Survival horror

One of the unique features of the survival horror genre is that it is determined to a greater extent by the general atmosphere of the game than by game mechanics ^[2] . Although the term survival horror is usually associated with the gameplay of the first parts of Resident Evil and Silent Hill , there are enough representatives of the genre that resemble beating them all , quests , role-playing games and first-person shooters . All games of this genre unite the themes of fear, inexplicable phenomena, cruelty and the like ^[3] . The plot of a typical game in the survival horror genre includes an investigation of certain secrets and a clash with frightening forces ^[4] ; thus, games can use themes and images from horror films and literature, turning them into obstacles for the player ^[5] . According to the creator of The Suffering, Richard Routh, the conventions of horror films are very attractive to computer game developers in general: horrors confront the game character with hostile monsters, making it a moral battle to battle them; leave the possibility of creating a minimalistic plot and using a world close to the real one, but with the addition of a fantastic element. In addition, Routh noted that the audience of horror films - mainly youth and mainly male - is in good agreement with the audience of computer game players ^[6] . Nevertheless, it is important that computer games differ from horror films in interactivity: if the film continues to act independently of the viewer, then the promotion of the game is in the hands of the player himself, and he has no one to blame for his failures, except for himself. Thomas Gripp, creative director of Frictional Games studio, argued that the task of horror game developers is not so much to directly scare the player, but to put him in an environment where the player would scare himself ^[7] .

Like horror films , survival horror games can be both psychological thrillers with a boost of suspense , and action movies , where the emphasis is on the destruction of any living dead or victims of unsuccessful experiments ^[8] . In 2014, on the pages of Game Informer magazine, its authors Harry Mackin and Tim Turi discussed the meaning of this term and the possibility of abandoning it, arguing that the words survival horror were invented by the developers of a specific game - 1996 Resident Evil - and took root as a description of the games, similar to this game; however, the word horror ("horror") is quite enough to describe all the "scary" games, not even reminiscent of Resident Evil ^[9] .

In 2014, journalist Brittany Vincent in the column for the Shacknews website highlighted several subgenres of horror in computer games, in addition to the actual survival horror in her understanding - the classic games in the spirit of Resident Evil and Silent Hill ^[10] .

• The games designated by Vincent as “Third-Person Action Horror” like Dead Space are more action games whose creators sacrificed some horror elements to create a more enjoyable gameplay. Such games - Vincent ranks Blue Stinger among them , Nightmare Creatures , Dead Rising , Manhunt - they no longer place survival at the forefront, offering the player a greater choice of weapons and more enemies compared to the actual survival horror; they also offer the player a greater degree of physical interaction with the environment, for example, in the form of platforming elements or the need to destroy some objects in order to move on.
• Similarly, shooter horror shooters are "scary" shooters in which the main factor that scares the player is simply a large number of opponents with whom he must fight - Vincent considers games like Doom , FEAR to this subgenre, Resistance or " Metro 2033 ".
• To the category of stealth horror, Vincent classifies stealth games that use exactly the opposite approach to the gameplay: in games such as Penumbra and Amnesia: The Dark Descent , Slender: The Arrival , Outlast , SCP: Containment Breach or Alien: Isolation the player can do little to oppose the opponents and must run away or hide from them.
• Apart from Vincent’s classification, there are games based on Japanese folklore , such as Project Zero , Forbidden Siren , Kuon , Rule of Rose , Clock Tower - these games often contain surreal elements, explore themes of relationships and relationships between people, exploit folk representations of ghosts and demons - they are .

Isabella van Elpheren, professor of music and director of the School of Performing Arts on Stage and Screen Arts at Kingston University , proposed dividing the genre into a survival horror itself like Resident Evil or Dead Space , which is just about showing some frightening images on the screen, and psychological horrors like Amnesia: The Dark Descent , addressing the issue of psychological instability of the player himself; at the same time, games like the Silent Hill series, from the point of view of van Elpheren, occupy an intermediate, mixed position, although it stipulates that the psychological “dark game” - the idea of ​​appeal to the hidden layers of the player’s psychology - first appeared in games in this series. Such a gradation, according to van Elpheren, corresponds to subtle differences between horror literature and Gothic literature ^[11] .

Limitations and Complexity

Unlike action-adventure games, to which survival horror games are close ^[12] , in survival horror a player cannot fully arm a game character or adequately prepare him for upcoming battles ^[5] . More skillful computer game players are more difficult to scare: the more efficiently the player solves the challenges offered by the game - for example, destroys enemies or evades encounters with them - the less the feeling of fear caused by the game. This is what causes all kinds of restrictions in the gameplay - for example, clumsiness of a character who cannot quickly turn in the direction of the enemy, the inability to move and shoot at the same time, or even the lack of weapons and the ability to somehow defend against enemies ^[7] . In games of this kind, a player can encounter a large number of enemies ^[13] , while the amount of ammunition for weapons is noticeably less than in other games ^[14] , and powerful weapons are rare or not at all in the game: as expressed in the book by Andrew Rollings Fundamentals of Game Design , “the world doesn’t seem so scary when you have a hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher with you ” ^[5] . By virtue of this, the game character is more vulnerable than in other games, and the advantage is always on the side of the hostile environment ^[15] . Thus, in survival horror, battles recede into the background, and the player must learn to avoid enemies or use environmental elements against them ^[1] . Games of the genre try to emphasize this vulnerability, excluding the possibility of playing in a different way from single-user mode ^[13] and offering the player less powerful and less capable of wounding heroes to control than in games of the action genre ^[14] .

Level Design

Games of the survival horror genre offer the player challenges that are not related to battles - for example, puzzles can be located in various places of the game world that need to be solved in order to advance further ^[1] . Another task may be to collect items and manage their tightly limited supply. Survival horror, as a rule, restricts the player’s freedom - you cannot get into certain areas of the game without finding certain objects, although some games may offer alternative ways of advancement ^[16] . The labyrinthine level design may require a player to navigate the terrain ^[1] . To cause the player to feel anxiety and claustrophobic , the game levels in survival horror can intentionally use cramped, poorly lit or dark rooms, uncomfortable viewing angles ^{[5] [17]} , although some games of the genre can, on the contrary, use open spaces instead of cramped mazes ^{[ 15]} .

Darkness and fog allow you to mask the technical limitations of the game - at a dark or foggy level, there is no need to draw distant objects, and this also deprives the player of the ability to see enemies at a great distance, allowing the game to create them close to the game character. Exactly such techniques were used, for example, in the Silent Hill series ^[6] . However, in more technically advanced games, limitations arise due to the difficulty of realistically representing lighting and shadows. So, the Doom 3 game used a lighting system that was unusually perfect at that time and high-poly character models, but due to the increased load on the computer’s hardware resources, the developers were forced to build a game around meetings with small ones, instead of large arenas with many opponents, but more powerful enemies hiding in the dark in cramped rooms - in this case, the pronounced theme of horrors corresponded well to the gameplay ^[6] .

Opponents

As a rule, survival horror as monsters offers monsters with different, sometimes quite complex, programmed behavior ^[16] . Enemies may appear unexpectedly, scaring the player ^[5] , and the level design may include scripts that cause enemies to suddenly fall from the ceiling or break through windows ^[17] when a game character approaches. Like many computer games in the genre of action-adventure , passing games in the genre of survival horror often includes encounters with bosses - especially strong opponents that the player must defeat in order to be able to advance to the next level of the game or further in the story ^[15] .

Camera control and position

The early games of the genre used tricks related to the position of the camera, characteristic of horror films - thanks to this, enemies in such games can be out of the player’s field of vision ^[18] . Such manipulations with the camera in early games like Alone in the Dark or Resident Evil were often connected with the so-called “tank” character control ( English tank controls ), tied to the character’s orientation, not the camera: in this case, the up button on the gamepad or the keyboard moves the character forward, and the buttons "right" and "left" rotate him in place. Such a scheme was criticized as uncomfortable and unnatural - in the real world a person can move in any direction. Nevertheless, in games with frequent and player-independent changes in camera position, “tank” control is relatively convenient, allowing the player to maintain a sense of direction regardless of where the camera is directed at any given moment ^[19] . Later games usually use a first-person view or a camera following the character; Resident Evil 4 introduced an offset camera position located behind the character’s shoulder - this innovation turned out to be so convenient that it penetrated many other games of other genres ^[20] .

Sound Design

Many games of this genre use off-screen music and sounds, forcing a sense of fear and warning the player of impending danger. Such sound prompts help the player to advance in the game, but also stimulate a sense of anxiety and uncertainty ^[4] . The off-screen sound allows you to announce the appearance of monsters even before they appear in the field of view; the adaptive nature of music in computer games allows you to use it very flexibly - for example, as the monster approaches, the volume of sound and music can increase; the ability to play three-dimensional sound can even tell the player which side the danger is coming from ^[11] . As such, the noise of radio interference in Silent Hill works, informing the player about the approach of a supernatural threat ^[21] . The game Alone in the Dark , usually using disturbing music to warn of danger, from time to time “deceived” the player when the disturbing music sounded off-screen, but there was no danger - such an approach should inspire the player with a feeling of uncertainty ^[8] . Certain sounds, like the heavy steps of the Nemesis in Resident Evil 3 or the rattle of the Pyramid Head sword in Silent Hill 2, allow the player to immediately identify these virtual characters and receive a signal about their dangerous presence ^[22] .

Like horror films , survival horror games can use keynotes - short repeating melodies associated with certain characters or situations ^[11] . A contrast of melodies and timbres is often used, using atonal music, white noise and digital distortion of sound for scenes in which enemies appear, but more pleasant to hear orchestral music for scenes with heroes - this creates a contrast between “mechanical” and “human”, "Their own" and "stranger" ^[11] . In Dead Space, instrumental music adapts to the situation on the screen - up to four musical parts can be played simultaneously, and the game engine selects those that are suitable for action and balances their volume based on the player’s position and level of threat, thereby creating psychological tension or gradually reducing it ^[22] . Игры серии Silent Hill получили известность в том числе и благодаря необычному звуковому сопровождению, идущему вразрез с клише кинематографа — спокойным, повторяющимся мелодиям, навевающим жуть на игрока самим своим несоответствием ситуации на экране, и обширному использованию фоновых шумов ^[11] . Психологические ужасы, подобные Amnesia: The Dark Descent , в большой степени полагаются на диегетические звуки, принадлежащие миру игры — звуки шагов, дыхания, скрипа половиц и тому подобное; музыка в Amnesia: The Dark Descent обычно отличается негромкостью и ненавязчивым фоновым звучанием, но в ситуациях, когда рассудок героя помрачается, нарастает, превращаясь в громкую раздражающую какофонию ^[11] .

Истоки жанра survival horror можно проследить к ранней литературе ужасов . Немалое влияние на компьютерные игры оказало творчество Говарда Филлипса Лавкрафта и его последователей (« лавкрафтовские ужасы »), включающее в себя детективные мотивы, сюжеты о путешествии сквозь темные лабиринты и « Великих Древних », чудовищных существ, появлявшихся в компьютерных играх в виде противников игрового персонажа. Темы выживания, где игровому персонажу угрожает сильный противник, также связаны с киножанром слэшеров ^[15] . Другим важным источником вдохновения для разработанных в Японии игр, повлиявших и на западные игры, являлись собственные японские традиции ужасов и детектива, в том числе традиционные представления театра Но , книги Эдогавы Рампо ^[23] и кинематограф Японии ^[24] . Жанр survival horror в целом черпает темы, образы и приёмы как из западной (в первую очередь американской ), так и из восточной (в первую очередь японской ) культурной традиции ^[24] , причем западный подход к разработке игр скорее опирается на экшн -сцены с изображением насилия, тогда как для японских разработчиков более характерными являются психологические ужасы ^[1] .

Предыстория жанра (1978-1992)

Ещё в 1980-х годах выпускались игры, оформленные в духе фильмов и литературы ужасов, однако о выделении какого-либо особого геймплейного жанра речь не шла. Текстовая приключенческая игра ( interactive fiction ) Zork I: The Great Underground Empire (1978) представляла собой скорее фэнтези-приключение, но её немалая часть проходила в запутанных тёмных подземельях, где управляемый игроком персонаж должен был избегать столкновений с чудовищем- гру : по тем временам это был новый, невиданный подход к ужасам ^[6] . К числу первых компьютерных игр, пытавшихся напугать игрока, принадлежала и Mystery House (1980) супругов Роберты и Кена Уильямсов — первый в истории графический квест , вдохновлявшийся романом Агаты Кристи «Десять негритят» . В 1986 году в США появился аркадный автомат Chiller — тир со световым пистолетом , предлагавший игроку калечить и убивать привязанных к пыточным устройствам жертв; несмотря на необычайно детальное изображение кровавых сцен, роднящее Chiller с поздними играми жанра survivor horror, эта игра не стала сколько-нибудь известной. В играх, подобных Castlevania (1986), Kenseiden (1988) или Splatterhouse (1988) герои противостояли различным чудовищам вроде вампиров или скелетов в мрачных и пугающих декорациях, однако с точки зрения игрового процесса эти игры ничем не отличались от других современных им игр в жанре action — платформеров и beat 'em up ^[8] .

Другие, более экспериментальные игры пытались использовать геймплей для создания атмосферы страха. Игра 3D Monster Maze , созданная британским программистом Малкольмом Эвансом для компьютера Sinclair ZX81 и выпущенная в продажу в 1982 году, помещала игрового персонажа в лабиринт с единственным выходом, заставляя его скрываться от чудовища- тираннозавра ^{[25] [26]} . Игра Nostromo , первоначально разработанная для персонального компьютера Commodore PET 2001 студентом Токийского университета Акирой Такагути, в 1982 году была издана ASCII для компьютера PC-6001 . Игра, оформленная в духе научной фантастики, основана на голливудском фильме «Чужой» ; в ней управляемый игроком персонаж пытается сбежать с космического корабля, скрываясь от враждебного инопланетного монстра ^[27] . В 1982 году компания Atari выпустила для игровой приставки Atari 2600 игру Haunted House , разработанную программистом Джеймсом Андреасеном; от игрока требуется избегать противников и искать предметы, нужные для того, чтобы покинуть дом с привидениями ^[3] . Как и в поздних играх жанра survival horror, здесь особо подчеркивается уязвимость персонажа: он не в состоянии нанести никакого вреда противникам и может только избегать встречи с ними ^[8] .

The two-dimensional Japanese role-playing game Sweet Home , released by Capcom in 1989 for the Nintendo Entertainment System game console, significantly influenced the subsequent survival horror story, including as the predecessor of the Resident Evil series ^[28] ; this game was called the "first true survival horror" ^[29] . Its creator Tokuro Fujiwara later worked on Resident Evil , originally developed as a rethinking of Sweet Home ^[30] . Sweet Home was based on the horror movie Sweet Home "Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa and developed under his control. The player, managing a group of characters, must solve a number of puzzles using objects from limited equipment ^[31] and at the same time have to fight frightening opponents or run away from them, and game characters can die irreversibly ^[31] . Sweet Home is also notable for the attempt to create a frightening backstory within the game, told through diaries of other characters scattered throughout the game world ^[32] .

The Project Firestart game, developed by Dynamix and released in the same 1989 for the Commodore 64 computer, also contained all the key elements characteristic of later survival horror games ^[8] . In Project Firestart , inspired by the movie Aliens , the hero enters aboard the abandoned spacecraft Prometheus - it turns out that the ship was captured by monsters that were born as a result of genetic engineering experiments, and the ultimate goals of the hero are the destruction of Prometheus and flight with doomed ship. Compared to her modern games, including shooters based on the same Aliens , Project Firestart offered an unusual gameplay with an investigation of the non-linear world of the game ^[8] : the quantity of ammunition in the game is limited, the hero cannot move and shoot at the same time, but at later At the stages of the game, the labyrinth-like rooms of Prometheus become darker, indicating that the light on the ship goes out. Like Sweet Home , Project Firestart uses texts - crew records - to boost the atmosphere ^{[8] [33]} . Despite the innovations, the game was released almost without advertising and disappeared into obscurity, without having any impact on the industry ^[8] .

The Birth of the Genre (1992-1996)

On the contrary, the 1992 Alone in the Dark graphic quest developed by the French company Infogrames gained great commercial success and - later - the fame of the founder of the survival horror genre, having a great influence on subsequent games ^[8] . Alone in the Dark was one of the first games that used three-dimensional polygonal character models and two - dimensional rendered backgrounds - this approach could provide very high quality graphics at the time. In a game that draws inspiration from the work of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and films like The Amityville Horror ^{[8], the} player controls one of two heroes to choose from, exploring an old manor in Louisiana . The feeling of fear and anxiety in the game is largely based on the use of unusual camera angles and manipulations with musical accompaniment ^[8] ; many traps in the game cannot be avoided, and limited equipment and ammunition were intentionally designed to create a player’s feeling of insecurity ^[34] . The success of Alone in the Dark led to the emergence of Alone in the Dark 2 (1993) and other sequel games, but they did not enjoy the same success ^[8] .

The game Clock Tower ( 1995 ), developed by the Japanese company Human Entertainment , in its gameplay was more like a non-linear graphic quest with a point-and-click interface. Its plot and atmosphere was largely inspired by Dario Argento's “ Phenomenon ” film - in Clock Tower, the player controls a girl named Jennifer, who is locked with her friends in an old manor ^[35] . Jennifer must avoid the maniac armed with huge scissors and cannot fight him, but must run away and hide ^[36] . Clock Tower played an important role in the development of the survival horror genre; later a series of sequels was released - the Clock Tower series ^[35] .

The genre was called survival horror with the release in 1996 of the game Resident Evil ( Biohazard in Japan). This game, also developed by Capcom and originally conceived as a remake of Sweet Home , had a lot of similarities with Alone in the Dark , using similar gameplay, controls and graphics with three-dimensional models of heroes and rendered backgrounds ^[8] . In Resident Evil, the player also controls one of two police heroes to choose from: while exploring an old mansion, the characters are faced with the living dead - zombies . Unlike Sweet Home and Alone in the Dark , Resident Evil focused on bloody, naturalistic horrors rather than ghost stories - instead, game developers were inspired by films in the spirit of Alien , Jaws , and especially Live Nights the dead . " Putting the player in risky situations and demanding quick decisions, Resident Evil was still not an action game - the zombies in it were a threat that encouraged the player to run away and save ammunition, rather than get involved in battles ^[37] . Being one of the most ambitious and expensive developments of its time, Resident Evil has gained immense popularity and commercial success. The game became a hit of the PlayStation game console , allowing Sony to take a leading position in the gaming industry ^[8] . This game remained a source of inspiration for new games in the genre even many years later: for example, Thomas Grip, the head of Frictional Games, called it the “guiding light” for his own games ^[38] .

The Golden Age (1996-2005)

In 1999, the Japanese company Konami released the game Silent Hill , which had a huge impact on the genre. The hero of Silent Hill , the writer Harry Mason, was looking for his missing daughter in the ghost town of Silent Hill. Although Silent Hill resembled Resident Evil in its gameplay, it used a completely three-dimensional environment rather than pre-rendered two-dimensional backgrounds ^[39] and included elements of stealth action : the game character could evade collisions with enemies, for example, turning off the flashlight or using fog, to go unnoticed ^[40] . More importantly, compared to Resident Evil , in Silent Hill , horror itself did not play a big role, but fear and alarm ^{[15] [41]} . This game and subsequent games of the Silent Hill series explored the theme of the inner world, where the source of fear was not so much the circumstances in which the game characters fell, but their own damaged psyche. Particularly famous was the 2001 Silent Hill 2 sequel game, featuring a particularly strong narrative ^[3] : the protagonist James Sunderland visits the same city of Silent Hill in the hope of meeting his late wife; monsters like the Pyramid Head , which the player encounters, are the product of the guilt of the hero and his suppressed complexes ^{[11] [42]} .

The psychological horror paradigm introduced in Silent Hill developed in a number of games released after 2000: similar games used the technique of an unreliable narrator and game characters whose perception of the world was distorted by some kind of trauma - in other words, the player in these games often encounters visual and sound hallucinations of characters, perceived as real ^[11] .

Developed and released by the Japanese company Tecmo in 2001, Project Zero was the first in a series of Project Zero games; in English literature, these games are better known by the name in the USA - Fatal Frame . Opponents of the player in the Project Zero series are disembodied ghosts that can soar in the air and penetrate walls; their design is intentionally human-like, causing the player not only fear, but also compassion; The plot of the games in the series is also related to the themes of loss of loved ones and guilt ^[43] . The game’s only weapon is a camera used as an exorcist’s tool - by capturing a ghost in the lens and on the film, the player is able to destroy the supernatural threat ^[44] .

In the award-winning game Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (2002), developed by Silicon Knights , Canada, the action switches between several characters living in different historical eras; the game was notable for a system that changed the game world and gameplay as the special scale, reflecting the state of mind of the character, decreased. If at a high level of the scale the player encounters only minor distortions, such as a slight distortion of the camera or the appearance of blood on the walls of the game locations, then at a low level the game can “break through the fourth wall ”, for example, reporting a disconnected gamepad. Nintendo , which released the game as a publisher, patented the concept of the scale of insanity, but did not use it in other games ^[45] .

Similarly, the game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (2005), based on the work of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and primarily on his novel “ Shadow over Innsmouth, ” used unusual tricks to reflect the fluctuations in the character’s physical and mental health. If a game character - a mentally unhealthy detective who visits the city of Innsmouth in 1922 - is faced with something frightening, his condition worsens, and the player needs to look for a safe place to bring the hero back to normal. Unlike Eternal Darkness , the game does not present the player with an explicit scale of insanity, forcing him to focus on visible hallucinations and implicit clues ^[46] .

Transformation (2005-2010)

In 2005, Resident Evil 4 - the next game in the Resident Evil series - pushed the genre to a sharp turn in the direction of action games. Resident Evil 4 continued the plot of the previous games in the series - its hero Leon Kennedy is forced to search for the daughter of the US president in the Spanish outback, and his opponents are local peasants infected with a certain parasite, and various monstrous mutants. The difference between the game and the previous parts is the gameplay, requiring the player to shoot accurately at the target and react to dangers in a timely manner ^[47] - thus, elements typical for the action genre were introduced into the survival horror ^[48] , and moreover, Resident Evil 4 was perceived in later history precisely as an exemplary action game: for example, it was in this capacity that the developers of The Last of Us called it an inspirational model ^[49] . The game received many awards and entered the lists of the best games not only this year, but in history as a whole ^{[50] [51] [52]} , however, some critics argued that games of this kind can no longer be called survival horror ^{[53] [54]} , and that the Resident Evil series destroys the very foundations of the genre that it itself had previously established ^[3] . At the same time, several influential first-person shooters with pronounced survival horror elements were released - thus, the border between survival horror and action games was blurred on both sides. So, the Doom 3 (2004) game contained a number of design decisions, unusual in comparison with the previous games of the series, but characteristic of survival horror: its action takes place mostly in the dark, and the player must choose each time to use his flashlight, allowing him to see enemies and navigate the terrain, or with a weapon like a shotgun - it is impossible to simultaneously hold both a flashlight and a weapon ^{[55] [56]} . Similarly, the first-person shooter FEAR (2005) pushed the game character in battle with special forces, but at the same time used the images and techniques of horror films, in particular, Japanese cinema ^[57] , trying to cause the player a sense of anxiety and impending danger ^[55] .

A similar turn to action occurred in other popular survival horror series - games such as Silent Hill: Homecoming (2008) ^[53] or Alone in the Dark (2008) ^[58] were essentially action games; as a whole, these genre changes reflected the general tendency of console games of that time to action and made observers wonder “Is there still a survival horror genre?” ^[1] . Game critic Jim Sterling assumed that the genre lost its key features due to interface improvements related to battles - in other words, the more convenient combat system in the new generation survival horror itself encouraged the player to fight opponents, rather than run and hide from them ^{[53 ]} , while the journalist Lee Alexander believed that the roots of this evolution of the genre rooted in cultural differences between Japan and the West, and general changes in the gaming industry : the genre became popular in those days, when the market of console games have dominated the Japanese gap otchiki and their particular approach to the creation of the games of the genre defined content; however, over time, the industry has shifted more towards Western cultural values ^[1] .

In 2008, Dead Space was released by EA Redwood Shores . Dead Space and its sequels Dead Space 2 (2011) and Dead Space 3 (2013) were performed in the spirit of sci-fi horror; their action takes place in space and on other planets, and necromorphs , monsters created from the bodies of dead astronauts, are the opponents of the protagonist, engineer Isaac Clarke ^[59] . A characteristic feature of Dead Space is “tactical dismemberment” - the need to carefully choose a target on the body of the next enemy: for example, getting into the chest or head can only anger the monster, while cutting off the legs will greatly slow it down ^[60] . The commercial failure of Dead Space 3 was associated with the loss of the originality characteristic of previous games - the introduction of human opponents, weapons systems, microtransactions into the game made the game more friendly to a wide audience, but also less scary ^[61] . Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3 were extremely expensive games - about $ 100 million was spent on creating and marketing Dead Space 2 - but could not pay off. According to Zach Wilson, one of the developers of the series, the development of AAA-class horror games contradicted itself: such games, despite the enormous development costs, were difficult to sell as "too scary" for many players ^[62] .

Another significant game of this time was Left 4 Dead (2008) - a cooperative first-person game developed by Valve South ; In 2010, a sequel game was released - Left 4 Dead 2 . In Left 4 Dead, a group of four players encounters hordes of zombies - fast and moving creatures in the spirit of the films “ 28 Days Later ” and “ Dawn of the Dead ” ^[63] . Despite the unusual multiplayer gameplay for the genre, the developers of the game described it precisely as a “cooperative survival horror” ^[13] ; the game is characterized by the atmosphere of horror films, the weakness of the characters in the face of the superior forces of the enemy and the common goal of surviving and escaping from enemies, and not to exterminate them all. The gameplay of Left 4 Dead requires players to act in concert and help each other. The game relies heavily on advanced artificial intelligence - the “Director”, which tracks the actions of players and regulates what is happening in the game, for example, pushing players against a crowd of zombies or, conversely, giving them a break ^[63] .

Recent times (since 2010)

In the late 2000s, the Swedish company Frictional Games released a trilogy of short horror games Penumbra , remarkable for its unusually elaborate interaction with the environment. These games laid the foundation for the extremely successful game Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010) from the same developers - it had a huge impact on the survival horror genre. Prior to Amnesia, games in the spirit of Resident Evil or Dead Space , as a rule, were built around battles and the search for a few supplies; even more “scary” games, such as Silent Hill or System Shock 2 , did not escape this concept - the obligation to fight a certain external threat, while Amnesia does not contain battles at all, and the game character in it can only run away or hide ^{[7 ] [64]} . Amnesia is entirely devoted to the “internal” horrors, the psychosis of the character and the deterioration of his mental health - staying in the dark, encountering monsters in the light and watching various frightening scenes make the character more and more vulnerable, even to a catatonic state; the first-person game mode and thoughtful work with the image and sound — for example, the sounds of the character’s breathing and heartbeat — are designed to transmit the same emotions to the player ^[11] . Amnesia породила новый поджанр хоррор-игр от первого лица — в первую очередь, игр в духе « найденной пленки » наподобие Slender: The Eight Pages или Outlast ^[65] , и элементы дизайна Amnesia можно увидеть и в «нестрашных» играх наподобие Gone Home или Dear Esther ^[64] .

Всплеск популярности Amnesia: The Dark Descent и ей подобных игр в 2010-х годах был во многом обусловлен расцветом видеосервиса YouTube и массой выкладываемых на нём летсплеев — видеороликов, в которых зритель мог наблюдать не только за геймплеем игры, но комментариями и эмоциями играющего в него игрока ^[66] . Так, шведский видеоблогер Пьюдипай приобрел популярность благодаря чрезвычайно драматическим летсплеям Amnesia: The Dark Descent и подобных хоррор-игр ^[67] ; в дальнейшем, располагая многомиллионной аудиторией, Пьюдипай уже сам мог влиять на успех хоррор-игр, таких как Slender: The Eight Pages ^[68] . Slender: The Eight Pages (2012), как и её более крупнобюджетное продолжение Slender: The Arrival (2015), созданное канадской студией Blue Isle Studios, были выстроены на основе интернет-мифа о Слендермене : в этих играх персонаж игрока был вынужден обследовать безлюдные места, избегая встречи со Слендерменом — зловещим персонажем, напоминающим мужчину в строгом костюме. Эти игры не следовали ставшим привычными геймплейным устоям Resident Evil и Silent Hill , отличаясь примитивным геймплеем, но и большей оригинальностью; по мнению обозревателя Eurogamer Дэна Уайтхеда, они были тем же для жанра survival horror, что « Ведьма из Блэр » для киноужасов ^[69] . Ещё большую популярность благодаря YouTube и стримингу в реальном времени ^[70] приобрела серия малобюджетных инди-игр Five Nights at Freddy's (2014-2018), созданная разработчиком-одиночкой Скоттом Коутоном — эта серия превратилась в своего рода культ ^[71] . В этих играх игровой персонаж — ночной сторож пиццерии — должен избежать встречи с кровожадными аниматронными куклами, бродящими по заведению, используя дистанционно закрывающиеся двери и камеры наблюдения ^[72] . Хотя чрезмерно частый выпуск игр, мало отличающихся друг от друга и эксплуатирующих одну успешную формулу, и стал предметом критики ^[73] , серия стала коммерчески успешной, вплоть до создания множества фанатских игр по мотивам ^[74] и покупки Warner Bros прав на экранизацию ^[71] .

Игра Outlast (2014), созданная студией Red Barrels, необычным образом привносила экшн-элементы в survival horror: ключевым заимствованием из Amnesia , сделанным разработчиками игры, стало отсутствие оружия у игрового персонажа — журналиста, обследующего заброшенную психиатрическую лечебницу лишь с цифровой видеокамерой в руках ^[75] . При этом Outlast требует от игрока быстро реагировать на опасности, и игра содержит насыщенные действием погони, когда персонаж должен скрыться от преследующих его противников, часто в темных помещениях с незнакомой планировкой ^[76] .

Похожим образом, игра Alien: Isolation , выпущенная в 2014 году, отличалась от предыдущих игр по серии фильмов « Чужой » принципиальным упором на ужасы и скрытность, а не сражения ^[77] . Подобно фильму « Чужой », игровой персонаж в этой игре находится на космической станции с одним-единственным Чужим , необычайно умным и смертоносным инопланетным хищником, и должен всячески избегать столкновений с ним ^[78] . Искусственный интеллект Чужого был запрограммирован таким образом, чтобы создать у игрока иллюзию взаимодействия с разумным противником, который учится на каждом столкновении с игроком и соответственно меняет свою стратегию охоты ^[79] — именно с появлениями и поведением Чужого обозреватели связывали вызываемое игрой чувство ужаса ^{[78] [80]} .

В том же 2014 году была выпущена небольшая игра PT — «играбельный тизер» к другой, находящейся в разработке крупнобюджетной игре Silent Hills . PT изображала коридор в некоем доме, наполненном множеством пугающих деталей. Над PT и Silent Hills работали голливудский режиссёр Гильермо дель Торо и геймдизайнер Хидэо Кодзима ^[81] , однако проект Silent Hills был отменен по решению компании-издателя ^[82] . PT , даже будучи всего лишь тизером к другой игре, оставила свой след в истории жанра, собрав множество наград и почетных званий, в том числе как «самая страшная игра года» и породив несколько игр-подражателей ^[83] . Так, тизеру PT во многом подражала разработанная польской студией Bloober Team игра Layers of Fear (2016) о сходящем с ума художнике-шизофренике, запертом в собственном доме — в большей степени «симулятор ходьбы», чем привычный survival horror. Примечательной особенностью Layers of Fear было нарушение геометрии пространства, иллюстрирующее помутнение рассудка героя ^[84] . По словам одного из разработчиков игры Layers of Fear Рафаля Басая, PT продемонстрировала, что на рынке востребованы «страшные» игры, не являющиеся симуляторами выживания ^[85] .

В то время как несколько последовательных частей серии Resident Evil представляли собой скорее военные шутеры с путешествиями по всему миру, чем хоррор-игры ^[86] , Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017) описывалась как возвращение к истокам серии ^[87] или даже попытка «переизобрести» жанр survival horror заново ^[88] . Игра, выполненная в духе таких фильмов ужасов , как « Техасская резня бензопилой » или « Зловещие мертвецы », также развивала идеи Amnesia или Outlast , используя режим от первого лица, помещая игрового персонажа в тесные темные коридоры и принуждая убегать от бессмертного и упорного преследователя ^[86] .

• Литература ужасов
• Фильмы ужасов

• Survival Horror Zone - the first Ukrainian site about the Horror genre
• Horror genre on MobyGames
• Horror Games History
• Horror Game News - Latest Horror Game News
• Survivalhorror.ucoz.ru - forum about games of the genre Survival horror