Can Survival Horror Make A Mainstream Comeback? - Adam's Rant

GamingUnion: "So Capcom's latest round of boasting includes their expected sales figures for Resident Evil 6, which they expect to hit around 7 million copies and everyone is all abuzz about Shinji Mikami (the designer behind the original Resident Evil title) creating a true survival horror experience instead. When looking a bit further afield, we've had some pretty decent survival horror games recently too. Dead Space 2, Left 4 Dead 2, and F.E.A.R. 3 were all enjoyable enough games, and at times scary in their own right. But are these titles are hardly representative of the state of survival horror, and Resident Evil's success shouldn't be taken as a sign that the genre is flourishing amongst the masses. Quite the opposite, it feels like each new generation of horror games does more to streamline the fear and do away with all of the limiting factors that make survival horror games so much fun to play. So where do we turn to for games that are more psychological thrillers than they are shoot em up? Why the indie scene of course."

[mephman]

I think a lot if going to ride on Zwei. Resident Eivl 6 doesn't look like it's going to be remotely scary.

[WeskerChildReborned]

RE6 will probably have some scares here and then but that's not enough, i need scares that will make me wan't to stop playing the game and actually get me scared cause i don't scare to easy from movies or games.

[LOGICWINS]

A comeback? Pretty sure that survival horror has never been mainstream. Heck, gaming in general just recently became mainstream within the past decade with GTA3.

[Trenta27]

Everything seems to have a survival horror mode now. Even if they don't have it at launch, it almost always ends up there in the end.

[TukkerIntensity]

No mention of the Arma 2 DayZ mode that is taking the internets by storm? Been playing this all week - all hours of the day none stop. Stellar.

[Kurisu]

Resident Evil used to be scary. The music...those camera angles...the atmosphere was spot on. The series has changed so much, and it would be nice if they went back to their roots one day.

[Lord_Sloth]

RE was never scary in my opinion and I could never figure out why it was regarded as such. It was too clunky and the zombies were too slow to be considered any kind of threat.

[Hufandpuf]

I was 7 years old when I first played RE (the one with the mansion). When I saw the first zombie, I didn't know how to kill it. I got so scared that I tried to exit the game, but I didn't know how. So I just turned off the monitor and left the room lol.

[Kurisu]

Ha, well I guess I was really young when RE first came out, so that is probably a big contribution to why I found it scary. I wonder if Capcom would ever consider a full blown remake of any of the first 3 games? It would be interesting to see how that would work out.

@Hufandpuf: Lol! I used to have nightmares about the game. Lickers used to chase me through corridors xD

[dark-hollow]

THIS.

I dont know why people call it scary.
Silent Hill on the other hand was very freaky.

[ShaunCameron]

Resident Evil aside, the survival-horror genre was never that popular. And that goes for just about every genre except the universally recognized IP's.

[rbluetank]

i was hoping the new Silient Hill game would bring more people back to horror game. the reviews of the new silent hill game said it flopped on horror! R5 was not even scary.... it was fun but not scary...

[Hicken]

Yeah, I don't know if I'd say it was mainstream, but survival-horror was pretty popular for a while. I remember all my gaming friends raving about Silent Hill and Resident Evil. Like all the other genres, though- and perhaps before the others- it now suffers from an desire to be accessible to new gamers.

Frankly, this accommodating nature is killing gaming, as developers seek to maximize the appeal their games have, and so bring in more profits.