Survival Horror
Survival
Horror is an absolutely amazing genre. It is definitely a niche genre; much
like their horror movie genre older brother, but survival horror games do
garner some of the best praise and cult followings of any genre. However, the
things that make a great survival horror game can also be a game's downfall
(e.g. punishing the player too harshly for not playing the game as designed,
not being scary enough, and overly convoluted objectives which leads to players
not playing the game as designed) and why I have an immense love-hate
relationship with survival horror games.
For
example, I love the Resident Evil
franchise and I've played every iteration. Resident
Evil 4 was the first game that set me on a long path of following online
walkthroughs because, while the game is undeniably great, the gameplay
objectives were extremely convoluted. In order to beat the game there were
specific hidden collectables the player needed to find in order to unlock a
specific pistol which then served as the gateway to successfully beating the
game without wanting to throw your console out a window. Unfortunately, the
first time I played the game I played it as I normally would, buying upgrades
and new weapons which turned out to be a waste of time, money, and ammo as I
couldn't get passed the first boss in the game. Again, the game gave no
extrinsic effort to guide the player to obtaining the Blacktail pistol (the
aforementioned pistol needed to beat the game) and put the player in situations
where they had to fight huge hordes
of enemies. In previous Resident Evil games,
and essentially every survival horror game before RE4, the player had the choice in most cases of whether or not to
engage in combat which made it easier/more intuitive for conserving your
resources (a la survival horror).
With the introduction of forcing the player to fight tons of enemies with the
same limited resources, most players will deplete everything and be in a
terrible position moving forward; often having to re-do sections or start the
game completely over. This kind of practice is extremely frustrating and
off-putting and only really devoted players will stick around, or look up how,
to learn advanced techniques for completing these sections while still
conserving resources. In the case of Resident
Evil 4 and many subsequent games of a similar nature, this meant shooting
enemies in the legs to either get them to stagger or fall over and then running
up to do a quick time kick which also hits all enemies around the PC, or for
the latter -- knife the enemy until they die. The player would then run away
from enemies to get them into a bottle neck and repeat the process.
Balancing
resources available to the player, the difficulty of each player objective, and
creating a scary environment which players want to continue to come back to,
but also makes them terrified makes up a good survival horror game. Players
need to feel overall impeded, but given enough hope that they can win. To
accomplish this feat, good survival horror games have creepy looking enemies
and obstacles which are stronger than the player and usually enemies that have
grapple attacks rendering the player helpless for a few sections and requires
panicked quick-time actions to set themselves free. To balance this, most
enemies are either slightly slower or less maneuverable than the player so that
the player can react, run, and counter-attack. If the player has the resources,
they can eventually defeat any enemy/obstacle the game throws at them.
Another
big part of making a good survival horror game is the atmosphere. Lighting
plays a huge part in setting a scary atmosphere, as does the sound, so
concentrating on these two aspects is a must when designing the overall game;
as well as, each level of the game. For instance, the original Silent Hill had some really simple
opening level designs as it took place in the flat downtown center of a town. However,
the lighting was really low, a fog covered almost all of the screen so the
player could barely see in front of them, and eerie sounds played the entire
time. Additionally, triggers were set to release enemies from off screen which
surprises the player every time they play. As the player progresses, the level
design starts to get more complex as they explore buildings in the town and the
designers re-used many set pieces, but changed the lighting and textures to
create kind of a "hell world" which added a lot of interest and
variety to the game while optimizing resources on the development end.
In
the end, making a good survival horror game is like emulating the best horror
films and placing the player into the main character's shoes.
There
are a ton of great examples of survival horror games from Sweet Home (which can be argued is more of an RPG), Alan Wake, to recent hits like Alien: Isolation and The Evil Within. In my experience, the
studios that make survival horror games always do it well. So for the sake of
argument let's discuss The Evil Within.
The Evil Within does a perfect job of
balancing the difficulty of the game with the amount of resources the player
receives, it allows for multiple play types, and it delivers a unique horror
atmosphere.
Since
Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil series, Dino Crisis series, Ace Attorney series, etc.) was at the helm, The Evil Within inherited everything that made Resident Evil 4 so amazing and improved the areas that were
lacking. The objectives in the game are just vague enough to make it
challenging and excited, while still giving the player enough to know what to
do. There are also several sequences of the game which are red herrings -- e.g.
the first time the player interacts with the main antagonist they are never
harmed, but driven to run away; the next time the player encounters the
antagonist he is an invincible force that will kill the player in one hit
unless the player runs to a different section of the level. Furthermore, a
special tip gets added to The Evil Within
for it's cinematic sepia-like screen filter, which added to the extremely
in-depth levels, creates an amazing horror feel and sense of progressing
madness. Lastly, each mission objective is cleverly built into the level
design. During one area of the game, the player is in a mansion reminiscent of Resident Evil 1 and the player starts by
facing a large door with three locks which are connected to hoses which then
run off into three different areas of the mansion. In order to unlock the door
the player must complete a kind of brain dissection mini-game in each area. The
mini-game itself is really clever because the solution to each puzzle is given
to the player in the combinational form of an audio log and cross-section
drawing of the brain. The player must drill into the correct section of the
brain in order to complete the puzzle. Failure results in the player taking
damage, but not killing them instantly; which is again, a perfect example of
gameplay balance. While the player is running around completing these
mini-games, they collect a plethora of items, finally gain a ton of knowledge
of the story of the game, and must fend off enemies, traps, and the
aforementioned invincible antagonist that will kill the player in one (melee)
hit.
It's
really difficult to find a "worst example" survival horror game, but
I generally find a lot of indie/hobbyist, or student made survival horror games
to be really lack-luster. Games like Slenderman
and Five Nights at Freddy's come to
mind if a specific game needs to be named. Both of these games are indeed scary
and accomplish their intended goals. However, they lose their entertainment
value very quickly because they are one dimensional games where the player has
only one goal and the game is over within a few minutes. Slenderman and Five Nights
both feature a single kill screen, limited gameplay, and rely entirely on jump
scares to create a horror atmosphere because the player is in a single location
the entire game.
Derek holds a Bachelor's Degree in Game Design and has two and a half years of game development experience. To view his other work please visit www.dereksinex.com or his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/JDKevlar
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