I’m a huge fan of the horror genre, and I know a few people who also feel the same. I like both the films and the games created. I was interested to find an entire section on the subject from the book Replay: The History of Video Games. It describes how developers didn’t want to make horror games because of the lack of technology they were able to use. Here is a passage I have found:
Until the early 1990’s, game developers rarely tried to produce horror games, largely because the limited technology often made the task of scaring players difficult. One of the early attempts was Five Ways Software’s 1985 adaptation of The Rats, James Herbert’s gory horror novel where a plague of mutant rats terrorise London. The game used text adventure scene where players experienced the attack of the rats from the victims perspective, but with the twist that these encounters happened in real-time rather than the usual turn-base approach. Five Ways Software’s subversion of the adventure game format, which is ill suited to real-time action, helped create a sense of panic when the rats attacked as players struggled to survive. The game also added images of rats that would burst out of the on-screen page obscuring the text to add panic. It was an interesting experiment in trying to evoke fear in players but it proved to be a one off. – Page 274.
Resident Evil was another big breakthrough in the gaming industry. However, it was Silent Hill that almost revolutionised the industry. It was one of the first games which use psychological fear to bring in the player, scaring them in a completely new way. I was thankful my book has an large extract about horror games. With it being something I love, it was really meaningful to me to be able to learn a little about the history and how it all started. Here’s what I found about Silent Hill:
Resident Evil’s nail-biting action and global success encouraged the arrival of more horror games. Many stuck to the B-Movie feel of Resident Evil, but others sought to move beyond the Romero zombie movie template. Konami’s Silent Hill was a particularly significant development. Instead of taking its inspiration from the gory shock movies in the US, its Japanese developers absorbed ideas from the new wave of Japanese horror films, which tend to concentrate on psychological fear rather than shocking images and the crossover between natural and supernatural words. – Page 275.
Ell Roberts 