Is Survival Horror Dead?

#1
AAA Game franchises like dead space, resident evil, and silent hill used to be scary, but the devs decided to screw logic and make them focused on killing things instead of running from them, now the only scary games these days mostly come from indie developers and modders.

This video below is not mine but it should give you a full explanation on why i think survival horror games are dead (if you're too dumb to understand what i said above).

[youtube]TxDROzvn5aw[/youtube]

So do you think survival horror dead?

Re: Is Survival Horror Dead?

#3
I would say that there are little games that can be considered true survival horror.
Most memorable horror games (resident evil, alone in the dark, silent hill, etc) are old games which aren't been done now as much. I don't count Amnesia, because that thing simply broke boundaries and made a new sub-genre of horror, the defenceless-survival (yeah, I just made the name up), and is pretty much an unique case.
The problem I see is that most horror games now are just survival ACTION, which means that instead of scare scare, its shoot shoot. You know, Dead Space 3 (a.k.a. Ammo out the ass), Resident Evil 5 and 6, Alone in The Dark Inferno (I actually found this game to have good concepts, they should have actually fixed the horrible bugs, made driving actually work, and fixed the sensibility of the gun, but sadly the game was horrible because of this).

I don't think it is dead, we are seeing game like Amnesia, The Walking Dead (no, shut up, that thing was scary is a psycological way), and more, but like you mentioned, it is mostly Indie games. I just think that this genre is going through a hard time, but I'm sure that in the future, we will see changes.
-Resident Bacon Fanatic-

Re: Is Survival Horror Dead?

#4
Spartan said it best. Survival horror isn't dead, it simply isn't done properly most of the time. From what I can tell, this is the fault of the large masses of gamers who prefer fun action-packed games with super-powered protagonists and superficial jump scares, rather then slow-paced horror stories with weaponless protagonists.

(This is kinda off-topic, but am I the only one who thinks that the original Silent Hill games aren't scary at all? They were creepy and had good atmosphere, but I don't understand how they actually scared people. Pyramid Head apparently terrifies a lot of SH fans, but I think he's just goofy...)
Last edited by 106phobia on Tue May 14, 2013 2:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Re: Is Survival Horror Dead?

#5
I'm the same with the old Resident Evil's 106phobia. The only time I was ever shocked by them was through my second playthrough of Resident Evil 3. Because I somehow didn't die throughout the first playthrough (it was even my first time with the old control system, its not even that bad) I didn't realise that some enemies vary in locations. So I reached Raccoon city park and got to a segment I remembered had Cerberus off screen to the south west. I didn't expect a freakin Hunter Beta to leap on screen and behead me out of nowhere.

I haven't played REmake yet though, which seems to be the best Resi there is, but I don't have space for a GameCube.

But yeah, we really need a developer that will actually man up and make a proper Horror game for once instead of milking their current franchises.
Local Forum Amateur and Galactic God Entity: Current mistakes:3
"If you collect them, something good might happen!" - About half of the Road Trip Adventure NPC's

Re: Is Survival Horror Dead?

#6
Horror almost is dead. I agree that Nazi-Zombies is a jump-scare conduit, but not even worth of being on the top 1000.
It's not scary, but after you play something and are supper jittery, try playing it. Every time something comes
along that can hurt you, you freak out. You have to be super-jittery already though, it just breaks the tension.
Image

Re: Is Survival Horror Dead?

#9
^ Yeah. It looks very much like a shock horror experience. It's not my most favorite type of horror, but it still shows promise.

Looking at the fourth posted image, it looks like there might be some stealth in this game. I hope that's the case. Nothing more tense than having to sneak around a monster, desperately hoping not to get caught.