Greater than most genres, survival horror feels rooted in time. It began with the methodical Resident Evil on the unique PlayStation and is outlined partly by limitation — a sluggish tempo, dirty visuals, and scant assets to assist amplify the scares. A lot of these components stemmed from the early, awkward days of 3D gaming, whether or not it was Resident Evil’s clunky controls, which made zombie chases extra terrifying, or Silent Hill’s fog, which lent an iconic ambiance whereas additionally letting the builders get around technical limitations of the time.
And some a long time later, builders are nonetheless discovering methods to deliver a very powerful components of these video games — specifically, the temper and scares — to fashionable horror with out feeling dated.
The obvious method to do that is protecting the model and tone of basic survival horror whereas updating the gameplay to make it extra approachable. The newest instance of that is Concern the Highlight, the primary launch from horror film studio Blumhouse’s new gaming label. Very like Crow Country and Signalis, it’s a sport that appears prefer it was ripped proper out of 1998; the visuals are blocky, the textures low-res. It offers the expertise a dirty really feel, which is simply the correct observe for horror.
Concern the Highlight — developed by the two-person crew at Cozy Recreation Friends — begins out easy sufficient, with two associates breaking into their highschool to carry out a seance within the library. However, after all, issues go unhealthy, and so they get pulled right into a nightmare realm that connects each to their very own pasts and a darkish thriller the college has been hiding for many years. It’s half coming-of-age story, half romance, and half true crime. But it surely’s all rendered within the crunchy model of PlayStation-era horror, which lends it an uneasy edge.
The sport additionally enables you to actually give attention to the story by streamlining the gameplay. There’s rather a lot of puzzle-solving; very similar to in early Resident Evil video games, you’ll be fixing all types of advanced mechanical issues and coping with arcane statues and locks. However there’s virtually no precise fight. As a substitute, you have got little alternative however to run and conceal when the terrifying monsters seem. A number of the scariest moments of the sport have you ever huddled beneath a desk, ready for the creatures — which have lethal spotlights for faces — to move.
In some methods, eradicating fight makes the sport even scarier since you haven’t any solution to struggle again. These moments in Concern the Highlight jogged my memory a little bit of stowing away in a locker in Alien: Isolation, hoping the xenomorph couldn’t see me. The hazy, soiled visuals solely amplify this sense, because it’s usually tough to get a transparent view of what’s forward of you.
On the opposite aspect of the spectrum is the recent remake of Silent Hill 2. As a substitute of making a brand-new survival horror expertise with fashionable sensibilities, it’s an try to take one of many style’s most influential titles — a very idiosyncratic one at that — and reimagine it as a big-budget launch in 2024. That has professionals and cons. Just like the remakes of classic Resident Evil games and the original Dead Space, Silent Hill 2 seems to be and performs like a contemporary launch. The visuals are crisp and detailed, as an alternative of hazy and disorienting. And it controls like a well-tuned third-person motion sport. It’s immensely satisfying to swing a bat, whether or not you’re smashing in home windows or keeping off a residing model.
There’s a shift in tone. The trendy Silent Hill 2 remains to be scary. The extent of realism makes the squirming enemies and cramped resort hallways really feel extremely unsettling, and there’s a degree of immersion that may be panic-inducing. However now it performs and seems like lots of different video games and is, for lack of a greater phrase, rather a lot cleaner than the unique. It’s now not as bizarre and distinct. It jogs my memory a little bit of the 2018 remake of Shadow of the Colossus: a canopy tune that doesn’t substitute the unique however offers a distinct method of taking a look at it, one which’s welcoming for newcomers. (If solely Konami made the unique Silent Hill 2 extra accessible.)
The purpose is, these video games present there may be nonetheless loads of room to do attention-grabbing issues with survival horror. And so they do it in a method that each related to the style’s historical past with out being stifled by it. Extra importantly: they discover new methods to scare.
Concern the Highlight and Silent Hill 2 are each accessible now.