I had a moment of nostalgia thinking of a bunch of games that I really enjoyed playing for the last generation of consoles (Xbox and Xbox 360). After browsing new and upcoming games for Xbox one for the past couple of years, I’m becoming disappointed that this particular genre of video games might be officially dead.
I’m referring to genre which not only consists of obvious horror games, but also games with have that uneasy creepy type of feeling to them.
Here are some examples of games from the genre that I am referring to:
Silent hill
Bio-shock
Max Payne
Condemned Criminal Origins
Metro 2033
Fear
Portal
Alan Wake
Dead Space
They all somewhat share the creepy/uneasy/survival element.
This genre seemed to have died out around 2012.
It looks bleak right now with no hope in sight.
What do other people think about this?
Are there any suggestions for new similar games which I have overlooked?
Or am I correct this genre is dead?
It’s also interesting to note that some of these games were re-mastered and even ported over to Xbox one. So there definitely is a market for them.
You should also check out various “best horror games of year XXXX” lists. I keep seeing mentiosn of “Soma” this year, along with “Layers of Fear”. Not sure how good is either of those.
Ok, thanks for the suggestions.
Alien: Isolation looks good
Never been a fan of Resident Evil
Layers of Fear and Soma look good is not available for Xbox one. Might have to resort to PC version.
If this is the trend that these types of games are only released for PS4, I might just look into getting a PS4 too.
I played a few hours of it (didn’t finish it yet), and it doesn’t pull me in like Amnesia did. I’ll give it another chance some day but I’d suggest to approach it with lowered expectations. Or maybe the “theme” just isn’t my thing. It is somewhat new and interesting, but I think I might just prefer the tried and tested formula of “violence and insanity” in my horror games. Outlast left a pretty scary impression on me, didn’t finish it either though.
The Last Of Us (ps3 only) is top notch, one of the best games I’ve ever played, imho.
Dying Light was ok. Zombi looks really dated and had some horrible bugs and some crazy difficulty spikes, but otherwise it was an ok zombie survival game. Deadspace 1 + 2 were good. Condemned 2 had its flaws but also some good aspects (console only). Those last few games I all played to the end.
I didn’t play Layers of Fear but a friend recommended it to me.
Does Singularity qualify? I liked it.
I didn’t check it out at all, because it doesn’t look like the same as Silent Hill.
It is less about scares for me and more about surreal/bizzare/insane atmosphere. I enjoy otherwordly settings, and that’s not a direction of Amnesia’s studio.
Probably not. IT was quite ridiculous when I tried to play it, story-wise. I think “You are empty” had a nicer take on that kind of setting (despite one occurrence of abysmal voice acting).
There was also Call of Cthulhu, which was quite great, but it should be fairly old by now.
Thought I read somewhere recently that FEAR will be getting a new sequel. I hope so, I loved the series, even though I don’t really like “horror” games. I’d love it if they went back to the original old-school-FPS style of gameplay.
The Penumbra series have a Silent Hill-esque feel to them. Also check out the Steam curators page Rely on Horror for horror game reviews.
Penumbra: Necrologue is a free “total conversion” mod available on Steam if you own Amnesia: The Dark Descent.
Speaking of the Silent Hill series, supposedly the 2nd one was rated the scariest. But when I played the third one I got constant goosebumps. That Gothic horror atmosphere.
More psychological horror than survival but Layers of Fear was really good. Dying Light has a lot of survival elements and it can be scary at times (haven’t finished it yet, but what I played was fun). If you can like low-budget indie titles, Master Reboot is a good one. Outlast looks like something you’d like, though I haven’t started it yet. And Resident Evil Revelations, of course, as RE basically started survival horror and this is a return to the original formula.
The important part of silenthill was Otherworld (when reality itself wraps into something twisted), which is as far as I remember, completely absent from penumbra. I think I played dark descent long time ago. It was more or less getting scared of shadows and playing in a more or less real setting with few monsters/mysteries in it. Not the same grade of material.
Clive Barker’s Jericho had the right kind of atmosphere, but it was not a survival horror.