Interior night, at home, on Halloween night. If you are no longer old enough for fancy dress parties, but still old enough to get into the scary mood, you can choose to watch a horror film in the dark, or play a video game. In the sector too, horror is one of the most prolific genres, with its codes and its great classics.
There are as many reasons to love horror games as there are players. For Thomas, who prefers games with a group atmosphere (like Phasmophobia, the ghost hunter simulator), it’s “the surprise, and the laughter that comes after the initial fright”. For Geoffroy, it’s “the atmosphere, the settings, the macabre and offbeat universe”. For “Armoff”, a specialist videographer who co-founded “Armuhlteam” and hosts the shows “Les Jambes en cotton” and “Creepy as sh*t” on the Internet, it is the capacity of horror games to “provoke emotion and rejection on very specific themes.”
From the big screen to the small
Unhealthy and supernatural atmosphere, or on the contrary jumps, big monsters and hemoglobins: the ingredients remain the same as in the cinema. “There is a folkloric, iconographic aspect that we take from horror films,” analyzes Guillaume Baychelier, doctor of art and author of Havens of fear, Place of horror in video games.
According to the expert, all video games are inspired by cinema. But horror game directors have often explicitly cited landmarks of the genre, like Shinji Mikami from Resident Evil citing Romero’s zombie films.
Another title from the 1990s was influenced by genre cinema: Alone in the Dark. “As a child, I worked in my father’s store, between computers and video stores,” said Frédérick Raynal, director of the game, during a round table organized at the beginning of October at the Pompidou Center. That’s how I discovered fantasy and horror films. » Conversely, cinema licenses are now taking inspiration from video games, such as the recent Alien Romulus which uses settings from the game Alien: Isolation.
“Show the player that he is not in control”
But certain horror game codes are only permitted by interactivity “Many constraints are imposed on the player, which involve stress and difficulty,” describes Guillaume Baychelier. You have to show the player that he is not necessarily in control of the rhythm. At the start of the adventure in particular, he does not have the possibility of defending himself, he is less strong than his enemies and is not at all guaranteed to win. » “We are going to use the same codes, making the player responsible: he is obliged to do what is expected of him, even if he knows that it will trigger fear,” adds Armoff. “We can always choose to put down the controller, but from the moment we want to finish the game, we agree to give up part of the control,” adds Tachiyomi, another member of the Armuhlteam.
The first mainstream horror games were also born with the technical limitations of a time when three 3D polygons represented the future of video games. “I knew that the game would not be scary with its graphics,” continues Frédérick Raynal, creator ofAlone in the Dark. I tried to work around what the player was forced to do: move. » The game team manages to create permanent uncertainty in the player, thanks to a few ideas such as the use of off-camera, or even the use of sound, sometimes leaving the music that usually accompanies the game randomly. appearance of the monster.
Living deadAlone in the Dark at the famous Pyramid Head of Silent Hill or the more recent Slenderman, the figure of the monster also often serves as a bridge between the playful elements and the themes addressed by the game. “There are monsters in all tales,” says Armoff. The antagonist is impactful and it’s always an allegory of something. » “What the player wants to see is often the monster anyway, they want to know what they are up against,” says Tachiyomi.
A genre that wants to break out of its niche
The artistic movements follow one another: the games will for a time lean towards the side of action, then Amnesia, The Dark Descent will create a wave of first-person games whose staging allows you to enjoy them like a spectacle. The explosion of video on the Internet (read the box) and the independent scene will complete the multiplication of proposals: zombies of Resident Evil to reflections on trauma and history portrayed in games like Detention, there is something for everyone.
The horror genre, still niche, is trying to expand. According to Capcom, Resident Evil Villagereleased in 2021, has sold 10 million copies in three years. A good success, but far from adventure games like The Last of Usor chestnut trees like the series Call of Duty. “In 2024, we saw around sixty horror game trailers at Summer Game Fest,” comments Armoff, who has been covering genre news for twelve years. We feel that the genre is on the rise. » Even if Halloween is over, players are not done playing to scare each other.
