Call of Duty: Warzone has kicked off its Halloween event for 2021, bringing some unique cosmetics, new challenges, and the limited-time mode Ghosts of Verdansk. Many games, especially battle royales, have launched their Halloween events, but many players have found themselves drawn to Call of Duty: Warzone thanks to the new mode and its unique fear meter mechanic that pushes players to approach matches a bit differently than they normally would. As unique as the mechanic is for the genre, however, it has a long legacy in the horror genre.
Mechanics similar to the fear meter in horror games are typically presented as sanity meters that push players to manage the stress endured by their characters at risk of them becoming insane which has a range of consequences such as a heart attack in Darkest Dungeon or messing with player movement in the Clock Tower series. Many horror games make great use of sanity meters, and those mechanics seem to have been a great inspiration for Call of Duty: Warzone. There are some particular classic horror titles that the developers seem to have been inspired by.
How Call of Duty: Warzone's Fear Meter Works
While playing the Ghosts of Verdansk game mode, players have an icon on the bottom left side of their screen representing their fear meter. It is split into three segments—green, yellow, and red—and rises in a few different ways. The meter goes up whenever players are shot at, are hit by an enemy's equipment, if an enemy killstreak is nearby, if they see dead bodies or ghosts, having squadmates get downed or killed, and from what Call of Duty has dubbed cowardice, better known as camping. Players can also decrease their fear meter by killing enemies, completing contracts, reviving squadmates, and standing on sacred ground.
Once a player's fear meter reaches 50 percent, they will begin seeing a number of hallucinations to throw them off their game. These include sounds indicating that they are getting shot when they aren't, a loudly laughing voice, whispers, or even just jump scares hidden when looting or making purchases. When a player's fear level gets up to 100 percent, they must endure more obtrusive hallucinations like shimmer effects on their screen, the game crashing to a blue screen, bugs flying in their face, or even being cut by Scream's Ghostface, who is also included in the event as a new operator skin. The event is still new, but the reception of the fear meter has been largely positive amongst fans who find the auditory hallucinations add a lot of tension to matches. Many fans have voiced their frustration with the visual ones, however, as they make it nearly impossible to play the game for a while.
The Sanity Meter in Amnesia: The Dark Descent
One classic horror game that the fear meter seems to have taken some inspiration from is Amnesia: The Dark Descent. The player character's sanity plays a huge role in Amnesia, which is decreased by standing in the darkness, witnessing disturbing events, or even just looking at enemies. The mechanics of sanity in the game are pretty similar to Warzone's fear meter as both games punish players for seeing certain things or standing in the same place for too long. Amnesia's use of the sanity meter was revolutionary at the time of its release, and it added a whole new level of horror to the experience.
Having lower sanity in Amnesia is also similar to Warzone in that it increases the difficulty and tension of the game by messing with the player's senses. The environment alters to have paintings look freakish, dead bodies appearing, spiders and bugs living around torches and in certain locations, and the character hallucinating sounds like footsteps behind them, babies crying, or people yelling out in pain. At the lowest levels of sanity, a player's vision will also begin to warp and distort, the character will talk to themselves and potentially alert nearby enemies, and they can even start hallucinating enemies that aren't there, leading to some really excellent jump scares.
Sanity Effects in Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
Warzone's jumpscares when looking or purchasing equipment seem to be inspired by 2002's Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. The game also features a sanity meter that is decreased when the player is seen by monsters, and entering rooms throughout the game has the potential to trigger a Sanity Effect while a fully depleted sanity meter starts depleting the player's health instead. The lower a player's sanity is the more likely they are to trigger, and there are a number of possible effects. Many of them affect the player character themself, like them turning into a zombie before experiencing a fake death later, having all of their limbs explode one by one, or their head falling off and levitating to recite Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Other effects apply to the screen, similar to Warzone, and examples like bugs crawling on the screen, replacing the save game message with one saying that players are deleting their save, or making the player's inventory look completely empty. The Sanity Effects can also impact the game's environment from having all doors in a room being locked to the character suddenly sinking into the floor as if it were quicksand. Eternal Darkness set a new standard for how to mess with the player during a game, so it is no surprise that the Warzone developers possibly took inspiration from some of its Sanity Effects. There have been rumors of a new Eternal Darkness game being developed, so hopefully, horror fans will get a sequel in the future.
It is really great to see the developers behind Call of Duty: Warzone being willing to experiment with their limited-time events and game modes. Game modes like Ghosts of Verdansk really help set Call of Duty: Warzone apart from other shooters, and are a great way to mix things up for players.
Call of Duty: Warzone is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.