Demonic Spiders/Video Games/Sandbox Games

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Even in wide open worlds, there's nearly Everything Trying to Kill You and no one else.


  • The appeal of the Dead Rising series is being able to kill zombies by the truckload in all sorts of fun, hilarious, and creative ways. So obviously, your standard zombie doesn't take much effort to kill, and they aren't that dangerous unless you're mobbed and underequipped. So while you get to have fun killing them, these enemies pick up the slack in the difficulty department:
    • Special Ops and True Eye Cultists are normal people with their wits about them and armed with deadly weapons. That alone makes them more dangerous than the zombies, especially since they always show up in groups and will happily block off paths and stores you need access to. The cultists are scary when you're in melee range, because their knives shave off a ton of health, and they'll try to take you out in a blaze of glory by suicide bombing you. Special Ops on the other hand are threats at any range because they can stunlock you to death with their machineguns, have a ton of health, and are immune to headshots. And both groups can knock you out, which is followed by them kidnapping you and stealing all your gear before forcing you to fight your way out of their bases.
    • Meanwhile, the sequel has Gas Zombies. Thanks to the chemicals they've been exposed to, these creeps are stronger, faster, and more durable than garden variety zombies, and they attack in packs. You better be sufficiently leveled up and armed to the teeth with all kinds of game-breaking weapons once they show up, because they will make your life hell.
  • Grand Theft Auto III has every gang pack a lot of heat, but the worst of them come from the mafia. After betraying Salvatore, wandering into mafia's territory will cause them to shoot you on sight with shotguns. Shotguns in the game are capable of killing anyone in one or two shots and when you got several people with shotguns trying to kill you, it will take a miracle for you to get out unscathed. Driving in a car? Shotguns are so powerful that the mafia can almost make your car instantly explode in a few shots with their shotguns. Hope you weren't planning to do side missions after turning against the mafia!
  • Minecraft has several mobs that make your life a living hell:
    • Creepers. Walking plants that don't make any noises until they get close enough to you to hiss and then explode. They can cause massive damage even if you're wearing armor, wreck any structures you built, and destroy items. Their green coloration acts as a form of mild camouflage in grassy areas, making it easy to look them over and not notice their approach until it's too late. And even worse, they're a rare breed of enemy that doesn't die or become passive during the day, making daytime exploration dangerous if you don't keep your wits about you. Creepers are also the only way you can obtain the rest of the music discs by having a Skeleton kill it. Creepers will stay away if you have a cat nearby, but ocelots are incredibly rare to find in the first place, which you tame to get a cat.
    • Skeletons. They're expert marksmen that will turn you into a Human Pincushion with powerful arrows that kill your forward momentum with their ridiculous knockback, and they rarely ever miss their shots. Thankfully the introduction of shields neutered them for the most part, but they're still dangerous if they catch you near a cliff, at the peak of a mountain, or close to any other kind of vast drop off. All it takes is one well-placed shot to knock you off the edge, and gravity will take care of the rest.
    • Ghasts. They only appear in the Nether but they will make your time in the Nether constantly dangerous. They can float and will usually float out of range of your swords, making them being vulnerable to arrows. Ghasts also constantly shoot fireballs at you that explode on contact, causing major damage unless you are wearing armor. There's also an achievement for sending a Ghast's fireball attack back at it, but good luck trying to get the Ghast to sit still for it to be hit.
    • Cave Spiders, being a literal form of this trope. They only appear in abandoned mineshafts and attack like a regular spider, but if you are playing on Normal or higher, their attacks will poison you, causing your health to drop at a constant rate. They are very similar to the Poison Headcrabs where the poison and the Cave Spider cannot kill you directly, but the poison itself can leave your health at just half a heart, making you a One-Hit-Point Wonder to other enemies or pitfalls. A bucket of Milk can cure the poison, but you have to hope there aren't more Cave Spiders nearby to poison you again. To make matters worse, the spiders are not slowed down by cobwebs.
    • If you encounter a Witch, you better kill her as fast as possible. Because if she gets the chance to act, you're in trouble. Despite what their name would imply, Minecraft Witches aren't spellcasters, but expert potion brewers who have an arsenal of annoying concoctions to fall back on. On the defensive side of things, they can make themselves immune to certain attacks, heal themselves, and give themselves a speed buff. And when they're on the offensive, they'll hurl deceptively powerful potions that can poison you, make your attacks hilariously weak, or slow you down in order to make escaping her impossible.
    • Baby Zombies are a lot tougher than their full-grown variants. And no, that isn't a joke: these little brats have the same amount of health and attack power as normal Zombies, but their size and speed make it feel like you're fighting a tiny Usain Bolt with dodging reflexes on par with Spider-Man. They don't hit hard, but that's of little comfort when they're quickly stacking up damage while you're struggling to hit them back.
    • It's a good thing they're normally on your side, because Iron Golems are a force to be reckoned with. They're every bit as sturdy as you'd expect a living statue made of metal to be, and they hit like a freight train. So you better be very careful not to accidentally hurt them or any of the Villagers they protect, because you do not want to be on the receiving end of their fury. You just don't.
  • Red Dead Redemption and its sequel are excellent games that make you every bit the badass outlaw that John Marston and Arthur Morgan are. They also don't shy away from the scarier aspects of life in the wild west, including being menaced by dangerous apex predators. Bears, wolves, cougars, alligators, panthers... each is more dangerous than the last, and they're far more threatening than most enemy gunmen could ever hope to be. They're all fast and powerful, with alligators and panthers being capable of killing you the minute they sink their teeth into you, while bears and cougars can kill you nearly as fast. Wolves are weaker, but the tradeoff is that they hunt in packs, which is a daunting prospect since they'll happily circle you and attack from all angles.
  • For most of Terraria The Corruption torments you with erratically-moving monsters that hit like a truck and swarm in numbers; worse, the Corruption area itself grows constantly and displaces other environments. By the time you're able to reach the Underworld, though, the Corruption is a forgotten memory and Corrupted regions have probably been healed, sealed, or blown to atoms with tons of dynamite. Then you enter the endgame ... and the Corruption gets souped up and starts spreading all over again. Fortunately, its opposite number, the Hallow, appears to battle it. Unfortunately the Hallow is even worse.
  • The green techno car from My Summer Car. It's one of the most dangerous threats you'll encounter on the roads thanks to the speed it drives at, and the unpredictability of when it shows up. It's not uncommon to have your car totaled, or for you to die outright because this son of a bitch ran you off the road and straight into a tree while on your daily grocery run.
    • Moose are another prominent threat on the roads. They come barreling out of the forests at night, and the darkness makes it nearly impossible to see them coming until you've crashed right into one. On the bright side, they can be avoided entirely if you drive exclusively during the day.