Written by Harsh Mehta and Swarnava Banerjee
Edited by Nishtha Chakrabarthy
Illustrated by Shresha Kumar
Horror in modern media has pretty much just turned into cheap jumpscares coinciding with dramatic musical flares and characters that act nothing like real people would. Once you learn the tricks Hollywood uses to create cheap cash-grab horror flicks, the seams really start to show. However, at predent, there’s a medium that’s creating far more innovative and terrifying experiences - video games.
There’s a reason video games gel well with the horror genre, being – immersion. With movies, they have to make active efforts to get you to empathise and place yourself into the shoes of the characters. That comes with the territory when it comes to video games. You control the characters– if they’re brutally killed by a monster, it isn’t a character you feel no connection to being killed. It’s you. You made a mistake and were killed, and you’ll have to do better to progress in the story.
One can take into account the various manners of changes which video games have gone through themselves. From wandering the dim, dusky, retro-styled hallways of a dilapidated mansion with only a lantern as a source of light in Amnesia– all the while under the threat of an unexplainable entity which helps set the ambience of fearful apprehension– to the modernistic approach of “ghost-hunting” in the form of virtual reality in the videogame Phasmophobia which skillfully utilises the different aspects associated with the paranormal such as E.M. Frequencies, Temperature Displays, Motion Sensors and many more to ascertain presence along with a myriad of methods to dispel the same. The aspect of virtual reality in this particular game gives it a definitive edge as one can experience these occurrences as a semblance of perceived reality.
The contrast here indicates the evolution of a genre. In its infancy, a sense of helplessness was the best tool to inflict horror in the player. Not being able to shoot and run simultaneously in Resident Evil, not being able to defeat the monsters in Amnesia, the ever-present entity of the Slenderman, etc. were ways of trying to immerse the player into the role of the protagonist and make them truly feel the character's despair. However, the evolution of the genre’s tropes, advancement of technology and more advanced narrative structures allows for far more varied horror experiences. Take Doom 3, Phasmophobia, PT– all of these experiences do put some power in your hands. Fear can be confronted, and the experience can progress forward, but the atmosphere of dread and isolation they create for the player to experience are truly unforgettable.
Horror works amazingly as a narrative tool for stories as well. For a moment, let’s set aside the traditional horror genre, and take The Last of Us, a game lauded for its excellent character work and the emotional bonds the players share with its characters. Joel and Ellie are two characters we come to know the lives of, who survived through some unlikely circumstances. You play as Joel, a middle-aged man who lost his daughter during the initial zombie outbreak– shot by government soldiers, which immediately creates an “us versus the world” mindset in the player. Not only do the characters have to worry about mindless flesh-eating zombies, but also governmental agencies that ade focused on putting on a front and maintaining order. Furthermore, it includes opportunistic bandits that’ll do anything to get what they want. We meet Ellie as an uncaring, retreated Joel, simply armed with the task of delivering her to a different part of the country. A young girl that survived all these years in the apocalypse is a miracle but Joel stays shut-off, simply wanting to finish his job and get paid. However, as the journey continues, Joel and subsequently the player learn more about Ellie and her past and the horrors that she’s lived through. Joel and Ellie start bonding like father and daughter against the horrors of the hellscape around them. It’s exactly that horrific environment that makes the player bond with the characters in the story so quickly and deeply.
Fear is truly a primal part of us humans, and that is quite fascinating. We revert back to a traditional fight or flight instinct or go about dealing with it methodically. A quick rush of adrenaline, or a creeping sense of dread, there’s something a little inexplicably satisfying about a truly immersive horror experience, and that is precisely what video games provide us with.
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