We have two big releases in the survival-horror genre on the horizon: Resident Evil: Revelations and Silent Hill: Downpour. To put it bluntly, I'm worried about the state of these games.
Survival horror has been slowly devolving into a sub-genre rather than being the defining aspect of the game put under that umbrella. Sure, these titles tout their horror aspects proudly, but how much of that really showcases in the experience itself? Is it simply dark environments, vile monsters, and things jumping through windows that combine to make a horror game, or is there something that is missing from the formula?
When you think about it, Resident Evil has reluctantly been a survival-horror franchise since its inception. The first few games really nailed some of the aspects down: limited ammo; obscured views; the occasional jump scare; and, later on, the concept of being hunted (Mr. X or Nemesis).
Even Resident Evil 4 created a great feeling of helplessness with the iconic village encounter. The problem with every Resident Evil title, though, has been when you get to about the halfway point. The developers then decide that it needs to become an action game with shoddy controls.
I don't care who you are, that dog scared the pants off of you the first time it happened.
It's locations like the Spencer Mansion and the Raccoon City Police Department that players fondly remember, not the labs where you're blasting away monsters with a shotgun or grenade launcher. It was the fact that a simple zombie could kill you and that you only had 15 rounds to ration that put you on the edge of your seat, not the big monster with some kind of enormous claw on its arm who would be killed by the conveniently placed rocket launcher every time.
Silent Hill was, and often still is, compared to Resident Evil as one of the biggest survival-horror franchises of all time. Silent Hill really carried the torch for the genre as Capcom's series walked the path toward action over horror.
Team Silent used some really clever tools like the static from the radio, the fact that your character wasn't trained with firearms to justify missing targets, and the fear of the unknown to really get under the player's skin. Some of the scariest moments of a Silent Hill game are the ones where you go into a room with nothing in it. You don't know there is nothing there, but the very fact that you know something could be there is what drives the fear home.
Unique and tormented characters, such as Silent hill 2's protagonist James, are harder to come by in horror games now.
Silent Hill began to lean toward the action side of the fence with Homecoming. I was glad they used a character who could feasibly perform better in combat to justify it, but it really took away some of the charm (if you could call Silent Hill charming) from the series.
Shattered Memories took a chance with making clearly defined exploration and survival portions, and in some ways it worked. Eventually the tension from exploring would wear off as you knew without a doubt that you were safe. The newest entry, Downpour, looks to follow the trend of Homecoming, deviating from the subtle aspects that made the series so compelling in favor of bigger set pieces and more action.
So where does that leave the genre as a whole? Its fate, funnily enough, is defined now by its own characteristics. It is largely shadowed by a fear of the unknown from fans where we don't know where the path will lead at this point. We've had games such as Alan Wake, with their well-crafted atmosphere that doesn't rely on blood and gore, and Dead Space, with unique set pieces such as the vacuum of space, that have made some memorable experiences, but they still rely on the action portion just a little too much.
One developer who really seems to have a grasp on the horror game is Frictional Games, creators of the excellent Penumbra and, more recently, Amnesia games. While these titles are not without flaws, big-name developers can look at these games to see how making the player feel helpless and having a constant looming of the unknown can be just as, if not more, engaging than empowering the player with a big gun. Combat has a place in the world of survival horror but that place is not as the star of the show.
There was nothing dangerous in this room at all, actually. I still wanted to run and turn the game off. That is a sign of a good horror experience.
I haven't lost hope completely with the genre as I know that there are many games within it that are still excellent despite the direction they lean toward. I can't help but worry, though, when the titles that are often considered the crown of survival horror have been deviating so much from what made them so compelling in the first place.
Following the genre has become a survival-horror game in-and-of itself — I don't know what will be coming next, I feel helpless watching it grow, and I'm cautiously moving forward in hopes that there will eventually be some light at the end of the tunnel.