Disturbing titles that take elements of terror, without being cataloged within the genre.
It was a dark and stormy night, as so many horror stories begin. Student Kaitlin Greenbriar was returning home after spending a year abroad. But her home was not the classic modern flat that we shared with our parents; It was an old mansion, inherited from a relative who died two years ago. To make matters worse, neither the girl’s parents nor the sister are there to greet her, as might be expected. As players, we are left to explore such a gloomy place in even less inviting circumstances. This was the premise of Gone Home, a title that in 2013 fueled the rise of the walking simulator. However, shortly after starting the game we realized that it was not a horror game, although it contained a lot of the genre’s topics. The halo of suspense that we live in our exploration keeps us in suspense, but we are sure that we will not suffer a heart attack. With a very emotional story, told through the intimate objects of characters that are not there, Gone Home is a good option for those who want their own Halloween adventure, but do not like traditional horror.
Gone Home and the Dark Mansion
While fear is a very personal feeling, there are a number of conventions within the genre. The darkness can be terrifying to one player, but may find it comforting to another. And yet, we can’t compare the night phases of Skyrim to the dark dimension of Silent Hill. Gamasutra lists the elements that a horror game must contain: fear of the unknown, sudden frights, anticipation and confusion. On this basis, cultural elements that we have learned as typical of a horror work can be added: enchanted castles, sinister forests, ghosts … Taking some of these ingredients, it is possible to create a work that, without being commercialized as terror, can be disturbing .
The aforementioned Gone Home starts from a situation that we identify as a horror adventure: the stormy night, the investigation of a dark mansion, the loneliness, the disappearance of our family … Polygon analyzes how the title of Fullbright causes uneasiness without being terrifying: “The point is that Gone Home is not a horror game, at least not in the traditional sense. What you do – and what happens to you during your exploration – are not threatening per se. The player, like Katie, examines residue domestic looking for clues. […] After the beginning lamp, the lights do not suddenly turn off to turn back on. And the doors and the floor don’t creak, unless we provoke it. And that’s how the story unfolds: with the player looking at family things to discover the reason for their disappearance. “
Gone Home home screen
In the same essay, it is pointed out how, precisely, the exploration and what we reveal about our family is the most sinister: there are no sudden scares, nor does anyone stalk us behind corners or from a closed room. “It is a game full of a void that we cannot fill in conditions. Or, put another way, it is a haunted house where the house itself is the monster. […] The mansion seems to be fine, but there is something in it that does not add up. And it is that the terrifying thing in Gone Home is not provided by the curse of a spectrum, but the family drama itself marked by intolerance and violence.
Hellblade and psychological terror
Hellblade is a title that, although it is classified as psychological terror, has raised the popular debate about whether or not it deserves to enter that category. The Ninja Theory adventure is totally devoid of sudden scares. However, the hyper-realistic portrait of psychosis and how that vulnerability and confusion is transmitted to the player take him to the limit that separates the thriller from the classic horror. Wired’s Reviews describes it this way: “Hellblade’s very simple story, part revenge narrative and part Orpheus myth, is rooted in psychological complexity. The voices attack you almost from the beginning of the game, the binaural audio puts them around you. Whispers of despair, anger, fear, even deception. These are the voices inside Senua’s head. An on-screen warning describes them as psychosis, but whatever the cause, the invasive auditory hallucinations reproduce an unstable environment, constantly shifting like memories of trauma erupting around Senua. It is not clear if it is a magical test designed by cruel gods, or if it is only the mind of the young woman.
Senua in Hellblade
Likewise, Hellblade presents a Senua very competent in war matters, but very vulnerable in so many other aspects, as Fanbyte points out: “We will spend half the game without weapons and in fear and, when combat comes, it is posed in a very different way. to horror games to use. Senua faces a ridiculous number of enemies throughout the game, which can be interpreted as a lazy design. The intention of the game is manifested when her enemies go from being mist and ash to lashing out at her and then vanishing under her blade ”.
Likewise, the report mentions how the hyper-realistic body language achieved through motion capture by Melina Juergens reproduces a vulnerability that the player feels is authentic. His constant emotional breakdowns and the relentless violence he receives throughout the game create a claustrophobic atmosphere that also makes the cutscenes more intimate.
Fight in Hellblade
To top it all, Hellblade starts from a usual narrative of epic fantasy, but without a happy ending. Its outcome breaks with the tradition of other stories of revenge with a satisfactory ending, or of the triumph of love over death. “The demystification of love as a cure for illness and suffering enriches Senua’s portrait, as well as the cold and bitter feeling it conjures up. Contrast this with the outdated cynicism of Amnesia or the action-movie pretenses of Resident Evil and we will understand how Hellblade raises the emotional bar in the horror genre ”(Fanbyte).
Oxenfree and the teen horror
Within the horror genre, we find the category of teen horror, which is translated as teenage horror. Popularized through cinema, its protagonists and target audience are teenagers. The plot is about a group of young people facing a serial killer or a higher threat. Likewise, the subplot explores issues that concern these ages: first love, sex, social acceptance or the search for one’s own identity.
Image by Oxenfree
Although the slasher narrative – a psychopath chases a group of minors outside of the absence of their parents – is the most common, there are many stories that can be created from teen horror. An example of this is Oxenfree (Night School Studio): Alex and his friends meet on an island for a fun weekend, when they run into a paranormal mystery because of tuning in to a radio frequency. In a 2D5 adventure, we don’t have audiovisual showmanship and not even sudden scares or creepy creatures. On the other hand, and parallel to the main thread of suspense, we witness the problems of Alex and his gang. Past trauma, sexual tensions and animosities influenced by our decisions. Sequences of customs such as the game of “truth or slap” put us in the shoes of these young people with whom we can feel identified if we have lived that stage of our life, or if we are still in it.
Kotaku describes how Oxenfree, within the context of teen horror and suspense, does not end up being a horror title, but it does leave an uneasy residue on the player: “Oxenfree won’t make you scream. It is not a horror game of those, and it is not even a horror title. It’s not that kind of game streamers are going to squeeze in for their funny sudden scares. However, Oxenfree is seen to get into your head and will stir you up when you try to go to bed. It will make you worry about his characters and that they come out safe and sound ”.
Capture of Oxenfree
In Oxenfree there is that vulnerability typical of adolescent horror films, since the boys cannot turn to their parents for protection or help to solve their problems. Likewise, there are dark scenarios and confrontation of the unknown and paranormal, with very tense sequences and a very special role of radio communication. Costumbrismo, according to Kotaku, makes this title moving: “Even the most supernatural sections of Oxenfree play with concepts and events that, in a way, could have happened in real life. The game loses some of its potential to become a horror game that won’t let you sleep. Instead, he took very good advantage of his opportunity to focus on the characters, which is not bad either. ” In addition, Oxenfree takes teens seriously, without restricting them into narrow stereotypes. The personal dramas of Alex and company, although mundane, have relevance even within the danger that surrounds them, and it is that there are few fears greater than forced maturity.
Adorable terror
Image from Among Us
Plot: a group of astronauts inside a ship, during their routine tasks, discover that their companions are gradually being killed. One of them is not who he claims to be, since he has been replaced by an evil alien parasite that has taken control of his body. Paranoia settles in the crew, who must unmask the impostor while continuing with their maintenance and repair tasks. A priori, it could be the recipe for a horror game with an obvious reference to La Cosa, but it is a strategy title that has little to do with terror: Among Us. With a charming colorful aesthetic and caricatured violence, we forget that this is a game that, with another artistic direction, would make us experience tension even more intensely.
With a similar formula and a different result we find Fran Bow and Little Misfortune, from Killmonday Games. With illustrations that evoke a children’s story and a certain Gothic touch, we are faced with two dark fantasy titles starring girls trapped in an adult world full of creepy images. Through their innocence, they describe events that we read with other horrified eyes. Terror is not even the objective of these chilling titles, as Natalia Figueroa, designer of both titles, tells NoobFeed: “We are aware that many people will not play for gore, but we are not worried because it is a decision we made from the beginning. . If the game is scary, it’s cool because it’s a horror game, and if it’s not scary, it’s also cool because Fran Bow isn’t just about scares, fear and blood. There is a beautiful story behind it and gore is part of it ”.
Little Misfortune Image
Fear is a very personal feeling, as well as aspects that can cause us to experience anguish. All in all, these titles are good proposals for a Halloween evening in which we don’t feel like being too scared … or maybe we do?
