Intense horror awaits you. Another year, another fear. Tip or treatment? Pumpkins with drawn faces, ghosts in the corners of places, bats that come out of the roof or the darkest and most mysterious places … October 31, the night of Halloween and tens of thousands of businesses and locals wear their best clothes so we can have a good time.
And although there are still people who oppose this celebration for religious reasons, it is a fact that today Halloween is an unstoppable phenomenon all over the world. And this is for many reasons, from a way of celebrating life and accepting reality, to losing the fear of death and to dealing with our internal ghosts and demons. Likewise, we live in a society that takes every opportunity to gain economic benefits, so it is an opportunity for big companies, TV channels and different theme parks all over the world to earn money. money through the sale of candy, chocolate, costumes and other related items.
Now, if dressing up and partying to ask for candy isn’t your thing, how about a horror video game night?
Terror in all its forms and manifestations
Terror can take many forms, and for this very reason, it is something that has existed since time immemorial, being a fundamental part of human nature. This emotion, which accompanies us since we are little and which has, for example, a fear of the dark, also extends perfectly into adulthood, when we have to face the challenges that lie ahead. Because fear of the unknown is a universal and intrinsic feeling, a fundamental fear, because we do not know what will happen or how. And while there are those who do better, approach and consider possible resolutions, other people have a harder time going through it and become emotionally stuck.
It is by these means that various subgenres have emerged over the decades, that is to say, narrative structures which have their conventions and their operating laws. Among other things, zombie video games can be considered a special type of work in which a group of people are immune to an evil that affects most of the population and turns them into zombies or other similar creatures.
Any proposal that seeks to achieve could also be categorized as belonging to the horror genre. an agitation effect on the player, beyond the elements used to achieve it. This means, a priori, that it doesn’t matter if monsters, ghosts or any other supernatural element appear in the story. What really matters is to encourage, through the creation of scenes of marked filiation, the sufferings experienced by the characters and the naturally gloomy atmospheres. And if the effect stays in the head and spreads even after leaving the controls, it will have fulfilled its mission.
The impact of terror on video games
From rudimentary and pixelated proposals to very sophisticated concepts, the horror genre, also called survival horror, has always been able to demonstrate its enormous versatility by evolving in different ways. It’s like a mutation a directional force of change in gene frequencies and whose importance lies in the fact that it is the ultimate source of the genetic variability which makes evolution possible. Because by mutation, certain genetic elements are transformed into similar elements with alternate functions.
After all, video games are already an evolution of conventional gaming; a product of the convergence of fun and technology. This supposes, on the one hand, that they continue to be configured as the preferred space for symbolic production and, on the other hand, that as a technological interface, it modifies and transforms our sensory system.
Of course, terror is part of that metamorphosis, which begins in the ’70s with the arrival of the first home video game console, Magnavox Odyssey, and its catalog was lucky enough to have Haunted House. We are talking about an unconventional experience, even by today’s standards and that far from betting on a solo development, it has focused on the cooperative. All this through a layer of plastic attached to a television of the time and two flashing lights that represented the roles of a detective and that of a ghost. Said like that, it doesn’t sound very scary, but define directions for future generations.
Scary stories to tell in the dark
Anyway, anyone who is asked about a horror game will immediately respond with Resident Evil, Silent Hill or Alone in the Dark, three sagas that have marked, without a doubt, a before and after in the history of video games
A path sponsored retrospectively by titles such as Project Zero II: Crimson Butterfly, a work that embraces rituals, sacrifices, and offerings in constant hell through crimson torment; the insults of a rough sea of Cold Fear, an experience that plunged us into a sea full of old-fashioned horrors; or Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, a crazy one-way ticket. There are too many examples to believe otherwise, that terror was far from a dead end.
Unfortunately, when the time comes, every company worth its salt ends up being a slave to its own insecurities, and so some development studios have not shied away from embrace the most excessive action at the expense of fear of the unknown
But those who marked a turning point, those who succeeded in bringing back the splendor that terror had in its day, were the independent studios. Inspired by the work of HP Lovecraft, Amnesia: The Dark Descent not only breathed new life into the survival horror genre, it also changed how to consume horror games. Which brings us to the present, with hundreds of imitators still using the same formula and thousands of videos on YouTube with people screaming like life depends on it.
Nostalgia for the past in new games
More than ten years after its release, the work developed by the folks at Frictional Games is still terrifying. But sometimes it is still necessary to look back to learn and find out more. Borrowing and rearranging ideas is a central part of how any self-respecting form of entertainment works, and video games are no exception. Therefore, assert the opposite it is to deny a tradition of resonant, fruitful and revealing intertextuality. In the end, playing works like Song of Horror or Tormented Souls is like replaying the songs that accompanied us during our childhood.
They cannot overcome this fear which receives the name of innovation, but they do their homework well in the case of reminding us the satisfaction that awkward silence gives us, as well as helplessness in the face of a force greater than our own. Ultimately, maybe this is the kind of fear we’re looking for.
The future of horror video games
However, if we look to the future we see that there are signs that suggest a struggle to balance terror, experiencing the limits we can endure in different directions. In other words, a balance between what’s playable and what’s too disgusting. Now, sometimes experimentation causes different indie developers to take the player out of their comfort zone.
Take Visage’s twisted and sultry style, for example, which literally makes you lose your mind. Our character and we, the players, are exposed to situations that test our psychic stability, plunging us into an indefinite madness. It is a work that uses his deep insight, from suffocating misery to exhaustion, and which stands up to any gruesome vision or tense situation that can be shown, that there is. Instead, it shows us the true face of fear in a ruthless and heartbreaking way.
It is one of many faces worth exploring and in many cases can transcend time. Because far from wanting to belittle Jumping As the engine of horror, the truth is that the genre that concerns us must also consider other possibilities in the functioning of the system. The one who forgets instant fear to make us live an experience which, like the madness of which we are victims, advances slowly, but when it reaches its climax, do it in a brutal, sadistic and twisted and uncomfortable way. Only in this way will we make our minds collapse until we succumb to a great avalanche of pain and horror.
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