Summary
Many people credit the firstResident Evilback in 1996 for birthingthe survival horror genre, and since then, it has become one of the most popular and celebrated genres in the entire industry. While these games have adapted and evolved with the times, many of them still carry traditions and trends that were first established back in the 90s, but which ultimately have helped to define the genre and its core gameplay loop.
Whether these games are set in a rural village, a haunted mansion, or even a mining rig in outer space, they will always include these specific gameplay mechanics and systems to keep the players on their toes throughout the nightmarish adventure. It’s time to stock up on ammo and First Aid Spray as we dive deep into the traditions that have made the survival horror genre what it is today.
8Limited Supplies
Giving Players Just Enough Resources To Scrape By Amps Up The Intensity
It’s difficult to make a player feel scared when they’re being handed more ammo than they know what to do with. As a result, it’s become a core tradition of survival horror games that resources are always kept to a minimum, encouraging players to explore every inch of a room to snoop out any extra bullets or resources to help them see it through to the next area in one piece.
Very often,the difficulty settingsin these games will determine how generously ammo and health will be provided to the player, meaning those wanting the biggest challenge will usually find themselves running around with no more than two or three bullets at a time. It’s a trend that always succeeds in making players feel like they’re severely under-prepared for what’s around the next corner, making the core gameplay loop extremely tense in the process.
7Safe Rooms
Rooms That Give Players A Moment To Breath During The Horrific Adventure
Thankfully, most survival horror games will allow players to take a small break during a playthrough thanks to the inclusion of Safe Rooms. Just as the name implies, these are areas where players cannot be attacked by enemies, allowing them to organize their inventory and plan their next move without being hounded by monsters. Safe Rooms would first appear inResident Evil, where multiple of them were dotted aroundthe Spencer Mansion, but they would be replicated in almost every survival horror game going forward.
Sometimes these areas won’t even be rooms at all, such as with the firstAlan Wakegame where they instead take the form of streetlights that will keep Alan protected from enemies corrupted by darkness. They have become so commonplace that not including these rooms is usually seen as a harsh move from the developers, since they are the only time players get a chance to catch a breath.
6Creepy Audio Design
Survival Horror Games Have Some Of The Best Audio Design In The Industry
While audio design is obviously a big part of the development process for any game, it always needs to be a top priority for survival horror games, considering players will be spending most of the experience wandering around without any music. Therefore, even the smallest bump or creek can creep the player out, while also adding to thesinister ambianceof the overall experience.
Silent Hill 2set the bar very high when it came to audio design, with the game using a mixture of weird and grotesque noises to terrify players, even when there are no enemies in sight. Other franchises that make very good use of their audio includeFatal Frame,System Shock, andDead Space; especially the remake, where players can hear Necromorphs crawling through the vents while they hunt down Isaac.
5Stalker Enemies
The Stalker Enemy Types Has Become Synonymous With The Survival Horror Genre
A stalker enemysimply wouldn’t work in action games or fast-paced FPS shooters. However, these terrifying creatures fit perfectly into the survival horror template, considering players are always vulnerable and nowhere near prepared enough to take down someone twice their size. For an enemy to be considered a stalker, they need to be programmed to patrol parts of the environment to make it harder for the player to move around, and they also must be invincible, forcing players to use stealth to navigate their way around them.
While some survival horror games are based around their stalker enemy, such asAlien IsolationandHaunting Ground, others likeDead SpaceandEvil Withinonly include them for certain scripted segments of a playthrough. Either way, they have become a very common sight in these types of games, and always manage to ramp up the tension tremendously whenever they show up.
4Puzzles
A Quick Puzzle Can Help Bring Diversity To The Core Gameplay Loop
Puzzles have become fairly rare in modern games today, considering they can end up slowing down the pace of the gameplay. However, they are still very common in survival horror games and are well suited to the slow and methodical gameplay that the genre is known for. Puzzles also add some nice diversity to the experience so that players never feel bored or uninterested in the gameplay loop.
It goes without saying, but puzzles can range from small and easy riddles to long and complex head-scratchers that will require players to obtain several items and keys just to progress.Silent Hill 2would become renowned for itsgrueling puzzles, so much so that most survival horror games since have ensured to make them more manageable, but still enough of a test to get the player thinking.
3Save Points
There’s No Greater Feeling Than Stumbling Across A Save Point After A Long And Grueling Adventure
Even when auto-saves started becoming commonplace in video games, survival horror games continued to include dedicated save points, and have long been a staple of the genre.Resident Evilwould kick off this trend with the typewriters, which would only be usable if players had an ink ribbon to record their progress. The purpose of havingsave pointsis to keep the player uneasy every time they leave a safe room, since there’s never any telling where the next point will be, and whether they will be able to reach it in their current state.
They usually show up within safe rooms so that players can register their progress without having enemies breathing down their necks, but this isn’t always a guarantee. If players go for a save inAlien IsolationorDead Space, for example, there’s still always a chance an enemy will tear them to shreds before they can even pull it off.
2Terrifying Enemy Designs
Mutants, Aliens, Zombies; Survival Horror Games Have Conjured Up All Sorts Of Horrifying Freaks
Survival horror games contain some of the most grotesque and spine-chilling character designs in all of gaming. Whether it’s the multi-limbed space aliens, obsessive trolls, giant mutants, or even humans corrupted by darkness, developers are free to let their imaginations run wild when cooking up the enemy roster for a brand-new horror game.
Outside of theF.E.A.Rfranchise, it’s extremely rare for players to ever go up against regular human beings in a survival horror title since it’s much more frightening to include enemies who look much more outlandish and freaky. Very often, these games will also go all-out with their boss enemy designs, with the likes of Laura fromThe Evil Withinand theAbstract DaddyfromSilent Hill 2being some of the scariest bosses out there.
1Vulnerable Protagonists
Protagonists Must Always Feel Like A Helpless Fish Out Of Water For A Game To Feel Scary
Sure, characters like Leon and Isaac may know their way around using a gun, but every protagonist that appears in a survival horror game still needs to feel like a vulnerable fish out of water, and must always feel like they’re on the back foot. Sometimes, this will mean the character literally cannot fight back, such as with Alyssa fromClock Tower 3and Miles fromOutlast,or it’s just that they are completely unaware of the monstrosities that await them around the next corner.
This also means the protagonist will usually take a lot of damage when being attacked by enemies, to ensure players never feel fully safe when making their way througheach new area. Forcing players to be so vulnerable is a big part of what makes survival horror games so scary, while also feeding into the dark and chilling tone of the experience as a whole.
