Rare and subtle horror moments

[Acanthos]

Imagine one of those new moon winter nights. You just came home from a mining trip and are about to go to bed. You look out of your window and briefly, in the plains beyond your home, you can see a pair of eyes in the darkness, staring at you. Imagine building a basement and suddenly being unsure whether you just heard another pair of footsteps. You search around and find nothing. Imagine prospecting deep underground when a faint whisper echoes out of the darkness.

I think the game is already very atmospheric and can be quite creepy, especially in underground ruins. However, as you become more familiar with the game and begin to tame the world, that fear fades. "I don't need armor for the caves, I can just sprint past those drifters."

Events like I've described should be extremely rare and only happen once a couple of years if ever. They need to be this rare in order to feel special and truly catch someone off guard, not just like they're part of the game. But if they happen, they are likely to stick with a player for a long time.

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention is that things like these usually cause a lot of speculation and intrigue in the community. So it could also increase interest in the game.

Edited January 18 by Acanthos

[Thorfinn]

That's true to a point. If you don't make some of those sightings into occasional real threats, it just becomes more atmosphere to learn to ignore. And we are right back to where we started, but instead of just a wimp like a wolf, you need some boogeyman who would be a real threat to a seasoned player, and who would rip the casual player to shreds. 

[Maelstrom]

Like isn't a good enough reaction to your idea.  I absolutely LOVE it!  

It would be even better if tied to low temporal stability.  Not every time the stability drops below 10% but occasionally to increase the WTH?! reaction that will last the rest of ones life.

The Betweenlands mod for that other block game does a stupendous job of creating a creepy, horror atmosphere.  There's something like Dave called "Them" which are giant humanoid shadows that fade in as they appear (sometimes apparently just a dozen blocks away) but fade out if you approach them or after just a few seconds.  Usually you'll catch it out of the corner of your eye and it's gone before you have a chance to focus on it.  Youtubers reactions to this are absolutely hilarious!  Even though that event happens regularly, and becomes familiar it still provides the horror setting of the world.

To dovetail on this, another thing Betweenlands does to set mood is ambient sounds.  Different biomes have unique sounds.  In caves you get the occasional water drop falling into a pool of water.  tree frogs and insect sounds in the tree covered areas.  Barren areas are devoid of sound.  I would LOVE to see just ambient sounds added to the game.  It would give so much life infusing immersion to VS.

[Dra6o0n]

Maybe instead of physical manifestations of enemies, you can encounter 'mental' or psychological manifestation of enemies?

Like they do not exist to anyone but you, and you have a sanity stat that determines if you start seeing things from going insane?

It should be subtle, like the 'lighting' seems darker than usual, textures seems slightly different and off-putting, you hear sounds that you normally don't hear.

But the problem with this system is that regular enemies kind of ruins the subtlety of setting up an atmosphere.

Edited January 19 by Dra6o0n