The State of Horror Games in 2022: …Is Actually Great?
I’ve been writing these The State of Horror Games posts for several years now, but here’s a quick recap: The state hasn’t been that great for several years. Too many genres were never the same after the PlayStation 2/Xbox/GameCube era (emphasis on the first system), with horror games among them. There were a good number of them early during the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360/Wii generation, but few survived thanks to the requirement for increased budgets with the advent of high-definition graphics. Even the Resident Evil franchise, the perpetual king of horror gaming since the mid-1990s, shifted fully to action during this era. The number of lower-budget games in the genre was fortunately solid, particularly as the PlayStation 4/Xbox One era began, but it was a grim time outside them.
Fortunately, Resident Evil 7 showed how there was still a significant audience for horror games outside the lower-budget and less-risky (for a good portion of developers, anyway) indie space. A number of developers and publishers took notice of that game’s success. Thanks to how long video games take to make, we’re now starting to see the projects several of them started work on at their earliest opportunity. For the first time in a while, the future is bright for horror games with a budget.
It also makes sense that all these games are popping up now, beyond Capcom’s efforts. Video games with the highest budgets are only requiring more resources to complete, coupled with a need to for them to include larger and larger worlds. Horror games don’t require budgets that are quite as high, and the best examples of the genre have small and tight worlds to increase the level of intensity for the player to feel. Multiple publishers realized this in an almost simultaneous manner, which helps explain the laundry list of upcoming titles.
The aforementioned RE7 fully reestablished the RE brand as a horror franchise, with titles like Resident Evil Village and the recent Winters’ Expansion being released, along with the superlative remakes of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3. But the biggest upcoming title is Resident Evil 4 remake, an updated version of the original game that will increase the horror elements beyond the moderately atmospheric environments and keep the action elements. It looks to be the best of both worlds, perhaps the first RE title to achieve this since, well, the original Resident Evil 4.
RE remains the king, as I mentioned above, but it’s also a glorious time because Konami announced the return of its biggest competition: Silent Hill. There are a whopping four games in development from multiple developers around the world, including the Silent Hill 2 remake form Bloober Team, the very experimental Silent Hill: Ascension from a number of developers, Silent Hill: Townfall from No Code and Annapurna Interactive, and Silent Hill f from NeoBards and Ryukishi07. Sure, they’re all outsourced, the types of experiments that have been an extremely mixed bag for the franchise following the dissolution of Konami’s internal Team Silent development block, but keep your fingers crossed. It’s nice, at least, that Konami is investing in console gaming again.
Another big upcoming game is Alan Wake II. The first game was thought to be a horror game before it released, only for it to be more of a standard action-adventure game. The same went for the American Nightmare follow-up. That’s not the case for the actual sequel, which developer Remedy Entertainment clarified would jump knee deep into survival horror. The game’s reveal was delayed from the summer 2022 timeframe, but development is apparently progressing well. This would have been a great month to show it, however.
The Callisto Protocol is among those releasing in the near future, specifically on December 2nd. It’s a title spearheaded by ex-Dead Space developers who worked for the dissolved Visceral Games, who hopefully weren’t worked too hard before the game went gold. Speaking of Dead Space: EA Motive is working on a remake of the first installment due for release in January. Other titles include a remake of the previously Wii and Japan-exclusive Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, and a reboot for the Alone in the Dark franchise from THQ Nordic. This is showing just how heavy of a year 2023 will be for games in the genre with solid budgets behind them.
Of course, I can’t forget the smaller and indie titles, which largely powered this feature for several years. Nor am I saying some of these games don’t have solid budgets themselves, especially those which are follow-ups to previously successful games. Autopsy Simulator looks good, and there’s potential with psychological horror title Paranoid. The same applies to Layers of Fears, another title coming from Bloober Team, though its budget is visibly (and unsurprisingly) not on par with the SH2 remake. There’s also Unholy, a narrative-driven first-person horror title. The Outlast series has proven to be reliable hits, and The Outlast Trials could be the newest one.
Please don’t take this post as a comprehensive list of every horror game coming, because the genre will soon offer an embarrassment of riches. This could potentially be the best state the genre has been in since the PS2 era nearly two decades ago, assuming a fair majority of these titles turn out well. The genre’s shimmering and shuddering revival will ideally be here to stay.
About The Author
Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
