The marker of downfall of horror to me was Amnesia. Now too many horror games are about hiding in a closet or under a bed as a spooky monster shambles outside. It kills the pace and kills atmosphere. Alien Isolation was the only game in that style I’ve enjoyed because of how reactive the monster is.
Silent Hill 2 is still a high point of horror gaming that’s never quite been matched. RE7 was kinda cool though, I dug it. Reminded me of my Louisiana family in some weird coincidental ways.
When it came out Amnesia was a breath of fresh air (even though it was largely just an evolution of Frictional’s previous Penumbra series) simply by actually focusing on horror. In 2011 we were one year away from RE6, Silent Hill was in the toilet and Dead Space 2 had just come out, which while a great game, leaned even more on action than the first Dead Space.
While I enjoyed Amnesia and to a lesser extent the first Outlast, I definitely did not like how horror in video games basically became synonymous with first person games about jump scares and hiding in closets from unkillable monsters. The thing is though, at the time Amnesia came out horror games had been mostly boiled down to shooters with gloopy monsters and flickering lights.
Also, you can really tell the first Evil Within came out during the height of the Amnesia trend. It’s mostly a RE4 clone (from the same director) but the beginning of the game has some really clunky and annoying closet-hiding sequences awkwardly jammed in
If you liked Silent Hill 2 I would recommend the game Signalis that came out last year, if you haven’t played it. It’s very Silent Hill inspired and has great atmosphere
Edit: Nevermind lol I just scrolled down and saw you talking about it already
The marker of downfall of horror to me was Amnesia. Now too many horror games are about hiding in a closet or under a bed as a spooky monster shambles outside. It kills the pace and kills atmosphere. Alien Isolation was the only game in that style I’ve enjoyed because of how reactive the monster is.
Silent Hill 2 is still a high point of horror gaming that’s never quite been matched. RE7 was kinda cool though, I dug it. Reminded me of my Louisiana family in some weird coincidental ways.
When it came out Amnesia was a breath of fresh air (even though it was largely just an evolution of Frictional’s previous Penumbra series) simply by actually focusing on horror. In 2011 we were one year away from RE6, Silent Hill was in the toilet and Dead Space 2 had just come out, which while a great game, leaned even more on action than the first Dead Space.
While I enjoyed Amnesia and to a lesser extent the first Outlast, I definitely did not like how horror in video games basically became synonymous with first person games about jump scares and hiding in closets from unkillable monsters. The thing is though, at the time Amnesia came out horror games had been mostly boiled down to shooters with gloopy monsters and flickering lights.
Also, you can really tell the first Evil Within came out during the height of the Amnesia trend. It’s mostly a RE4 clone (from the same director) but the beginning of the game has some really clunky and annoying closet-hiding sequences awkwardly jammed in
If you liked Silent Hill 2 I would recommend the game Signalis that came out last year, if you haven’t played it. It’s very Silent Hill inspired and has great atmosphere
Edit: Nevermind lol I just scrolled down and saw you talking about it already
Really lovely game. Devs knew exactly which buttons to push. Thanks for the recommendation though