*music*
Has anyone else noticed that survival horror seems to have almost disappeared as a genre?
yeah we've had a Resident Evil or an Alan Wake here or there but
those aren't really horror games
They're more like action adventure games that happen to involve zombies
recent Silent Hill games have been the same way
Just because you got Boogy men and skeletons i there doesn't necessarily make it a horror game
So what is true horror then?
Horror is about human psychology
It's about understanding those primal fears that have tormented mankind since its early history.
Horror is about the irrational
and the breakdown of our modern faith in logic and the fundamental order of the world
Horror is about all those things that drive us toward our darker impulses
and justify our most bestial actions
Horror is about hopelessness
and facing things so unimaginably greater than ourselves that
for all of our self-importance
and assurance of our place in the universe
we're nothing before them
Our fascination with horror is in understanding our irrational impulses
in looking past the every day
and embracing, vicariously
some element of our savage, animal selves
in horror, the villain is far more fascinating to us than the protagonist
because the villain allows us to peer deep into some of the most repugnant yet tempting aspects of our nature
Horror is also cathartic
because it allows us to explore all those unpleasant impulses
and gives context to some of the unpleasant moments in our own lives
we all experience a little horror now and then
none of us go about our lives completely free of fear or despair
we all cling to little secret superstitions
and tiny phobias
and it is horror that lets us purge those sentiments by exploring them
as an interactive medium, video games are perhaps the best medium every created for experiencing simulated scenarios of dread
so... what happened?
Where did all the horror games go?
well, oddly enough, one of the main reasons video games aren't so much about horror anymore
is due to how much technology has improved
remember how foggy the environment in the first Silent Hill games were?
well, that fog wasn't just there for atmosphere
the game was relaying on it to hide objects in the distance
because the Playstation couldn't render more than a few hundred polygons at a time
even PS2 era games like Fatal Frame
were helped by technology limitations
they could get away with indistinct character models and textures
because the players imagination helped to fill in the rest
But today
with the level of rendering power behind the PS3 and the Xbox 360
There's a great temptation for studios to render everything crisply and cleanly
in order to truly provide a high fidelity experience
exposing every minute detail of every model in the game
But horror relies on psychology
and we will always scare ourselves better than someone else can
if we're put in the right frame of mind
which leads us to our next point
mystery
the unknown is always terrifying
and yet... intriguing
there's something incredible to that most human urge
the urge to understand
it's why we cover our eyes but
peak through our fingures
we need to know
we're horrified by the powerlessness of not knowing
so we're drawn in
compelled to understand
even if understanding is only gonna make things worse
it's a human trope
it's part of our oldest myth cycles and our earliest stories
this desire was an essential part of early horror games
they would set up an inexplicable situation
and leave the player to make sense of it over the course of the game
they would use the mystery of "what's really going on?"
to lure the player along
leaving them to guess at the meaning of vague hints and innuendos
by doing this they created an inherently compelling narrative
and played on the tension between the players desire to flee and the need to know more
this tension, plus the feeling of something unknown far greater than oneself that had turned the world on its head
was quintessential to horror games
but that seems to have almost completely disappeared in the most recent console generation
what happened?
well, sequels and franchises are what happened
like I said, mystery is one of the key elements of horror
and it's really hard to maintain a mystery of a large number of titles
I mean, after a few Resident Evil games
we've all figured out that umbrella corp is not good people
losing that mystery is part of what pushed established horror franchises into the action genre
now that the horror is known and the monster has been seen there's
really nothing left to do but charge in there guns blazing and take it out
but this brings us to another point. Money.
Unfortunately, well-loved franchises often continue to sell long after they have jumped the shark
Hedgehog, I'm looking at you
This makes it very tempting for studios to keep milking an existing franchise because it's
far less risky than trying to establish a new one.
but there's another economic problem afflicting horror games
the unfortunate reality is
the horror genre just doesn't sell as well as action-adventure does
and AAA games aren't cheap to make
so a lot of horror franchises are trying to go for greater mass appeal to ensure a profit
a decade ago, with a little luck
you could see a profitable return on a niche game
but today, when you're trying to recoup 20-40 million dollars
well it becomes very tempting to just aim for the broadest audience possible
as gamers, if we want more real horror games
we're gonna have to show developers that we don't need the flashiest graphics
and the most photorealistic characters to buy a horror game
otherwise developers will be forced to keep diluting their horror games to reach a larger market
they won't have a choice
luckily, for those still interested are there are still places to experience some of the elements of horror
games like Demon Souls or the Dear Esther Half Life mod
managed to tap into the same secret places that true horror titles do
I know they don't really look like horror games on the surface
but they still evoke that same sense of mystery and dread
just through the fundamental mechanics of the game
so, will horror come back?
maybe
we may just have to look a little deeper to find it, is all
but if we consumers are willing to do the work to show that this genre is still viable
the next generation of horror games will come
and they'll come from designers who've had the opportunity to learn from the games being released today
learned to look passed the aesthetics of horor
and incorporate psychological dread into the very mechanics of the game itself
that's gonna make for some verrry potent horror games, let me tell you
so, as long as the genre doesn't die off completly
the future of horror games looks pretty bright indead
well, dark
pretty dark, indead
you know what I mean
*music*