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= Survival Horror = Survival Horror is a Sub-genre of the horror genre in video games, it focuses on a character trying to survive a horror scenario and the game will try scaring the player by using different horror cliches or by using a scary ambiance. This genre can include things like combat but tries to make the player feel less in control and that the player must struggle to reach the end. Survival Horror game tend to also include puzzles in order to proceed in the game.

The first time the Survival Horror term was used was from the creators of Resident evil in 1996 which found inspiration from past horror games such as 1992’s Alone in the Dark and since they used the term has been used to describe many games with similar game-play. Also, since the release of Resident Evil 4 the genre began to more and more features from what you would find in an action game. This made game critics believe that the recent games of this genre have began to abandon what the genre was meant to be and have turned it into a new genre called “action horror”.

Definition
Survival Horror is counted as a sub-genre of action-adventure games. The player will play a character who tends to be vulnerable and unarmed, this puts more emphasis on things like puzzle solving and evading enemies rather than using violence in order to progress. A survival horror game also tends to use an inventory system where the player must manage, and the creators of these games tend to give the player a small number of items rather than a lot. Most survival horror games will mainly have no other characters except for the actual player this is to create a sense of isolation. This can be said about other genres such as FPS’s and other genre’s as well but according to IGN “Survival Horror is different from other genres in that it is not defined strictly by specific mechanics, but subject matter, tone, pacing and design philosophy.”.

Game Design
Survival horror games tend to not focus on combat and because the game is designed to be played in a different way than just shooting an enemy. Normally will encounter different things which will deter them from using combat as their main option. One of these is a limited number of weapons and ammunition in a game, if the game does include weapons then there tends to be a low amount of ammunition which will make the player think of other ways to get around an enemy, so they can save their ammunition for when they need it. Another way they deter the player from using combat is through the narrative where the odds are weighed so much against the player that they feel they must sneak and evade instead of fighting otherwise they will likely die. Survival horror games are also known for getting the player to workout puzzles rather than using combat, so they can access new areas of the games or get specific story related items. In some survival horror games are designed with different paths so that the player can take different routes to get to the end of the level, this gives the player more of choice on how they want to get around a problem they are facing.

Enemy Design
In a survival horror game, the story normally involves the main character investigating and confronting a horrific force, because of this many game’s use elements from horror fiction and turn them into game-play challenges. The older video games used things like camera angles which would be like ones you would see in horror films which meant they could hide enemies just out of view of the players view in order to scare them when they get there. Another example is how horror games use off-screen sounds so that the player will know something is near them this also creates a sense of anxiety which is what the game is aiming for. A lot of the time in survival horror games have scripted sequences where and enemy will do something like show up for a second and jump scare the player.

History
The survival horror genre can be linked back to early horror fiction such as the books of H.P. Lovecraft and to early slasher films. One of the first known survival horror games was a game called Nostromo which was developed by Akira Takiguchi for the PET 2OO1 and the PC-6001. The game was inspired by a stealth game called Manibiki Shoujo and the movie Alien. The game involves the player trying to escape a ship while trying to avoid being seen by an invisible alien. However the game that is considered the first true survival horror game is called Sweet Home for the NES, this is because it had a lot of influence on Resident Evil which had the same creator Tokuro Fujiwara.

Golden Age (1996-2004)
Due to the success of the first Resident Evil it became a template for survival horror games to follow which created a wave of successful survival horror games. The golden age of survival horror lasted till about the turn of the millennium and peaked with Silent Hill and then slowly declined this is down to the fact that there wasn’t much innovation in the genre and games ended up just blending together and most games just ended up being clones of other popular survival horror games.

Transformation (2005-present)
Resident 4 came out in 2005 and tried to redefine the genre by adding more action to the survival horror game, this ended up be quite successful and even ended up getting a lot of rewards for the innovation. However, this led to some critics to suggest that the game was abandoning the survival genre by completely changing what it originally was. After this game was released most of series followed suit and used similar game-play styles and because of this the survival genre is beginning to be no more and most are now action horror games instead.