The Survival Horror Genre is a Mess

Xerosch

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Xsjadoblayde said:
What of the contributions from Bloodborne and, to a lesser extent, Dark Souls? Although they do not market themselves as survival horror, they play out as a horrific fight for survival. Bloodborne is highly concentrated in its' dark themes also.
Actually, your example surprised me and makes a lot of sense. The games I would classify as Survival Horror always held the tension of being screwed if you're not careful. Though the horror themes are undeniable in 'Dead Space' I didn't feel the kind of challenging stress I get when playing 'Dark Souls' or 'Bloodborne'. I also got this feeling in the 'Fatal Frame/Project Zero' and 'Siren' games.

All of those work more on a psychological level with the consequences of the respective stories slowly creeping up on you (just check out Fatal Frame 2's endings...). For me, this works much better than jump scares and dramatic escape scenes.
 

CaptainMarvelous

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ThinRedLine said:
Xsjadoblayde said:
What of the contributions from Bloodborne and, to a lesser extent, Dark Souls? Although they do not market themselves as survival horror, they play out as a horrific fight for survival. Bloodborne is highly concentrated in its' dark themes also.
Souls games are nothing more than action games with a focus on sudden deaths and keeping an eye on your stamina. They're mostly great, of course, but the whole "Souls games are difficult" is as much an oxymoron as it is that they're in any way horror. My opinion, of course, not objective truth.
Counterpoint! There are definite overtures of Horror in the Souls games, and by the nature of the beast it's survival horror.

Consider the first area, hordes of hollowed husks most of whom don't even attack you at first, all leading to the first bonfire and the first boss. Yeah Asylum Demon is easy but having a 20 foot tall demon suddenly drop on you? The best way to handle that fight (for a new player) is to just make a beeline for the escape route. Then you have stuff like the Catacombs, completely dark area, dangerous to walk around let alone fight in and oh look! Enormous skeleton out of nowhere! Or Seath's library where he works out how the darksign works and locks you in a cell you "can't" escape from, only to then discover weeping blue snake creatures who are prooooobably remains of people.

I mean, fuck, BLIGHTTOWN.

There is an action element to the game and that is how you handle things, but the enemies are meant to inspire fear in some degree, and it isn't the lazy 'ooh spooky eyes and pale skin' type it's 'shit, that thing is 20 feet tall and running at me' or 'oh it's a cute snake head and OH GOD NO, ARE THOSE RIBS OR TEETH!?'. Add into this weapon degradation and the fact you AREN'T the special chosen hero (just about everything is as good at killing you as you are at killing it) and it really does earn that survival horror status.

Plus, Bloodborne is a genuinely transhuman horror show with people turning into Lovecraftian horrors.
 

Bocaj2000

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Wouldn't the solution be to, like you said, have video game genre be set up like this: [how it feels], [how it plays]. Then get into subgenres through a second complication? It's very messy, but it's more accurate. Like how CoD is a 'thriller, FPS' or 'popcorn thriller, military fps'. It's super descriptive and you know exactly what you're getting.
 

Vladimir Eremeyev

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I think the main problem is that we can't all be universally scary of something in particular. I mean, of course there's such things like fear of death but this isn't something that you can easily simulate.
Some people aren't afraid of the dark, so one major theme instantly drops out. See what I mean?
To further prove my point, let's pick a recent 'horror' game - Evil Within. To me, it isn't scary, it's a fun run'n'gun shooter with annoying moments that supposed to scare you. To others it's genuinely creepy and scary.

Another problem within the genre is that it became too reliant on jumpscares. It can startle, but that's all there's to it. Being surprised or startled isn't scary nor is it too hard to achieve. Creating an atmosphere of fear and terror is a very difficult task that very few can achieve. Making it believable is even harder.
Take Outlast for example. Sure, it can be scary at times. But more often than not it's annoying. Annoying because you can't defend yourself even if it's perfectly reasonable for you to be able to. The game itself shows that main character (in cutscenes) can dispatch of his pursuers, that they are not invincible (except one but that's spoilers). This ruins the immersion completely making it extremely annoying.

Well, I am aware that it's very difficult to create a good balance between action and horror and easy way is to take away means to protect yourself. But it's not working if there's no good reason behind that decision other than easy way out for game designers. In many cases that option breaks away the horror, i.e. Dead Space. Once you get your weapon you get completely numb to all attempts of the game at being scary. You dispatch zombies by the dozens and your backpack is full of medkits, ammo and shit. Why am I should be afraid? There are many of them but a little caution and they will not be able to even get close, let alone hit me.
There's another way of dealing with this as shown in Alien: Isolation and (surprise!) Resident Evil 4.
Alien manages this by giving you weapons but renders them useless - your enemy is invincible! Of course game doesn't tell you that so you can unload your shotgun to no avail, but that's the beauty of it! You are the victim in the slasher movie and villan (as he should be) shrugs off everything until the end. Yes this is a good way but also a little cheap.
That's where RE4 comes into play. Until you reach middle of the story game is pretty straightforward. You shoot them - they die. Some (Dr.Salvador) can take more punishment than others but that only means that you should shoot them more than usual. A little tense but nothing unusual. And then it hits the scene. THAT. ONE. MOB. Low-key creepy ambient music. You shoot him, blast his limbs off, but he keeps coming. Yes, he can be defeated but it's a little trick that needs to be uncovered first. And before that you're caught unguarded. That moment is genuinely scary, even if you have a grenade launcher.
And lastly, there's likes of System Shock, Silent Hill and Cry of Fear. They manage to be scary all the way through - even when you have a small arsenal of big guns.

So I'd say making a scary game is a very difficult business.
 

Qvar

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Aug 25, 2013
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The real problem is that this genre isn't actually a genre at all. It's three or four different genres all flying under the same flag. It's like if Call of Duty, Metroid, and Geometry Wars were all called "shooters" because they all involved shooting.
Well the problem is, for starters, trying to classify games with a single label. Those are shooters. But you should also say that one is a metroidvania shooter, first person shooter, top-down shooter, action shooter or whatever.

On the other hand, you are applying a composite label (survival horror) to a whole bunch of games that aren't necessarily both. Shelter or NEO scavenger are survival games. They aren't necessarily horror games. Dead Space is a horror game, but it isn't necessarily a survival game (and before you say "but things try to kill you!", yeah, like in any other shooter, ever). A survival game is that where you have to conduct actions to avoid nature killing you. Sleep, eat, stitch wounds, etc. None of those is present in Dead Space or Resident Evil. Hence they are horror shooters, not survival horror.

Xsjadoblayde said:
What of the contributions from Bloodborne and, to a lesser extent, Dark Souls? Although they do not market themselves as survival horror, they play out as a horrific fight for survival. Bloodborne is highly concentrated in its' dark themes also.
They have horror elements, but horrfying you isn't a main gameplay consideration. I would call them "grim" or "dark fantasy".

DementedSheep said:
I agree with this, for some reason people call every horror game survival horror when the name implies a survival game rooted in horror. I don't think horror is really a game genre on it's own any more than fantasy is. Horror just describes the tone. It's a survival horror, puzzle horror, action horror ect.
Exactly. You can have survival games that aren't horror (or not mainly at least), and you can have horror games that aren't about survival. So many people have trouble understanding that not everything where you try to survive falls into the survival genre...
 

ThinRedLine

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Shamus Young said:
You make good points, thanks for the reply.

I disagree about the clickbait title, but thanks for the info that it was yourself this time, not your editor.