User:J Ingle2000/sandbox

Definition

The survival horror genre has been around for a long time, it is a sub genre of action adventure and horror video games that primarily focuses on the survival of a character whilst the game tries to scare players either with jump scares or scary scenes. However engaging in combat can be a part of how these kind of games function the game restricts the player to mechanics such as inventory management where the player has to stay on top of their ammo and health packs and make sure they're ready for the encounters that are coming up ahead in the game. Another theme of survival horror games is the feeling of isolation, Typically survival horror games have very little NPC's in the world to make sure the player actually feels a sense of relief when they find somebody to talk too. Many of these NPC's stories are told through collectibles such as notes audio logs or book entries that the player can learn more about typical in the journal section of the games menu. The term "survival horror" was first used for the original Japanese release of Resident Evil in 1996, which was influenced by earlier games with a horror theme such as 1989's Sweet Home and 1992's Alone in the Dark. Many of the early survival horror games were originally released on the first PlayStation or other platforms such as Microsofts Xbox and even earlier games going back to the Atari.

History

The first known survival horror game was a title called Sweet Home originally released in 1989 and is believed to be the main inspiration to the Resident Evil games. With the original launch of the Resident Evil games, this took the crown for being worldwide known as the go to survival horror game, with its first release in 1996 under the title Resident Evil developed and published by Capcom in Japan. Resident Evil became the best seller in North America and in the United Kingdom. According to game crate.com Resident Evil sold more than 5.3 million units and Capcom made a total sum of $467 million in todays dollars. There are many more games that help the success of the horror genre with the likes of 1982's Haunted House, 1989's Sweet Home, 1992's Alone in the Dark 1995's Clock Tower and 1999's Silent Hill. Silent Hill being the most recognisable title among the list, it was published for the PlayStation published by Konami and developed by Team Silent, a group in Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo.

Gameplay

In survival horror games there is normally a typical set of rules and mechanics that occur during ones play through some of these mechanics make the game harder for the player to succeed and gives them a challenge hence why the genre has the key word survival in it. Survival horror games usually have these three key features in the way the game plays. According to xboxtavern.com these three ingredients are what makes a survival horror game enjoyable.
 * Making the player feel overwhelmed
 * Making the player feel under powered
 * Making the player feel isolated

To begin with making the player feel overwhelmed increases the sense of intensity as the player knows they don't have much room to manoeuvre through the game levels. Making the player feel under powered is important as well, after all this is about survival and it wouldn't be a good survival game if the player could go round the levels and kill everything in their way. The player has to normally hide and go around the enemies to become successful and use their own intuition. Making the player feel isolated is also important is it makes them feel like they're not able to run around carelessly, their actions have consequences.

Recent Success

There has been a lot of recent titles under the survival horror genre that have been praised many times and have received a lot of success bringing in millions of dollars the most recognisable would be SEGA's 2014 title called Alien Isolation. Having sold more than 2.1 million copies. Critical reception for Alien: Isolation was "generally favourable", according to review aggregator Metacritic Alien: Isolation is a first person survival horror game where players take upon the role of Amanda Ripley and must explore a space station whilst fending off from enemies and obstacles with the main obstacle being the impressive Alien AI that was set up for the game. Alien: Isolation was more known for its Alien AI, with the ability to track down and learn the players movements and was able to predict where the player would go it was unlike anything anybody had seen in the industry at the time. The AI in the alien is what made the game for some players with the first encounter being memorable to players as it came from a vent in the ceiling and slowly tried to figure out where you were this set the tone for the whole game with players always reminded that they were being hunted and followed throughout. This was a good game for the genre because it had everything a horror game definitely needs.
 * 1) A strong and interesting enemy (The Alien)
 * 2) A isolated environment (The Spacestation)
 * 3) The player feeling overwhelmed and underpowered

Survival Horror Games Today

Many of the survival horror games that are realising in modern times are helped along due to the technological advancements with different types of platforms such as virtual reality. There are many virtual reality horror games that are already out there such as 2017's Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, 2014's Alien: Isolation and 2016's Until Dawn: Rush of Blood. Virtual reality is a perfect platform for players as it adds a whole new experience to horror games as the player can look around and see the environment in which they are situated in and it helps bring a new level of immersion to games not just survival horror, with technology advancing this quick, who knows how survival horror games will be played in the future,

References