The Death Of Third Person Survival Horror - Why The Games Worked And How It Changed

whatageek (74)in #gaming • 7 years ago (edited)

Resident evil was my first experience with the survival horror genre. I had a rented PlayStation and no memory card. So I sat there trying to beat the game in one sitting (it didn't end well). I still remember the first scare I got, a rabid dog jumping through the window, the sound of glass. It was a great experience. And it was topped by Resident Evil 2, a game that built on the first but kept that feeling of fear. The only other game that topped it in the genre was, in my opinion, Silent Hill 2, a game whose story is one of the best in video games. During this time there were a few other games made in the genre like fatal frame that stuck with the slow moving pace. But then the genre got a little stale. To remedy this, Resident Evil 4 took a third person approach to the genre. It is a great game, one you should play if your a gamer. And although there are some moments of goosebumps (the infected villagers trying surrounding the house at the start), the game had more action elements in it. Zombies dropped ammo. There was a story. You're character could upgrade his shit. This made for a fun game but you were no longer surviving, you were now kicking ass. This lead to more action horror, a genre that is fun, but lacks that ambiance of the old survival horror games.

Originally the point of a survival horror game was to survive. Every bullet you used could cost you. A swipe from a zombie could lead to a waste of a healing item. And you only had so many. It was better in a lot of cases to run from a battle than to engage. You had to think about how you were going to advance and do your best to keep your items and ammo until needed. But in action horror, where zombies drop more ammo, you can clear waves of them. It was the zombies that should have been afraid of you. Also the movement in old survival horror games (like resident evil and silent hill) was very stiff. This could seem like a negative in game design but it was used to add that feeling of despair. You could not dodge or do flips. You were a human. If that zombie was coming for you, you better take it out or go for the legs. And you could only save your game at certain points. This could lead to some frustrating moments but it gave your characters death consequence. Now, when a character dies, the game auto-saved it at the start of the screen. But back then, you could lose an hour of gameplay if you were not careful. So that zombie chasing you really got the heart pumping.

When action horror took over you got games like Dead space, which is awesome, but it lacked some of those feelings that survival horror brought with it. However these is starting to be a comeback for more survival games, they just got switched to first person. You might have played or seen the commercial for Resident Evil 7 which takes place in a dilapidated mansion. The game works with a VR device, which I say no to, because I like being able to sleep without having nightmares. You can also see first person horror being played on the PC by streamers. I think this is where the industry is now and you will are probably going to see some scary ass games (or at least ones with cheap scares as your character turns around). These games do get your blood going, more so than the third person ones, but there will be a part of me that will miss them.

Any third person survival games you miss? Or a first person one that haunts your dreams? Let me know in the comments.