A Timeline of the Horror Game Genre
Some People love adrenalin rushes, and for someone like me and many more, Horror games are the perfect ways to get these adrenalin rushes: excitement,dread,tension,fear and panic all in the same moment truly need to be experienced as they can’t be described in words. The journey of this genre, from Alone in the dark to Resident evil village, is a journey with many ups and downs, Excitement and disappointed, and for many, some of these titles hold a special place in our hearts.
The BEGINNING:
1992, Alone in the Dark releases, Devs may not have known it but they had just released the first proper horror game and began a new era of video games. It was a decent title with jumpscares and scary moments that always kept you on edge, did surprisingly well but the game Capcom made a few years down the road truly was the reason it all began
In the mid 90’s,the game that kickstarted the horror game craze and that took everyone by surprise-Resident Evil, it was the start of something truly new. Resident Evil was the first of its kind, narrow paths, scary jump scares and the tension-Ohhh, the tension. And what do you know People loved it, so much so that Capcom released a sequel RE2 and it even followed a long line of good and terrible films. During this time after seeing the success that Capcom had with its first Resident evil, other game devs began to catch on and some truly memorable games in the horror genre were also released during this time.
Other memorable titles such as Dino crises and System shock 2 were also contributing to the gaming industries success day by day as consoles released and standalone titles such as Resident evil also released side by side to promote the consoles.Geniune horror games with the intent to scare you; No chasing the bag, no consumerism just pure intent of the developers wanting to share their passion and scare other people. But the downfall came as quickly as the peak of these great franchises.
The rise and fall:
The 90’s and the early 2000’s are also often considered as the peak of horror games, so many great games were released. Just to mention of one of these classics we have Silent Hill 1 and 2.One of my personal favourites.These games was terrifying, the second one got to a point where you always dreaded turning a corner. Iconic enemies, the eerie silence and the impenetrable fog in an abandoned town just made these games the peak of the genre. Some classics released during this time were F.E.A.R,Fatal frame 2,Doom 3 and many more.
The emergence of Resident Evil 3 saw the start of something new, it was the first time that the Resident evil game saw more heavy reliance on weapons and shooting as compared to sticking with its classical horror cliché, nonetheless the game was taken in a positive light as it was still pretty scary. The emergence of a new game in 2004 saw a big change in the horror market: COD 4.The release of COD 4 impacted many classic games including Resident Evil: The next installment in the series completely shifted towards the shooter aspect and ditched its identity completely. But it was a good game and perceived positively however RE5 AND RE6 were terrible games who had no identity from the start.RE6 marked the end of a great franchise until its comeback in 2017 but back on that later. The only game that did it’s COD effect and still had a great horror aspect and is considered as one of the best today is Bioshock.
Remember, at this point in time late 2000’s, most of this industry is dead or has been killed by its latest release. Silent hill downpour was a dumpsterfire, Resident evil 5 and 6 one of the worst games ever made and many more. The only good horror game to play at this time was Bioshock and it was not even classified as a horror game, still bioshock is one of the best games made to date as it introduced a truly unique idea of Horror underwater, not done before as done by Bioshock. Bioshock did what game devs had been trying to do since COD 4 released, horror with a unparalleled fps touch. Amnesia was the last of a kind, one of the greatest horror games ever made released in a time where the franchises were dying or extinguished, it still remains as one of the best horror games ever made. It had all the classic elements of unease, tension and panic whilst maintaining the newer elements such as its fast pace gameplay.
Another gem released during this time was Dead Space, it was a new idea, one we hadn’t seen since System Shock 2, horror and space. It was an instant classic, still regarded as the top 3 scariest games ever released and Dead Space 2 being my personal favorite horror game of all time. But again, the repetitive nature of gameplay stops becoming scary after a while and Dead Space 3 completely killed the franchise, becoming a full-on co-op shooter. Dead space was the last great horror game in a collapsing game genre.
TO HOPE OR NOT TO HOPE:
Once a video game was responsible for the revival of an entire category of entertainment (zombie), Resident Evil and bringing 3rd person shooters into the limelight. Horror games were starting to be considered as dogwater titles, with no effort and passion put into their projects. However, there is always light at the end of the tunnel and recent video games such as Outlast 1 and 2, Alien Isolation, FNAF, Little Nightmares are bringing this genre into a new light of survival horror.
However, in 2017,a dead franchise went back to it’s roots for reviving the industry and it developed one of the most terrifying games ever made:Capcom,produced Resident evil 7,Instant classic. Resident Evil 7 along with a few previous titles started the revival journey of this long gone genre and hopefully, with Capcom releasing RE8 there is a lot of hope to expect this genre to come to back to its once former glory.
