thought it was going to.

Conpanions are also a good way to work up a player. If you bring someone into that creepy cave, they should from time to time say they heard something from behind them, even if they didn't. Make the player feel that there was something behind them. Even better would to have the conpanion suddenly vanish. Be it a gate that separates the two of you, or something else, if the player suddenly realizes his friend isn't there, a stronger sence of being alone is introduced.

And finally, chameleon. Have some enemies that use that damn spell. Or invisablity. Those spells could be used to scare the crap out of anyone. Also give enemies a means to put out torches or lights you may be carrying. The last thing you want is for your light to go out when you need it the most. I think Beth can pull off stuff like this. Will they? I hope so.

@ ResistanceKnight:
Some good points. Also, about Invisibility, I want that spell back into the game. Chameleon will let you stay masked, while Invisibility has a 100% effect but it's gone the moment you're attacking something or casting a spell. That way, it's a great spell that can be used by enemies to surprise you and then get visible. The more constant Chameleon effect has already been seen in Oblivion to great effect - although randomly and therefore not specifically utilized as a defining gameplay feature. Which is too bad.

How could you possibly decipher that from the video?

I think the first time I'm exploring a forest at night and a dragon flies out of the sky and attacks my character, I'll probably end up dropping some fruit in my loom.

Games are scary because they are difficult, and because you have something to lose. When you quick-save or just run away and return with a giant flaming sword of awesome three levels later, its not quite so scary.

http://i.imgur.com/qCw2j.png
Not too many dungeon names have 3 words, or none for that matter.

Mightbe wrong, but I don't think that says Bleak Falls Barrow. Looks like it ends in an R.

It's a "w". The last word 'clearly' says "Barrow."

In Fear, those invisible ninja things scared the crap out of me. Oh my god, really, first time I saw them I walked into an office room on my left, and in the corner where two walls met the ceiling, it became visible for only an instant. It was one of those things that I wasn't sure I saw, because the lighting in the office building was so poor. I couldn't tell. And even better was that their invisiblity was really invisible. The only way to really make out their outline was to slow down time when they were moving, otherwise it was really hard to see. But anyway, back to my story. The thing flickered in and out of visibility right away, so I froze. I was playing with my little bro watching, and I was like "Hey, did you see th-" And then it reapeared right in my face getting ready to attack me.

Jumped a solid foot off my bed. Scared the crap out of me. And then I killed it, with a shotgun for good measure...but the sound gave away my spot, so like four more of the things came running. I huttled in a corner because I was so scared of the things.

Anyway, a good scare will trigger a natural survival instinct in the brain. When those invisible ninja things attacked, I needed my little bro to tell me to use my slow down time feature to combat the things. I completely forgot about it, because I was just trying to get away and blast the things. Because my bro wasn't playing, he was able to calm down faster and remember I could even do that. If they can get me to forget about my dragon shouts for even just 30 seconds, they did a good job in creating a scary game moment.

I found walking into vampire dens to be pretty frightening in Oblivion.

I hear the spiders will be very scary.

Agreed. That level was pretty scary for a video game. FEAR had some scary moments too. But Bethesda has always kinda failed at that scary element. The best they did was Dunwich in FO3.

I don't think we will be "terrified", but I think we can become tense. I think part of this is really on the part of the person and the attitude with which they approach the dungeon. I purposely creep around dungeons as if I am a nervous explorer purely to heighten the mood. I want to induce that feeling of tense exploration whenever I venture underground. I also find it helps me appreciate the dungeons themselves more. They stop feeling like treasure runs and really give me the feeling of entering a new place. Taking your time also expands your experience of each dungeon. If you treat it like a race, the dungeons are small and uninspiring. When I enter an ayleid ruin, for example, I try to take in the vastness of some underground city, filled with massive chambers and grandeur. Only when you place yourself in a vulnerable state of mind will you be scared.

Yeah?

I don't see how we could know since we haven't played the game yet.

I said in an earlier thread about how fantasy's only remaining trick is scaring me. Diablo II gave me a sense of eeriness I had never felt prior and it wasn't until The Witcher came out that the feel was legitimately recaptured to me. I love being terrified/disgusted in fantasy.

I hope it will be as scary as some places in Penumbra.

Shalebridge Cradle was scary and visually disturbing. I played through the whole game with headphones on in the dark, scared the **** outta me. That's got to be my all time favorite level from any game.

Dunwich was definitly a step in the right direction.

Along with taking some insperation from FEAR, I'd like them to add a creature that's like the witch from Left for Dead, damn things were fast and deadly. Something you hear the sound of when you're on a high difficulty and and just go..."oh crap". And every now and then they should have a special one that is quiet that's hiding in the corner waiting for you to pass by, to really get you're blood pumping. Dragons hopefully give that feeling when you see one in the sky, but something like that in the dungeons would deffinitly add to their feeling of danger and fear.

Getting rid of the music made OB a fair bit scarier. Getting jumped by a zombie in a dark cave is not something I'd care to repeat...