For most players,spiders in video gamesare just another type of enemy—annoying, maybe, but manageable. For arachnophobes, it’s reason enough to drop the controller, uninstall the game, and question the developer’s personal motives. There’s something about the way those eight-legged monstrosities skitter, lunge, and leer that triggers a deep, primal fear, especially when they’re rendered in high definition and designed to crawl straight into one’s nightmares.
These games didn’t just include spiders; they weaponized them. Whether it’s their design, behavior, or the atmosphere they inhabit, each one makes a strong case for including a “turn off spider mode” option. Unfortunately, most of them don’t.
TheMetroseries is already anxiety-inducing thanks to itsclaustrophobic environments, dwindling supplies, and the constant threat of death from both mutants and radiation. ButMetro: Last Lightgoes a step further by introducing theNosalis spiderbugs, which are arguably the most grotesque things in a game already full of horrors. These things aren’t normal spiders. They’re mutated, irradiated beasts with armored shells and glistening legs that scuttle at impossible angles. They live in dark tunnels, thrive in the shadows, and flee from light, meaning players have to juggle their flashlight and flamethrower just to survive.
The problem is that the flashlight’s battery drains constantly, and charging it takes time. Every second the light flickers is a chance for these things to swarm. What really makes them unbearable is how they respond to fear. These creatures hiss, screech, and recoil from beams of light, giving the illusion that they’re vulnerable—until one crawls up a wall and pounces from above. The longer players spend in spider-infested tunnels, the more it feels like the game is actively punishing anyone who made the mistake of entering without a fully charged battery and a flamethrower ready to go.
At a glance,Minecraftdoesn’t seem like it belongs on this list. It’s bright, cheerful, and made of chunky pixels. But those very same chunky pixels are responsible for ambushing countless unsuspecting players the moment the sun goes down. The spiders inMinecraftare unsettling not because they look realistic, but because they soundfartoo real. Their hissy, chittering audio design is unnerving in a way that completely bypasses logic and dives straight into discomfort.
They’re also huge—easily the size of the player character—and unnaturally fast when they lock onto a target.
What really pushes it over the edge for arachnophobes is their climbing ability. Walls? Trees? Vertical mineshafts? Doesn’t matter. Spiders will scale anything to get to a player, often dropping from unseen ledges in caves or crawling right up to beds in the middle of the night if the area isn’t properly lit. And since they’re one of the most common hostile mobs, there’s no escaping them, especially insurvival mode, where hearing that sharp screech in a pitch-black cave never fails to spike the heart rate.
It’s easy to assume thatHogwarts Legacy, with its picturesque castle and whimsical spellcasting, would be acozy adventurethrough a beloved universe. That illusion breaks the moment players enter the Forbidden Forest. This place should come with a trigger warning, because the Acromantulas here aren’t just oversized spiders—they’re nightmare fuel, steeped in high-fidelity animation and aggressive behavior. Every twitch of their mandibles, every skitter across the mossy floor, feels designed to horrify. And the worst part? They don’t just appear in one optional side quest. They’reeverywhere.
The game peppers the Scottish Highlands with spider dens, nests, and full-blown infestations. One late-game mission literally drops players into an underground lair filled with hundreds of them. There’s even a cursed chest that mimics a spider and jumpscares whoever tries to open it.
Players can technically prepare potions or fire off spells like Incendio to deal with them, but honestly, most would rather just uninstall and pretend it never happened. The devs even added an Arachnophobia Mode post-launch that turns spiders into floating boxes with roller skates—because the fear was that real.
Of all the beasts that roamSkyrim’ssnowy peaks, the frostbite spiders are among the most reviled—and not just by arachnophobes. Their sudden, screeching ambushes in tight Nordic ruins are enough to startle even the most hardened Dovahkiin. What makes them especially nightmarish is their variety. Some are small and quick, others are the size of horses and spit venom from a distance. The biggest ones guard dungeon chambers like grotesque bosses, hanging from ceilings or crawling across ancient walls in silence until they strike.
These spiders aren’t just window dressing. They’re a real threat in early game dungeons and often appear in narrow corridors where maneuvering is limited. Add in the fact that they can drop from above or spawn from cracked eggs mid-fight, and the experience becomes a trial in boththe combatand personal willpower. While mods exist to replace them with anything from bears to mudcrabs, console players don’t get that luxury. They just get to stare into eight glistening black eyes and wonder why they picked the cave marked “Bleak Falls Barrow” on the map.
What makes the spider inLimboso effective is how little it actually does—and how deeply that still manages to terrify. The game’s monochrome aesthetic strips everything down to silhouettes, and yet the spider’s hulking frame is instantly recognizable the moment it appears. There’s no fanfare, no music sting, just the slow, deliberate crawl of a massive leg from the side of the screen. And somehow, that’s worse. This creature isn’t a common enemy—it’s more like a recurring force of nature, hunting the boy through the early hours of the game.
The animationsare slow and meticulous, with each movement carrying weight and menace. When it kills, it’s not quick. Players get impaled, dragged, or caught in its web, forced to wriggle helplessly as it closes in. It’s not about jump scares. It’s about dread. The kind that creeps in and sits behind your ribs as the screen dims. Limbo doesn’t rely on gore or high-detail textures—it just presents something fundamentally wrong and refuses to let players look away.
Nothing—and this is no exaggeration—compares to the sheer nightmare fuel that isGrounded’s wolf spider. It’s the kind of enemy that makes players scream before they even realize why they’re screaming. Blame the scale.Groundedshrinks players to the size of an ant and turns the backyard into a survival horror gauntlet. That weed stem? A tree. That beetle? A boss fight. That spider? A god.
Wolf spiders inGroundeddon’t just wander around. Theyprowl. They stalk through the tall grass, their footsteps shaking the camera, their eyes glowing in the dark. Their hitboxes are massive, they one-shot undergeared players, and worst of all, they’re silent until it’s too late.
Hiding in a leaf hut doesn’t help. They can find their way in. Theywillfind their way in. And then there’s the orb weavers, which are slower but just as terrifying. They build webs across common paths, forcing players to either fight through or reroute entirely. Arachnophobes who tried the game at launch begged Obsidian for an accessibility option, and the devs answered with one of the most famous arachnophobia sliders in gaming. At zero, spiders become floating blobs. At max, they’re back to full horror. The fact that players still flinch at the halfway setting says it all.
