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The Survival Horror Genre

For the broader genre, see; Survival Game for the game mode see Survival Mode

The Survival Horror Genre is a sub-genre in video games inspired and sometimes based on horror fiction which often tries to scare the players with ambiance or visually disturbing scenes, these games often focus around the survival of a main character that the player controls. The games often have elements of combat but not always full combat systems in place and instead have players rely on evading and outsmarting enemies.

Definition

DOOM (1993) an action-horror game focusing around killing large horror enemies in a horror-filled environment.  Survival horror is, by definition, a sub-genre of action-adventure games. The player usually starts in confinement or solitude, with a distinct lack of Non-Player Characters. The player character is almost always unarmed and defenseless as well as having a lack of knowledge about themselves or the area they are in such as amnesia, getting lost or waking up somewhere unknown to the character. Resource conservation is often brutal and unforgiving and has the character managing a very small number of weapons and ammo or often stamina to survive. Narrative is usually delivered by audio logs, journal entries/text and sometimes flashbacks creating a deep sense of the player feeling alone.

Many horror games such as DOOM (1993) feature the player, alone, taking on swarms of enemies in a horror environment such as hell, in this way survival horror games are extremely different from other action-horror games. Survival Horror games avoid combat in most instances or severely limit the resources required for combat forcing the player to hide or complete puzzles to progress. Survival Horror is in the unique position within gaming that it can use elements of shooters, role-playing and action-adventure games without compromising the genre of Survival Horror because it is not defined by strict mechanics but instead relies on atmosphere, tone and unique design to promote the genre.

Game Design

De-emphasized Combat

Survival horror games often have tough limitations in place to make it feel as if the players have less control these limitations are often health, ammunition, speed or vision or a combination of these. To progress players must overcome sometimes increasingly difficult challenges while collecting items which usually unlock new areas including puzzles. Players are often unable to prepare their avatar for combat and to de-emphasize combat the games in the Survival Horror genre focus on invulnerable enemies or offer an extremely limited number of weapons and ammunition.

The games are set in a way that the player feels that they have a small chance of survival and must use every part of the game including environment and evasion to pass enemies to survive. Often Survival Horror games are single player with a few exceptions such as The Forest and 7 Days to Die which further de-emphasizing combat by having the players avatar as weak and inexperienced in combat.

Enemy Design

Survival Horrors are usually filled with exploration and discovery including facing horrific foes, many games use horror-fiction enemy tropes such as H.P Lovecraft's Cthulian creatures or play on old stories of creatures in mythology or stories. Earlier games used odd camera angles and off-screen sound effects and cues for monster encounters so that the player would know there is a monster nearby but is unable to see them. This is still used in Survival Horror games today with games like Slender: The Eight Pages and the Silent Hill series using sound cues to notify the player but also make them uncertain. These games still often use bosses to convey progression but often include creative boss battle in which environment and quick time events are used in place of combat. Almost always defeating a boss advances the story of the game.

History

Origins

Resident Evil: 4 took on a much more action based approach to survival horror, creating a separation in the typical horror games made. Survival Horror was first coined in the original Japanese release of Resident Evil (known as Bio Hazard in Japan) in 1996 which was a remake of the 1989 Sweet Home originally conceived by producer Tokuro Furiwara which boasted a horror theme not seen before in gaming widely believed to be the original survival horror. The name of Survival Horror has been used to label games with similar gameplay and recently making a large resurgence with Slender: The Eight Pages inspiring a genre of less combat-based Survival Horror games in recent years.

More generally Survival Horror owes its roots to early horror fiction. H.P Lovecraft is a huge influence on several stories and monster designs in survival horror games largely due to the overwhelming difficulty and odds being against the protagonist in the stories. Survival horror is also split between western, more action-focused horror mowing down hordes of enemies in Gears of War and the horror of war and Asian horror focusing on psychological horror with disorientating, confusing and often twisting stories that have friends and family being the enemy.

Modern Survival Horror

Resident Evil sparked the modern Survival Horror games famous on the PlayStation 1, Xbox and Sega Saturn and a wave ‘resident evil clones’ that were very successful. Other survival horror games such as Corpse Party a 1996 indie horror game took the psychological approach to horror with several different endings for different characters depending how the player approached the story. Between 1996-2004 survival horror grew massively successful with titles like Silent Hill more in the Resident Evil series and smaller games like Corpse Party becoming classics.

Post-Modern Survival Horror

Resident Evil once again tried to transform the genre with Resident Evil 4 (2005) by focusing more on split second decision making and precision aiming using elements from the action genre to give players more control over their avatars outcome. This paid off with Resident Evil winning several Game of the Year awards for 2005. What followed was many horror genre games changing to a much more combat oriented horror genre with Silent Hill Homecoming and Left 4 Dead finding huge success with a similar game design style.

Survival Horror lives on through more independent studios creating games such as Slender: The Eight Pages, The Forest, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and more well-established studios with The Evil Within series. As such we can see a clear split in Post-Modern Survival Horror as games like Resident Evil: Bio-hazard takes it a more action/shooter genre approach and The Evil Within 2 tries to take Survival Horror back to its roots featuring hiding and environmental factors to play a large part in its gameplay.