I hate spiders. I've gotten better with the real ones in the last few years or so, but game ones freak me out. Especially the ones in Resident Evil. They're hairy and scary and their animation freak me the hell out.

I try to avoid games with realistic spiders. 8-bit spiders or cutesy ones don't bother me (does it bother anyone?), but I really don't like it when uncreative game developers are like, "I know, let's add a giant spider." Giant spiders are kind of like crates to me: a sign that the game may not be so hot in the creative thinking department.

This is why I've never played Entomorph. That game I'd guess would be give me the fits. It's also why I'm hesitant to try Thief, even all the good ones are on sale on GOG. Does Deadly Shadows have spiders? Also, in Yahtzee's review of Tesla Effect, he says there is a maze filled with spiders at the end. HD spiders I assume are digitized from real ones? Oh hells no, no amount of fuzzy nostalgia can make me play that.

So I wanted to create a thread where those of us who really hate these creatures can ask about GOG titles or games in general so we don't get hit with nasty surprises after buying a game. Maybe some people can handle it, maybe some can't. It's not mine to judge, but maybe we can even work on creating a list of games GOG titles under four categories:

Spiders
No Spiders
Spiders, but they're cartoony/not realistic/robots
Spiders, but with a work around (optional, mods exist to remove them)

And I can take in information and update this post so we can create a definitive list. I did search the forums to see if we already had this, but I didn't see anything. For people who are interested, constructive criticism on how we might accomplish it here would be welcome.

In any event, here's my list so far. Hopefully it will be helpful to someone.

Spiders

Age of Wonders 1 (spider-like creatures)
Age of Wonders 2 (spider-like creatures)
Age of Wonders 3 (especially this one)
Alan Wake: American Nightmare
Arcanum
Arx Fatalis
Bad Mojo
Baldur's Gate
Betrayer
Bloodrayne
Crimsonland
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic
Devil May Cry 3
Diablo II
Diablo III
Disciples II
Divinty: Original Sin
Drakensang
Dungeon Siege
Dungeon Siege III
Eador: Masters of the Broken World
Elder Scrolls: Arena
Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (one character named Daedre)
Entomorph: Plague of the Darkfall
Eye of the Beholder 2
Grim Fandango
Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition
Icewind Dale
Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine
Kingdom of Amalur: The Reckoning
King's Bounty
Limbo (I don't think it's available here, but if any game would freak out arachnophobes it would be this one)
Metro: Last Light
Might & Magic VII
Might & Magic X
Neverwinter Nights
Neverwinter Nights 2
Nox
Path of Exile
Penumbra
Resident Evil 1 and 2
Risen 2
The Seventh Guest (minimal)
Shadowgrounds
Tex Murphy: Tesla Effect
Tomb Raider 2
Ultima VIII
Ultima IX
Vampire Redemption
Wizardry 8
World of Warcraft

Spider-free, everybody needs to own

Nexus: Jupiter is Love, Jupiter is Life

No Spiders

Alan Wake
The Banner Saga
Broken Age: Act 1
Broken Sword
Broken Sword 3
Broken Sword 5
Caesar
The Cat Lady
Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller
Deadly Premonition
Defender's Quest
Diablo
Divinity: Dragon Commander
DROD
Elder Scrolls: Morrowind
Expeditions: Conquistador
Fallout 3
Fallout: New Vegas
Giana Sisters (all games)
Haegemonia
The Longest Journey
Long Live the Queen
Master of Orion 1 & 2
Master of Orion 3
Might & Magic I
Paper Sorcerer
Pharaoh
Planescape: Torment
Quest for Glory 1-5
Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief
Risen (big insects though)
Sang-Froid: A Tale of Werewolves
Sanitarium
SimCity 1-4
Spiderman (ironically enough)
Star Wolves
Thief: Deadly Shadows
Tropico 3
Worlds of Ultima: Martian Dreams
Worlds of Ultima: Savage Empire
Zeus
Zork: Grand Inquisitor

Spiders, but they're cartoony/not realistic/robots

Avernum (cute/evil spiders and fairly detailed splash screen)
Betrayal at Krondor
Botanicula
Broken Sword 2
Crusader: No Regret (they're on your side though!)
Crusader: No Remorse (they're on your side though!)
Don't Starve (including DLC)
Dust: An Elysian Tail
Eador: Genesis
Exile (cute/evil spiders and fairly detailed splash screen)
Eye of the Beholder
Geneforge (cute/evil spiders and fairly detailed splash screen)
Ghost Master
Kilgazar
King of Dragon Pass
King's Quest 1-3
King's Quest 7 & 8
Little Big Adventure
Master of Magic
Magic 2014 (the card game)
Might and Magic VI
Might and Magic Worlds of Xeen
Slave Zero
Space Quest 1-3
Teen Agent
Total Annihilation
Torchlight
Ultima I-VII
Ultima Underworld 1 and 2
Wizardry I-VII

Link to games with spiders where workarounds to not see them exist.

Apologies if you think this is a silly thread, but I thought it might be of use to somebody.

I also have aracnophobia. :/
Here some games where I found spider (add to your list, if you want):

Spiders

Neverwinter Nights
Torchlight

Spiders, but they're cartoony/not realistic/robots

Arcanum (Mechanized Arachnid)
Botanicula

Cool spiders in Baldur's Gate.

Spider thingies in System Shock 2, if I remember well.

Respectably sized spider in Resident Evil 1 or 2

Giant spider in Vampires Redemption, if I'm not mistaken.

Nasty spiders in Eye of the Beholder

I generally have no issue with videogame spides because they are jusAAAAAAAAARRRRH PENUMBRA SPIDERS ALL OVER THE PLACE GET IT OFF GET IT AWAY YAAARGLAAAH

wouldnt it help to play some arena shooters like crimsonland or something and just kill billions of things while laughing like maniac? :)

My Ex was hysterical about snakes. She didnt know either, but its true enough people have all sorts of phobias.

TES: Arena has giant spiders all over, they're pretty pixelated but they're certain not cartooney!
Not tried Daggerfall yet but I suspect its quite likely they're there
(they're not on GOG but they are freeware from the TES site)

Oh Shadowgrounds has a lot of alien spider things too!

Cool! Thanks for helping me expand the list guys.

A couple of questions.

1. Do you think Eye of the Beholder is significantly old enough for the graphics to fall in the "spiders, but not realistic" category?

2. Also, should Torchlight be moved to the cartoony category to or did they bother you like real spiders would, almabrds? For now, it's in the spider category.

3. Should Crimsonland be on the list?

I also updated the post with some slight formatting to make it easier to parse and made the list alphabetical. I'll add links to the mods to remove spiders for that section too.

Well, spiders are one of the most common enemies in almost any RPG really. Traditionally pnp DnD was full of them ;)

Dark Messiah of Might and magic has quite few 8-leggers. Nice game though.

Metro Last Light has some spider-scorpion -thingies in both mini- and macro sizes.

Honestly, I don't know why there is so much spider hate in the world. Spiders are absolutely necessary for the global ecology. Is your home completely filled with insects crawling all over the walls? No? Well chances are there are multiple hidden spiders eating the bad bugs and pests for you.

Spiders get a bad rap because of their appearance, but rest-assured, spiders are terrified of humans! Spiders know they can be crushed very easily so they will run away, or stand perfectly still to try to elude you. But the vast majority of spiders are completely harmless to humans. They will only bite if they are getting crushed or stepped-on.

If you want to conquer your arachnophobia, I would suggest watching videos of very docile spiders like Jumping Spiders. Here is a link. They are very cute too! I hope this will help.

Slave Zero has spider robots.
If you want spiders to be benificial to you get Crusader: No Remorse/Regret, so you can exterminate your enemies with spiderbombs.

Plenty of spiders in Path of Exile. In fact, if I could be bothered to post in their forums, I'd rant about how they are overused in the high-level maps. Not that I remember, no.

While I appreciate the post, IronArcturus, and I agree it's best to conquer a phobia if you can, that's really not what this thread is about. As I said in the opener, my fear of spiders (I'm not sure if you could ever say I had a phobia per say) has gotten better in real life, to the point where it's not much of an issue. I'm still not going to go out of my way to touch them or view them, but I'm mostly okay with real spiders right now.

The problem is that everyone is at a different level when it comes to their fears and how they want to handle them and sometimes because they are often in fantasy worlds games make spiders into even more abhorrent creatures than they already are to people who don't like them and sometimes do so without any warning. Since the purpose of a lot of games is to enjoy one's self or relax, this can be disheartening. It's up to everyone else decide what they want to do with this information, but I imagine if people spend their money to enjoy themselves, it can be a nasty shock to see something they really hate reflected in it.

I remember I had my brother play the spider sections in Resident Evil for me when my fear of spiders was worse, but if he wasn't around I never would have been able to play through to the end with those games back in the day, and that would have been a shame. Maybe it's valid to say, "Hey, use games to conquer your fears!" and that very well could be the case, but probably not for everyone.

Secondly, giant spiders are a really, really tired enemy idea and part of my motivation for this thread is a silly kind of Old Man Murray "time-to-crate" reflection on how cliche they are.

Ultima series...

1 through 7: spiders appeared as monsters, but given the graphics of the day, they'd probably fall under 'not realistic'. (You're only getting an overhead view from some distance at 320x200.)

8: The giant spiders here might not technically be spiders, but they qualify in every other way.

9: Giant spiders. Full size, up close. Thou shalt lose an eighth!

Underworld 1 + 2: Giant spiders in both. Whether they qualify as cartoony or scary depends on how realistic you think the graphics look generally.

Savage Empire/Martian Dreams: I don't *think* there were spiders in either of these. Giant ants, on the other hand...

--

Quest for Glory series (1-5): There were some freakish looking things in a few places, but none of them were spiderlike IIRC.

Betrayal at Krondor: Spiders in a few places, but they probably qualify as unrealistic-looking given the graphics.

Legend of Grimrock: Spiders. Reasonably realistic and aggressive-springy enough that an arachnophobe will probably be doing extra laundry.

System Shock II: There are spider-like annelids, but they aren't actually spiders, per se. Still, if you're playing System Shock II, you should be EXPECTING to run into things that disturb you.

Master of Orion series (1-3): No spiders, as far as I remember. The klackons are more ant-like than spider-like.

Master of Magic: Giant spiders are a nature summon. They definitely fall into the cartoony/unrealistic category though.

The Elder Scrolls series: I don't think 3 or 4 (Morrowind or Oblivion) had spiders (although Morrowind had plenty of other chitinous creatures). Morrowind does have dwemer animunculi in spider form (among others), but these are essentially robots. In addition to the animunculi, 5 (Skyrim) has actual giant spiders (and pretty ugly looking ones at that). Arachnophobes, avoid!

Wizardry series: spiders, spiders everywhere! Granted, probably leaning cartoony due to the age of the graphics, except for 8, but even those aren't terribly realistic-looking.

Sang-Froid - A Tale of Werewolves: No spiders here, at least!

Eador - Genesis: Spiders, but they're reasonably cartoony.

Eador - Masters of the Broken World: Spiders, and rather less cartoony.

King's Bounty series (The Legend / Crossworlds): Various spiders as animal-class troops (and occasionally undead giant spiders as undead troops). Hard to avoid, but probably cartoony enough not to upset any but the most extreme arachnophobe. The giant spider bosses are another matter, so these should probably be in the "Aieeeee!" column.

Minecraft: Oh, yes. There are spiders. Sometimes there are even skeletons riding the spiders!

Expeditions - Conquistador: Being quasi real-world, I don't think there were any giant spiders to be found here, although there's a random event that involves an expedition member having been bitten by one (of the ordinary real-world variety, which you never see). Arachnophobe-safe.

Divinity - Dragon Commander: Not a spider in sight.

Tropico 3: Unless it's part of a plot to draw in gullible tourists, giant spiders are one of the few things El Presidente doesn't have to worry about.

Paper Sorcerer: I don't think there are any spiders in this one. Not even on your team!

Star Wolves: Given all of the other problems, it's a good thing that the crew doesn't have to deal with miniature giant space spiders as well.

Put in cartoon category. I had forgotten how they looked like. They aren't scary.

Wow, thanks Garran, lots of help! Unless somebody tells me differently, I've put Minecraft and Ultima Underworld in the unrealistic category.

Skyrim has spiders that will scare the shit of you even if you don't suffer from arachnophobia.