Where Have All The Horror Games Gone?

Koku writes: "A while ago I wrote an article, one of my very first for this site, in which I claimed that video games offered the future of horror.

However, perhaps I should have qualified that statement. Video games can offer the future of horror, but only if developers are brave and intelligent enough to embrace atmosphere, mood and pacing, and accept that there is still a major audience out there for titles which don’t place a premium on combat."

[aedwards89]

seriously where are all the good ones?

[Darkstorn]

Amnesia was good, and I recently replayed Call of Cthulhu:DCotE this year. Looking forward to Dead Space 2 (even if it isn't true horror-it's the closest we can get on console). The horror genre may not be on top of its game, but it still exists.

[cochise313]

We have Alan Wake. That game was pretty damn good.

[user858621]

alan wake is more of a psychological thriller

[cochise313]

Well, i think that's the closest well get to horror this generation. The horror genre has definitely went under the radar.

[Bloodraid]

I'd say the closest we've gotten to true horror this generation (speaking strictly of consoles) would be Siren: Blood Curse, and Fatal Frame 4.

[cochise313]

Oh man, how did i forget about Siren? I need to buy that for psn, the demo for it scared the sh!t out of me. They made a fatal frame 4? I didn't know that.

[Bloodraid]

Yeah, they did. Unfortunately; Nintendo bought it up and decided they'd not release it outside of Japan, so it's only available in Japanese on the Wii.

[Army_of_Darkness]

scared all the other potential horror games away.

[Dragon_Hiko]

But what IS a good horror concept in this day and age? As far as I'm concerned the generic 'horror' genre is dead. I haven't seen a movie in years that was scary that was pure 'horror', because all horror seems to be anymore is as much blood and guts as possible, with people making stupid decisions and screaming a lot. Psychological thrillers with a touch of horror is where it's at. You have to add the thriller aspect into the mix, or it's just stale and boring and been done to death already.

[badz149]

most of them went to the SHOOTER realm I think!

[Valay]

Usually I just play Resident Evil for my horror game fix.

[GamingForever]

I always wondered what happened to the horror games..

[OrigamiDriller]

It was a little derivative at times, but I thought Alan Wake was one of the best games of 2010. That being said, I'm eager for more horror games. I have high hopes for Atlus's Catherine.

[cain141]

Fear 3 and Dead Space 2 come out very soon....

[Bloodraid]

Those aren't even horror games...

Fear 3: FPS with shit that jumps out at you.
Dead Space 2: TPS With shit that jumps out at you.

Games where the objective is to kill every enemy in sight are not horror games... The main objective in most true horror games is to survive, hence the term 'survival horror'.

The only true survival horror games this generation seem to be Fatal Frame 4, Siren: Blood Curse, The Calling, Amnesia, and maybe a few more.

Hell, even Resident Evil games are no longer considered horror... It's depressing, really.

[CrescentFang]

Hey you seem to know a lot about Fatal Frame (Zero), do you know what the new one for the Wii is called? Thanks :)

[OpenGL]

I actually liked Siren a lot, and felt like it was a refreshing return to the survival horror games of past generations. I hope they do a sequel to it but because the game was only released on PSN in the U.S. it did not sell very well. It didn't help that all 12 episodes took up 9070MB of hard drive space as well.

[stragomccloud]

@CrescentRaid

I'm not sure, but the new one for Wii appears to be a remake of Fatal Frame 2.

[heylo]

Dead Space 1 is absolutely survival horror
just like Condemned
FEAR 1 was also fine

[RedDead]

Not really, all you have to do is pick your shots in Dead Space. Action game with jumpy moments, not horror. Jumpy crap gets old too.

[cb810]

House of the Dead was the bomb back in the day

[gillri]

makes some good points but I would not called Dead Space a shooter first

for me it was a good mix of puzzles, shooting AND horror, The shooting was never over-the-top enough to dilute the horror IMO. Clarke always felt at least a little vulnerable which is always important

it was very atmospheric with a strong emphasis on its back story and narrative, maybe it wasnt the scariest but a shooter first Dead Space is not

[Darkfiber]

Really? Dead Space had no puzzles. If you think "grab this with your telekinesis and put it in the hole with the big glowing blue thing that might as well be a bullseye" is a puzzle, you must be a little slow in the head. Dead Space was essentially an extremely dumbed down version of System Shock, that stole pretty much everything in terms of game design from Bioshock and put it in third person to make people think it wasn't exactly the same thing. Bioshock was not a horror game, neither is this. It's an atmospheric third person shooter in space.

[gillri]

errm no matter how easy or hard a puzzle is.......its still a puzzle numbnutts

even the upgrading weapons bench and inventory system incorporated had puzzle elements weaved into them,

evne it was never tryying to be System Shock so how can it be a dumbed down version? you will find cinema was Dead Space biggest influence

people that say the term 'dumbed down' are usually gaming elitist morons anyway

[Darkfiber]

They are all on PC. Horror on consoles has turned to quick fix, instant gratification, cheap action thrills.

[wiggles]

Couldn't agree more. I'm so desperate for a horror fix I watched my roommate play Amnesia on his computer. It makes me upset that my computer is so crappy.

It makes me even more upset because Asylum looks so good.

[Kon]

They stayed in the 90's

[Kran]

You know where they went? Action Shooters replaced them >:(

Although in the past couple of years, there's been Alan Wake (not hugely a horror but still has abit of horror elements), there's also been......... uhhhh.....

Yeh I got nuttin'. OH WAIT! DEAD SPACE 2 very soon. So theres 2..... ok now I got nuttin

[AGamerOfConsoles]

I would love to see Dino Crisis return to it's roots. It would be great if we got a remake or something.

[Kran]

I hope so too. Dino Crisis just scared me to bits!

[AGamerOfConsoles]

T-Rex smashing the window scared the heck out of me in my youth lol.

[the_manson_charles]

look for my avatar...

[VenomProject]

Left 4 Dead is NOT a horror game, lololol.

[Mac is OK]

I think Dead Space, Amnesia, Condemned and Silent Hill were proper horror games.

[Roozium]

Helloooooo, Amnesia anyone?

[BlueEye]

Read the article just a bit better and you might have noticed the author mention that he likes Amnesia and like me and many others thing its a terrifying piece of gold that makes you piss your pants and find out that Daniel is a braver man then any of us.

[Acquiescence]

and it's looking ace. I've got my fingers crossed for this one.

[guigsy]

I think a better question would be "where have all the SURVIVAL horrors gone?" Horror games still exist, but now you are armed with about 7 guns and bucket loads of ammo. I loved the games that taught you to ration your ammo or else you were donald ducked.

[IPUMPMYGUN]

Dead Space being influenced from Alien the movie and Resident Evil, I'd say it's a 3rd-Person Survival-Horror Shooter.

[RedDead]

Nah you see, the first Alien movie is entirely horror, you only see the alien right before it kills someone until the end really, Aliens(alien 2) is an Action film full on.

[zackacloud]

I felt that COD:MW2 scary than RE:5

My last horror game was Silent Hill 4 : The Room

[Shogun Master]

Don't forget about Dead Space 2 in a week. pretty effin scary.

[RevXM]

Yeah thats a good question.

Theres only a very few out there(released between 2006-now)
and there is a lot of sub or action oriented Horror games such as Dead space, Alan wake (More thriller but shit!)

Need more freaky mindboggling games.
I watched The fourth Kind... yes something like that would be great.
and even Paranormal activity.

Also I wish someone made a ultra scary AVP or Aliens: Colonial marines game (Im hoping Gearbox nails it).
AVP 2 scared the shit out of me back then. (I was 11 or something)
Is the new AVP any good?

[TheMutator]

they are in Dead Space

[stragomccloud]

Most of the horror games come to Wii now because it's a niche genre whose sales could never cover the cost being developed for an HD console that costs 5 times more to develop for.

Resident Evil 4
Fatal Frame 4
Fatal Frame 2 remake
The Calling
Night of the Sacrifice
Cursed Mountain
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

[Gamescares]

Good to see so many of you actively wanting more scary games, so there is a market, devs need to make us some more scary games ffs!

[stragomccloud]

Hopefully the new PS3/360 Silent Hill game will be good~