When was the last time you were genuinely frightened by a horror game? The horror genre has taken a backseat in videogames, as developers these days prefer to concentrate on games that offer a wider appeal such as first-person shooters.
We were pleasantly surprised (or should we say shocked) to discover two titles at E3 that might just bring back horror games to the mainstream.
The Evil Within is a love letter to the horror genre from director Shinji Mikami who was responsible for the highly successful Resident Evil series.
Bethesda, the studio behind the game, set the tone right for our E3 playthrough of The Evil Within. We entered a dark corridor that led us to a pitch black room with game consoles, TVs and headphones.
It must have been the darkness but were nervous even before we picked up the controller, as we didn’t know what to expect. The Evil Within has plenty of such moments where the fear of the unknown is more scary than monsters.
The game starts with Detective Sebastian Castellanos waking up in a clearing in the woods with a creepy old mansion just beyond it. As we explored the mansion, we picked up several boxes of ammo and collected a strange jar filled with green liquid (apparently this is the currency for upgrading his skills and abilities).
Resources are scarce in The Evil Within, so making every shot count adds to the tension. It was not long before we encountered undead creatures feasting on a corpse. As it turns out, enemies cannot be killed with bullets alone — only fire stops them permanently.
And there are larger creatures in the game where the player’s only option is to run and hide. Indeed, running and hiding is something most modern horror games don’t let you do but this is essential in the second game that we saw, Alien: Isolation.
Very much like its name, the events of Isolation remain separate from the movies. It follows the journey of Ellen Ripley’s daughter Amanda who is searching for her mother 15 years after she had gone missing.
Inevitably your search goes awry and you find yourself trapped on a ship with the lone Alien that has killed nearly all the ship’s crew.
Although you have at your disposal high tech gadgets like the famous motion tracker, the Alien has a dynamic artificial intelligence that does not follow a set pattern, making it difficult to avoid. Just when you think you are safe, the Alien can sneak up behind you.
Resource gathering is crucial and the Alien is not your only problem as the androids on the ship have also turned against you, complicating matters even further.
You just have to wait until October to find out for yourself how scary the two titles really are. The game will be released for current and next-gen consoles, as well as PCs.
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