THE STATE OF SURVIVAL HORROR


HORROR ON THE HORIZON


These are some of the biggest survival horror games coming to stores in the next few months


(Left to right) Creative Assembly’s Hope, Flying Mollusk’s Reynolds and Midnight City’s Lynch all believe that survival horror didn’t leave, but evolved


wood with a nail in it’ approach but there have been some really compelling new survival horror style experiences available in recent years.” But Erin Reynolds, creative director on forthcoming Kickstarter horror title Nevermind, says that this change is due to the move in who is playing games.


typically extremely difficult, highly punishing, and often take a long time to play through.”


PLAYING IT SAFE Not only this, Reynolds feels that action games are just a safer bet for publishers. Developing games isn’t cheap, so it makes sense for companies to ensure releases make a great deal of money. “Action games are simply a safe


commercial bet,” Reynolds says. “Triple-A titles need huge budgets. Given all that’s at stake, those games inherently become limited in terms of how much risk they can assume. Creating something that is guaranteed to be a commercial hit is a necessity.” But even though the genre has


“Much


of it is due to a shift in the mainstream


‘gaming’ audience,” she says. “More people are playing


games – different people and different games. ‘Gamer’ used to represent a more niche and more hardcore culture. It now represents a broad and diverse community. “The survival horror games of


the past seemed to align with the interests of the ‘old-school’ gamer community. As many of us know all too well, the survival horror games of the genre’s heyday are


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moved to be more action-centric, survival horror titles have been right in front of us this entire time. Elements from the genre existed in the likes of Tomb Raider. And earlier this year, Al Hope even told MCV that Minecraft was the most successful survival horror title of the last generation. “Survival horror never really


went away. Perhaps the genre just evolved,” Hope explains. “You can find some really amazing survival horror-like experiences in everything from Fallout and Skyrim to Amnesia, Minecraft and Limbo. Gone Home leaned into survival horror, too, but at the same time was forging its own path.“ Lynch adds: “There are plenty


of games that feature horror elements effectively, and some even use them to trick the audience. Take Gone Home for instance, which looks like


19


THE LAST OF US REMASTERED Released: August 1st Format: PS4 Publisher: Sony Developer: Naughty Dog Last year’s classic is being remade for the PS4, prettier and surely scarier than ever before.


THE EVIL WITHIN Released: October 24th Formats: PS4, XO, PS3, 360, PC Publisher: Bethesda Developer: Tango Gameworks Industry veteran Shinji Mikami makes a bold return to survival horror with this surreal title.


ALIEN ISOLATION Released: October 7th Formats: PS4, XO, PS3, 360, PC Publisher: Sega Developer: Creative Assembly Creative Assembly is here to remind us of a time when xenomorphs were actually terrifying.


DEAD ISLAND 2 Released: H1 2015 Formats: PS4, XO, PC Publisher: Deep Silver Developer: Yager Development Deep Silver’s action horror series is returning in the first half of next year.


DYING LIGHT Released: February 2015 Formats: PS4, XO, PS3, 360, PC Publisher: Warner Bros Developer: Techland Warner’s new IP mixes horror with parkour with enemies that become deadly at night.


a haunted house game on the surface but it’s so much more.”


TRIPLE-A HORROR So survival horror changed and lingered in the indepedent scene. But now there’s a number of ‘pure’ triple-A horror titles on the way (see Horror on the Horizon). There’s genre veteran and Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami’s The Evil Within as well as Creative Assembly’s terrifying take on the Alien franchise, to name just two. Whether the genre left the mainstream or not, this year there has definitely been a resurgence. But why now?


“It is the Alien game we’ve


always wanted to play,” Hope explains. “As to why now? Coincidence? Or maybe we’re collectively responding to the world around us. We live in uncertain times and perhaps survival horror taps into our fears.“ Lynch concludes: “As I’ve been saying, it never went away, it simply changed. Games look different, feel different and play different. Many want to play a game based on running away more than they want to manage bullets, spray themselves with green herb sprays and save their games on typewriters.”


July 11th 2014


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