Game Developers Don't Know How to Scare Us

[fractal_butterfly]

I still think, that you can make a game, that is scary, but where the protagonist isn't helpless. It really annoyed me in Outlast to the point, that I stopped playing (together with the bullshit story). If you give the protagonist some power, you have more leverage, since you can take that away from him.
Amnesia had a really great atmosphere, but I stopped being scared by the monsters *because* I was defenseless. You had to run and hide from the monsters, but you could anticipate them after a while. An open corridor had to be without monsters, since you had nowhere to hide. There could not be any monsters in this part, or the game would be unfair. Outlast had another problem (besides the protagonist being a whimp). Your only defense mechanism was hiding. Which was super boring.
Two other games, that had me really on the edge of my seat:
#1 the Thief games. You encounter several supernatural and deadly beings that you can not defeat, or at least only at a very high cost of resources. But you can sneak past them, which is the main difference to Outlast: you are active, therefore it is not boring.
#2 Dead Space 1. The part with the regenerator necromorph. You have a variety of weapons, which you can use to obliterate your enemies, but this fucker will just keep coming back. You *Spoiler Alert* get rid of him by freezing him and shipping him to another part of the Ishimura, only to get him delivered back to you later in the game. I almost lost hope in that scene. Even after I finally defeated him, I was not sure if he would not come back at some point. Or if there was a second one. It was a real trauma for me.
Oh and vents.

I think this trend of the helpless protagonist keeps the genre from evolving.

 

[grigjd3]

Amnesia felt more like a bad puzzle game to me than a scary game. I tried something, died, started over and tried something different, until I was able to move on to the next section. That isn't scary. That's Monkey Island and like every third NES game ever made.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I think their definition of scare is more along the lines of "jump scare". While I think that they are capable of a psychological thriller, I don't think the publishers will let them make it because they believe it won't sell.

 

[Dork Angel]

Games I found genuinely scary. Each one is scary in a slightly different way. 1) Alien Isolation - If it finds you it will kill you. Most of your weapons are useless and at best will only chase it off for a little while. 2) Last Of Us - not all of it, but the parts where you're creeping through the dark avoiding clickers is still really freaky. You don't feel as helpless as in Alien Isolation though. 3) Metro Last Light - Dark tunnels plus a very ineffective torch = scary. 3) Resident Evil 1 - Jump scares (dogs through the window) and good camera angles (walk into a room and the zombie shows in the mirror). 4) Dead Island - Mostly zombie fun but when you're in the quarantined part of the city and you can hear the infected coming but you're not sure where from. That bit was scary. 5) Space Hulk for the 3DO - Used the Alien motion tracker trick of beeping before it showed where the enemies were coming from. A little similar to Dead Island and the infected.

 

[Vigormortis]

I'll go a step further: Many of the developers currently doing horror, even those who are 'shining examples of the genre', still can't get it entirely right. And, among the myriad of reasons as to why, one reason in particular stands out: Audio design.

We assume creepy noises like growls, screams, groans, etc, make for frightening atmosphere. To a degree they do, but the one thing almost all horror writers (whether it be video games or film) have forgotten is how utterly terrifying silence is.

There's nothing more 'tension building' then walking into a dark and strange place, a place you're unfamiliar with, and hearing nothing. No groans. No growls. Just you, your breathing, and your foot falls. The lack of constant sounds sets your imagination into overdrive and you begin to imagine all sorts of horrible, terrible things awaiting you just around the next bend, all because you just don't know if there actually is a thing around that bend.

When you hear a growl, you know something's there. You can muster a vaguely familiar imagine in your head based on the sound you're hearing. Even if the image is scary, it's still something. You have a picture of what might be there, giving you some semblance of preparation for dealing with it. With silence though? You've nothing to go on. You don't know what, if anything, is waiting for you. Nor where it might be. As a result, the only way to prepare for the unseen and unheard is to remain on 'alert' at all times.

Done for excessive periods of time this can grow tiresome, but done with proper pacing it's one of the most effective forms of crafting a horror experience.

It's this sort of design philosophy that has me so excited for Routine. What little is known of the game thus far leads me to believe that the team behind the game appreciates the effect silence can have in building tension.

Spoiler

 

[Darkness665]

FEAR and its descendants were mostly boring to me. A failed promise from the very beginning. Dead Space used jump scare tactics, a little too much but it was effective personally. I still jumped and I played the silly thing three times.

I suspect where you, Shamus, are noticing is the publication of games. When games were what the entire business was about, specifically id Software and Doom, the games has cohesion. Now the AAA crowed needs several hundred artists just to draw the world. Having a solid voice to drive a game is muted when all the money is tied up with suits. A more soulless group that has infected our beloved gaming world.

Modern developers are more frightening of the suits than anything else. I doubt they have the energy to truly deliver a horror games in today's market. How does horror effect the ROI (Return On Investment) anyway?