Derided on accusations of being derivative, unoriginal and gratuitously violent; the horror genre often receives short shrift within the gaming community. Despite this the genre has somehow persisted in one form or another for decades now. Its longevity and, perhaps more importantly, its seemingly limitless commercial success has aided its attempt to claw its way from out the darkness of fringe gaming and into the glaring lights of the mainstream.
Originally a way for deviant programmers to fill games with crude red pixels and poorly simulated gore the horror genre quickly moved into a vein of heavily atmospheric and dark survival game play. The success of seminal 1996 release Resident Evil twisted the genre in a new, more subtle direction: players became more vulnerable, immersed in a world of tension. The games departed from balls-out action; lowered the ammunition count and emphasized restraint and evasion over the traditional values of head shots and beat downs. Worlds became more sinister as the games replaced the unsatisfying and often comical B movie-esque bloodshed and began to create a real, tangible sense of fear. In short they became ‘proper’ horror, with all its disturbing trimmings
Can you remember the infamous opening sequence of 1999’s Silent Hill: the unparalleled anxiety of the run into town, the sombre and edgy tone? It set the bar for horror games and proved that there could be an artistic element to violence. Games no longer tried to glue you to your seat with an unending stream of splatter-gore but instead could rely on a player’s emotional investment. When exploring the dilapidated town it could be scarier to turn onto an empty street than push into a horde of zombies. Lest we forget the creeping static of the character’s radio to alert us to the presence of some unholy enemy.
Unfortunately by the early Noughties accusations of formulaic games inevitably began to dog the genre, unsurprising really as any casual gamer would have trouble telling their Alone in the Dark from their Silent Hill. After shunning excessive action the games became mired in puzzle-solving. Ironically, in a bid to keep the genre moving forward, the fear factor, once a game’s top priority, gave way to intricate riddles and cumbersome conundrums. Games became slow and turgid affairs that were likely to bore than terrify. Anyone who spent the best part 3 hours hoofing it up and down the empty corridors of Resident Evil: Code Veronica to find the code for some bizarre music box, the whole time devoid of any interaction, would be inclined to agree that the genre had somewhat lost its way.
However, like any lucrative market, when people stopped playing something had to be done. With the step up to a new generation of consoles developers looked to the heyday of survival horror: immersive atmosphere became an essential component of any game. Xbox 360 classic Condemned: Criminal Origins was released at the dawn of this current generation and borrowed heavily from the original Silent Hill games leading the gamer back towards a murkier and more disturbing psychological horror. The game featured an ambience so dark and distressing that the simple flash of shadow or unexplained scrape could send the player into fits of panic. Realism and gritty violence played a central role in the story of a single police officer on the trail of serial killer. A new importance was placed on reflexes and when it’s mixed with the slow movements of the protagonist it becomes a somewhat potent force. It also plugged into the fashion of CSI, allowing players to investigate the beautifully crafted and gloriously degenerate crime scenes. Raw scenes of hand to hand combat may elicit charges of gratuitous violence but the violence is used sparingly to great effect, as a climax to the teeth grinding tension.
Unsurprising the unique selling points of the games have managed to bleed through the genre gaps and what was once the domain of purely horror has crept into action, adventure and even RPG games. Bioshock, Left 4 Dead and Fallout 3 all trade on the immersion, the vulnerability and tension of horror. Long awaited release Alan Wake is the next step in horror gaming, moving from the simple, linear level structure to a more sandbox-style world (though not to the extent of GTA or Prototype). Revolution has become second nature to the genre; the only thing we can now expect is the unexpected.