Survival horror is one of the biggest genres in video games today, and interestingly enough, it’s also the newest. Resident Evil first coined the term in the 1990s and it’s only grown since. It flipped a lot of the traditional beliefs about video games, challenging players to switch up their gameplay and think in new ways along with scaring the snot out of us. These games aren’t about collecting treasure, rescuing a princess, or obtaining a magical item. The goal here is to live to tell the tale, a version of the classic “lone survivor” trope common in so many horror movies.
Despite the fact that survival horror (SH) games have been a fixture in the video game world for more than a generation, people keep making the same tired mistakes when playing them. SH doesn’t use the same tropes or mechanics as other video games, so if you venture into that haunted mansion, go through that portal to hell, or take on Umbrella Corp., don’t make these common mistakes.
10 Don’t Look Up
Survival horror never really had a 2D, 8-bit, sidescrolling era like so many other games that preceded it. Part of the novelty of SH was that it was developed almost entirely in three dimensions right from the start. Alone in the Dark, a game that was based in Lovecraftian horror and developed before RE pretty much invented the 3rd person view we’re used to, and that means enemies come at you from all angles. One of the very first monsters in RE2 is hiding on the ceiling, a tough-in-cheek way to introduce gamers to a whole new perspective.
9 Ignore Your Emotional Responses
Another difference between survival horror and other types of games is the general gameplay. If you try too hard to be strategic and ignore your instincts, you’re going to have a bad time. That’s because SH gameplay is based on emotional responses as opposed to game mechanics. The intention is to mess with your mind to strengthen the immersion factor, so the references you’ve taken from other games won’t work. Mapping out the floorplan or keeping track of your ammo will help, but your intuition wins the game.
8 Ignore Other Platforms
Resident Evil gets a lot of attention in the video game world, giving players the impression that SH is dominated by the action-adventure motif but that’s not the case. Despite the popularity of the genre, not everyone wants to spend hours exploring, grinding, and collecting stuff in three dimensions. Some of us just want to watch the world burn.
We had Doom in the late 1980s, but that was a first-person shooter and the term “survival horror” didn’t exist yet. However, there are still plenty of games that use the same simple, gory, first-person shooter angle, or two dimensions, with few items or puzzles to distract from the action. Take a break from the usual formula by either going retro or exploring other options.
7 Relying on Guns or Complex Weapons
Yeah, that BFG from Doom sure is neat! But that’s not going to get you through an SH game successfully, no matter how counter-intuitive that seems. The biggest weapon in the game isn’t always the key to winning, even in first-person shooters like Doom. It’s just a fun thing to have, but most survival horror games make the player rely on their wits. A good example of an SH game that plays like this is Silent Hill, which focuses on a protagonist with little survival skills or weapon prowess.
6 Ignore Bag Space
Storage is important in any game, but when it comes to SH, players seem to forget about it because they’re too busy looking over their shoulders for the next jump scare. It also might seem like a waste of time when you realize that there isn’t that much to pick up anyway, at least at certain times, as SH is often designed to deprive the player of resources. That’s exactly why you need to keep an eye on your bag space. When the resources are available, make sure you can fill those empty slots.
5 Mess Up Using “Tank Control”
This is an expression used to describe the movement mechanics of most SH games. This means you have to turn the character around manually, rather than just hitting the back button and making them change direction automatically. It’s easier to get used to in first-person shooters than other formats, as it’s an intuitive movement from that point of view. When you can see your character, however, it’s off-putting.
It’s easy to get frustrated with this, as tank controls aren’t for everyone. Before games like Resident Evil and most games were in two dimensions, and only some boss fights used tank controls. Get used to them or you’re not going to like very many survival horror games.
4 Waste Resources
Some action-adventure games do this to come extent, but in SH it’s part of the deliberate design. Resources are designed to be scarce, and it’s often a newbie trap to hand the player a relatively large amount at the beginning only to choke off the supply and simply make them deal with it. Silent Hill is notorious in this respect since the whole plot starts with a protagonist who’s essentially a civilian with virtually no resources. The added challenge in SH is the ability to survive with almost nothing other than your wits, at least most of the time.
3 Ignore the Music
Sure, all video games have music, but the music in SH has a purpose other than just adding to the atmosphere. It’s part of what messes with your head, either luring you into a false sense of security or ginning them up for a fight that never comes, but sometimes the music can tell you what’s going on and how you should react. It’s a way of reading the game in the same way it’s messing with you, so don’t think of it as an exploit but a subtle advantage.
2 Be Bad at Puzzles
Remember, it’s about survival, not some shiny prize, and in an SH game, you’re either trying to get out of somewhere or lock something else in. Sometimes the player has to obtain an important item or open a door, but either way, they aren’t advancing until they get through some serious puzzles.
Some of the earliest SH games were point and click, based almost entirely on puzzles and involving little or no combat at all, like 7th Guest. It fits nicely into the typical SH setting, which varies between haunted houses, abandoned police stations, and ruined cities.
1 Assume It’s Dead
People see this all the time in all kinds of movies and games, not just horror. How many times have we yelled at the screen, “He’s not dead!” So why do players keep making this classic mistake? True, this trope is getting tired, and it’s one of the reasons some people claim the genre is in a rut. Keep in mind that the SH genre often features supernatural creatures, with a heavy emphasis on critters like demons and the undead, and it often takes more than a few bullets to make sure they stay down.
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