Why do you hate Horror Games?

Hello Guys,


We are in the middle of creating a horror FPS game. We are fully aware that there are a great deal of people who hate horror games with a passion. If you are one of those people please reply to this thread as you will be helping us do research for our game. Why do you hate horror games? We need answers so we can avoid doing what majority of people hate. So spill it guys!

 

I hate most modern day horror games. Horror games nowadays are becoming way too cookie cutter and they lack all originality. Many of the horror games nowadays use cheap jump scare tactics, loud noises, etc. Theres no fun in being cheaply scared.

I'm a huge fan of older Horror games like STALKER, Silent Hill, Resident Evil Outbreak, Penumbra, The Suffering, Cryostasis, and Condemned. All the horror games that I love and have partially listed here are nearly perfectly done. Perfect amount of atmosphere, ambience, surprises, etc. Another thing I love about older horror games is the way they mess with your head and make you feel anxious, depressed, etc.

 

fully aware of what? what statistics do you have?

 

I also love the old style horror. I don't find blood and gore scary, just disgusting and wouldn't play a game like that. Use mystery, surprises, atmosphere, etc., to make a game scary, not splatters of blood and intestines.

 

I think there is probably a Dave Chappelle skit about black people at horror movies "providing commentary" about how stupid most of the characters are. The problem with games is the stupid one happens to be me, because I'm the one having to do it.

Add in a reliance on jump scares and cheap tactics, they just end up being far longer than I want to spend with them. Hell, that's a good chunk of the reason I still haven't gotten past a few hours of any of the shock games save for infinite.

 

I think in the year 1995 or so.. i played Doom in my PC i played this games alone and i like that game in the start when times run the sound and the music started to irritate me and i puked .. Then after few years later i played Alien vs Predator alone , again sound and the music started to irritate and scared me but this time luckily i didn't Puke LOL .. . What i am trying to say is if i play this games without sound and music i don't think i would have scared that much or Puked. the Sound and Music are very important for any games especially for the Horror Games .. again this is only my experience on Horror Games. and there is one game i liked.. it is "Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines" Nice RPG and its like mine GTA

 

Because they're not horrific.

 

Some games are too scary, or not scary enough.

 

stalker did it right, you have more control over your character, leaning, shoot stance, prone,
being able to bleed out.. being effected by radiation, mind damage, heat damage
stalker has been the only video game that Ive been scared while playing..

stalkers levels are so dangerous, you can die at any moment, so you have to be suuper cautious,
you want to enter locations, like warehouses or buildings.. you want to enter them, to see if you can find loot, but youre afraid what crazy stuff might be going on there that could instantly kill you..
i played it with mods to make it harder... i loved using a bolt action rifle, it made it alot more tense..
the feeling you are really weak compared to the enemy.. like in the beginning you have a crappy pistol .. once i got a good assault rifle, the game felt alot more boring haha

outlast, ive never played, but seen it played entirely, and it seems REALLY TOO linear.. like only one path was available.. maybe im wrong, i never played it, but it seemed lamely linear.. and the fact you cant fight back, to me feels lame..
you should feel like you can fight back, but maybe, that your ability to fight back is weak

horror games generally just arent for me.. im not scared by fake stuff.. zombies, vampires, werewolves, ghosts etc... what scares me lol is thugs, like people breaking into my house and killing me while i sleep LOL... fake stuff is just lame..

stalker made it somewhat believable i guess... but really, its a shooting game, and the fear is mainly from "i can die at any moment, do i enter this building... ooohhh nooo im not sure i can handle it, i just have a handgun with 20 bullets"

the reason I hate horror games, is usually theyre full of fake crap .. and people hype them up way too much lol .. five nights at freddys is total crap.. i dont get why anyone likes it ???
theres nothing really for me to say why it sucks, it just does.. its like those games from 10-15 years ago that sucked even then..

all said.. i suppose im not the person to ask, because, generally, i just will not care about ANY horror game at all.. i usually laugh at what people think is scary, more than iam ever scared.. like really most horror stuff is just comedic.. unless its based in reality, like messed up psychos doing stuff i guess.. but then, i just dont want to know about that stuff and its not entertaining..

i cared about stalker cause it was a shooting adventure game.. but im surprised that i was genuinely scared much of the time, it made me feel like i didnt ever want to leave the safe zones, because the world was too dangerous.

 

Does he need an International Data Corporation research to find out some people don't like horror games? lol

@OP: I hate horror and thriller movies and games, simply because I hate being scared/desperate. Really do.
I would be out of your target, for example.

 

I think Alien: Isolation did a reasonable job at forcing you into situations where you had to learn how to use what tools are available to you against hazards such as the Alien, Synthetics, and other enemies. I think the only thing about that game that didn't make it very scary was the fact that the music practically warns you when a dangerous situation is happening. Some people get more scared because of the music, but I think that any form of warning you when danger is coming takes away from the fear factor. In my honest opinion, people are more scared of what they can't detect that can kill them as opposed to what they are aware of that can kill them. What did make the game a bit more on the scary side is the Alien constantly tracking you and its footsteps making you think it is close (especially if you have no idea where in the room it might be), however the Alien also gives a hint that it can see you by doing a certain hissing noise which gives the player a chance to react and kinda takes away from the fear factor.

Resident Evil 1 is a very good example of a horror game done really well. Not only do you need to worry about Zombies, but you have to worry about Hunters, dogs, traps and bosses. In the RE Remake you also have to worry about Crimson Heads (I don't remember if they were in the original, I don't think so but I could be wrong) where if you kill a Zombie and didn't burn it, it would spawn as a faster and more lethal zombie making it much harder to complete your objectives in a particular room.

The item limitation in Resident Evil also made situations scary, because it's harder to figure out what you'll need before exploring the mansion and you have to determine what to prioritize between weapons/ammo, healing items and items that will help you progress through the game. Not only that, but you were pretty much penalized for killing Zombies (because ammo you use in the beginning might have an effect on what you can do in the middle of the game and also because of the previously-mentioned crimson heads). You had to be careful about your choices.

Edit: Sorry I know the topic is called "Why do you hate horror games?" and I don't hate horror games unless they're labeled as horror games but really don't seem very scary.

 

I can't stand horror games because it requires the game to jar and shock/scare the player which requires original experiences, but ofter horror games pile on the tropes and rip off anything original into oblivion. That or they get so far up their own ass they forget to be fun.

I think I've liked, at best, four horror games for their horror factor:
-Alone in the Dark
-X:Com
-Left 4 Dead
-Slender

Then as for the "popular" titles I can tell you why I didn't like them:
Outlast - could not stand the pacing and the agressive screen filters all over the place.
Resident Evil - Cheesy Alone in the Dark clone with terrible story. Then it turned into an action game.
Amnesia - Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored. Also, this was better when it was called "Eternal Darkness".
Freddy's - Have not played it to be honest.
Dead Space - Very EA, and it was mostly action, not horror.

 

I hate horror games because most techniques to scare player (like jumpscares, gore etc.) are overused and it lacks originality!

 

Check horror movie reviews, they generally get bashed. This is one of the best horror movies ever made, possibly the best: 73 on metacritic. Stephen King, story goes, actually bought every seat in a single showing of the movie and sat right in the middle, just so he could enjoy the movie with zero interruptions. King of horror loves it, still people are like... meh.

People hate horror because it scares them, its horrible and they don't like it. But they keep watching them, so horror makes money even though people hate it... maybe because they hate it. Ironic, isn't it?

What you should be asking yourself, is how do you intentionally upset people in such a way that they can't take their eyes off your game without going so far that they get grossed out and turn it off. That's the ticket!

Do yourself a favor and read Danse Macabre, he basically tells you how to do it.

 

28 days later is awesome!! ... i saw it more as an adventure movie...
not scary... interesting to imagine yourself in the situation.. for the adventure... lol

people think of it as a horror movie?? ... weird..

that movie i think is a HUGE reason sooo many zombie video games exist, while i was watching that movie, i kept thinking, what would i do in that situation? and it was so exciting...

i think the first thing i thought, when i saw the city empty of people was... damnn!! im gonna go get me a ferrari .. or some expensive awesome car!! .. loool

 

We must have seen two different movies, the 28 Days Later that I have seen twice was not a fun adventure.

 

nah same movie... i was a teenager i guess... and fictional horror literally has 0 effect to scare me... only like.. being raped or killed in my sleep by thugs or something... or being nuked.. or damn.. lol i have alot of nightmares about airplanes hunting me down haha

... i guess i seen the thriller element, but it was more adventure thrill ..

 

Well, to be fair, you can't be scared of something that you are incapable of relating to. If your takeaway from 28 days is that it's a thrilling adventure, but you're scared of rape and being killed in your sleep or being destroyed by military psychopaths... literally, all of that is in the movie.

 

but it was a movie lol ... fictional, scripted nonsense thats happening an unknown infinite distance and time seperate from my own...

...yeah... horror fiction has no effect on me lol .. unless its "realizational?" like .. "NUKES EXIST SUCKAH IT MIGHT HAPPEN WATCH OUT!!" lool

oooh... no... whats horrified me is documentary films... never fictional movies..

im waay too skeptical of a person, about everything... im really not the right person to be talking to about horror stuff so ill stop now LOL

 

Ok. So? Do you not relate to fiction, comedy isn't funny because it's on TV? Action isn't exciting because it's not really happening? I don't think I understand what your meaning is.

 

Sorry to get in late to the conversation, but:

You think that's bad?

Kubrick was nominated for a Razzie for The Shining.

Kubrick!
The Shining!
The-mother-loving-come play with us-redrum-all work and no play make Jack a dull boy-Danny's not here-Here's Jonny!-Shining.

What the hell?!

Seriously.

 

If you're going to be inspired by another title, make sure you innovate. When you interact with horror anything (movies, books, holidays, games, etc) you want something new. Also, your game will do better if you focus on creepy instead of scary. For every 1 jump scare you plan to toss in, have at least 3-5 build up cues.

Don't just jump someone out of nowhere giving them 2 seconds of "WTF was that!?". Give them flickering lights, footsteps, ambient noise that is associated with an upcoming event... and then don't always act on that. The user should be able to use those cues to avoid the scare altogether. The longer the user can avoid the scare, the more tension there will be built up when the scare actually happens.

Make avoiding the scare simple, but increasingly difficult. Maybe if the player does something significantly uncomfortable it lowers the difficulty. Say some scratches are coming from the other side of a door. If the player approaches the door and opens it... you can either scare the player, as expected. Or you can show nothing at all, also expected.

As a third option, you can take a 3D audio source and run that past the player. Some wind & some hard footsteps, maybe also accompanied by the lights cutting out. The player will be scared, wary of such interactions in the future, but also still prone to your big reveal when you give in and throw the monster at them

 

I'm in the same boat. I've never really been a fan of the genre, and I've been playing through some of the more popular ones recently, and I just don't really get the appeal. Particularily Outlast. I really had to force myself through that game, and just wasn't getting it. Though I did really enjoy P.T, something about it was just creepy. Gone Home was unsettling at times too, but the payoff was pretty disapointing, IMO.

Resident Evil is definitely a classic, and it is full of jump scares. I think there is a right way to do jump scares, but it is hard to put my finger on it. Maybe when its infrequent, and not the focus of the game?

I'm actually in the final stages of wrapping up a horror game too. Originally wanted to do something more like Night Trap, and was just wanting to design a passive photography game that takes place in a single house with very few animations. After months of trying to figure out "what are you taking pictures of though", I finally caved and went with ghosts.

Most of the focus was on subtly, like opening doors, moving shadows, floating objects, objects turning themselves on or making noise, etc. At some point I decided to sprinkle in a few jump scares (like a crow flying towards the player when you enter a room). I've actually managed to scare myself a few times playtesting it, but its always from something subtle like the shadow of a tree blowing in the wind.

 

Those are critics for you.

 

@DocLogic creepy is way more effective than "scary". It puts people on edge so mundane events become frightening and people are scared and tense long after they stop playing / watching

5 nights at freddy's is a great example. The first game was creepy, the second game was scary. The second game went from 4 animatronics all the way up to 10 or 11, and focused too much on jump scares. There's no build up. The first game is much better for leaving you actually scared, because of the build up and creepiness. Those things approach the doors and you have your "oh sh*t" moment before slamming them shut, hoping they don't get in. Similarly, when the power runs out, you have another moment and hope the clock hits 6 before freddy's song finishes. And, saving the best for last, the malfunctioning door. This is one of the most tense moments in the game (initially), because you know something is in the room with you and you're just waiting for your doom. But if it's late enough in the night, there's still a small chance you'll live.

If the right door malfunctions, you have to close the left door and stare at the right door. If you don't, freddy will get you. If the left door malfunction, you are basically screwed because foxy will get you. You can close the right door to stop freddy, but it's really a matter of RNG / Time for the left door because of foxy.

First game... super well done. Simple, using an obscure unheard of engine (media fusion..?), creepy artwork and tense atmosphere. It is as popular as it is because that creep factor is lacking in modern film & games.

 

Thing I have against most horror games is they're usually gore-dependant like Outlast, or too dependant on jumpscares. like Slender. I feel the best way for horrors to work is to have real confrontation. Miasmata, for example, makes the player feel like they're being hunted and feel powerless. In a situation like that, your options are limited; You have no gun to kill this thing, and running only gives chase. Anyways, I can't think of much else atm, but this currently my say.

 

I love horror games. I dislike jump scares, though. Also I have seen quite a lot of the usual scary visuals so they don't have much effect on me any more.

Games that did everything right, IMO:

• Silent Hill (1 and 2)
• Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (despite its buggyness)
• Outlast
• Penumbra and Amnesia
• P.T.

There are also horror themed games like Splatterhouse or Resident Evil. I like those too but would not count them to the actual horror genre per se.

Slenderman used to be really cool and maybe there would not be some of the better games like Outlast in the form they are without Slender. Unfortunately like any hype it got copied too often so that the effect wore off nearly completely.

Even though it is rather Jumpscare Heavy I still give it an honorable mention in my list because (at the time) it did something new. It's not the games fault that the novelty wore off because of its fast gained fame.

 

Well, I asked 20 Friends whether they liked Horror games or not and 12 of them said they hated horror games, Indie Horror Games to be exact. They came up with the same responses identical to this thread. "Horror Games are pointless, it is just jumpscare after jumpscare" or " It's either "Horror games are not scary or too scary" Answers like this make us think a little also. For statistics http://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/2hmnc6/why_do_people_play_horror_games/

and http://natsubaki.deviantart.com/journal/poll/4785693/
http://thepixelpulse.com/2012/07/review-slender-is-the-scariest-game-ive-ever-played/

If you want more statistics google em. But, majority of people say they dislike the genre because the story is loosely written , too many jumpscares gets predictable and boring or "We want more blood" (not scary enough) Thus, I have turned to the unity community for answers.

 

By the way guys, thanks for all the comments, I really appreciate it.

 

From what I gather from players in general discussion when horror games comes up seems to float around the following (both triple A and indies).

AAA Developers
1. Limited replay value (this is a big one for most, you finish once, there is little incentive to play it again; Amnesia is a prime example; and having multiple endings does not seem to help with this at all).
2. Procedural story arc with no chance of altering outcome in some meaningful way (at the very least allowing a couple of forks in the road can help with this, but players want more. The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct comes to mind).
3. Fear factor is all over the board with no cohesion to the story (a solid story with depth and not to follow already established cliches from past movies, games, novels, etc. Not sure how to take this one).
4. Time!!! (I have found some players are becoming annoyed with 12+ hour game time, the feel I get is they would prefer anywhere from 2-8 hours, and some 10 hours to complete the game, but once you get to 12 or more they start to feel like the game is bloating time to charge more for the game and there by make more money).

Independent Developers
1. Too damn dark (Slender comes to mind of this, but seriously I have seen dark triple A games that were dark without a in game light source).
2. Cheap jump scares (too many to name, Crystal Cove for the Occulus Rift comes to mind though, and I do agree with this one).
3. Weak game play or graphics (this I feel is a matter of opinion, but one problem is the overuse of specific models and textures from the asset store on many unity games, but really about 85% of us indies cannot help this without either time or money or both).
4. Weak story or no real story at all (again this comes down to personal opinion even though I admit there are some games that have no story just a scary, creepy or gory game that you are thrust into).

 

Too scary isn't a bad thing

 

Why water down a game for the sake of people who aren't interested? Find people who love the type of game you want to make and make something that they'll want to play.

I don't like hidden item games. If you modified a hidden item game enough to make me interested in playing it, it wouldn't be a hidden item game any more.

 

For the sake of innovation and creativity. People don't necessarily want more of the same, they just have to learn to like what's out there. The larger companies have so much riding on what they do that they have to be as conservative as they possibly can be (or as conservative as the market will accept them being), wheras this is the kind of arena where risk and innovation should hopefully be able to flourish.

Why compete with the big game companies trying (and failing) to make a triple-A title (and (unless you have a unique angle on it) you can only fail if you don't have their resources, believe me) when you could tweak the formula and come up with something truly innovative and interesting and worth playing for the new stuff it brings to the table.

For the O.P., if it's any help (and I know it's the reverse of what you're asking) I love horror games but hate pure F.P.S. I find them extremely repetitive, one-note and boring. I like the pacing of horror games, the puzzles, the atmosphere, the still feeling of dread, and the feeling of helplessness and vulnerability. I'd imagine someone going for a mindless, ninety-mile an hour, one-man-army, power-fantasy would want exactly the opposite to that. Not sure if that's very helpful but there it is.

Having said that, a hugely rated horror FPS: F.E.A.R. (but not something I'd play since it's too much of an action title).

 

Of course, but why not find out what else people who like horror games also like?

 

Scary horror games are over done and so cliche. We need some comedy action horror games with no horror whatsoever.

...

Evil within.

 

Agreed.

 

We are trying to find why people hate the game so, we do not make the same mistakes as most indie horror developers.Already made a thread for people that like horror games . Look around on this thread and look at the answers, all of them are of great help. It's hard to explain but, it is all for research purposes.

 

I know right? xD

 

Just make your game for horror fans and don't try to change the world with your game. There's enough horror fans out there, target those.

 

The old Universal and Hammer horror films are a good study. They relied on cinematography and caricaturization. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee teamed up many times to provide a good base character level. Peter Cushing's sunken cheek bones and piercingly intelligent eyes and Christopher Lee's regal bearing were great antagonists to each other. The cinematography relied on light and shadow to relay the mood..not just dark and everything in shadows. The music, sparing ofttimes drew the viewer into the mood and grated their nerves or not as appropriate. Yes you knew something was about to occur or who the bad guy was but that was a part of the storytelling narrative. Horror is a spiritual thing..an anomaly to the standard human psyche. Vincent Price was a master at the portrayal of horrific characters with a subtlety in the ability to draw innocents into his web of the macabre. Horror is not terror which is a physical revulsion to the end of one's existence and the pain and trauma of the process by other than natural means and dealt out agonizingly.

 

Although this is an old thread, the topic is always going to be relevant, especially now that "Five Nights At Freddy's 3" is a huge thing and lots of clones are popping out of the woodwork.
I think the key to any horror game is unpredictability. All the ones I've seen make one of two mistakes: either every location is scripted so you always trigger exactly the same events at each one, or the gameplay is random but repetitive because it just repeats the same stock elements. Repetition quickly reduces the terror factor to the point that it becomes boring. "Five NIghts At Freddy's", like "Slender", gets a bit dull because it's always the same thing even though the action is "random". The reason those two games are frightening at first is because the player feels helpless, but that helplessness quickly wears off after you spot the patterns and learn to take advantage of them (Slenderman goes through the same AI behaviors every time, and can be outwitted; the animated figures in "Freddy's" have standard routines that you can learn over time). The main enduring interest in "Freddy's 3" is the secret (and convoluted) method of finally getting a "good ending" rather than the "bad ending", and the speculation about the backstory that lies behind the two endings (much like the speculation about "Dear Esther", except in "Freddy's" the method of winning is tied to an interpretation of the backstory). This type of plot depth gives the game a longer life and a lot of free advertisement from forum and Youtube comments. The chief problem with "Freddy's" backstory, however, is the fact that the frenetic pace of the game doesn't allow you much time to examine the subtle clues, nor to analyze what might be causing the haunted activity and how to prevent it.

 

I can't speak to those games in particular, but it echoes my feeling of most horror games. When they're new and fresh and you're learning what's going on they're scary because it's not predictable yet and you don't know how to deal with what might be coming up. There's a lot of imagination involved, the player wondering what could happen and rolling their own fears into that. Once they're familiar enough with the game to know what will happen they don't do that any more. They also know how to deal with it when it does happen, which doesn't help either.

I loved Dead Space, for instance, but even there there's a chunk in the middle where it's just grotesque shooter. The premise is still scary, but it only maintains its edge while it's introducing new unknowns.

 

Agreed, in fact they should have done a lot more with the great atmosphere and backstory (apparently five children were murdered in the restaurant some years before, and the killer was then killed after trying to hide in one of the suits; hence the haunted activity). But the frantic pace doesn't allow the player to soak up the atmosphere much, nor to learn about the backstory (which is hidden in very subtle clues). The second game was far more frenetic than the first, and the third one is also hectic and confusing. "Dear Esther", by contrast, was purely creepy and gave players plenty of time to immerse themselves in the environment, look for the ghosts scattered in various locations, and try to figure out the plot.

 

Also, the "suspension of disbelief" wears off and it becomes just a game once you figure out how it works. Horror games are especially tied to getting the player to imagine themselves in a real world environment, which is ruined once they figure out the AI.
If you're not familiar with "Five Nights At Freddy's", here's a gameplay video of the first one:

 

Five Nights at Freddy's Games became less and less scary as they share same mechanics.

It should've ended on the 2nd part.

 

As someone who actually hates the entire horror genre I think I should chime in. I simply don't want to be scared, creeped out, disgusted or disturbed. Nothing your game does will change that. There is a portion of the population that thinks like me, and will give your game bad press regardless.

So rather then focus on things the majority of people hate about horror games, focus in on what your niche audience likes and dislikes.

Ultimately the answer to the OPs question "why do people hate horror games?" is "because they are horror games"

The only way to avoid this is not make a horror game.

 

If you don't know the theories behind the setting yet Five Nights at Freddy's becomes suddenly much more interesting again after watching this:

 

As a markiplier fan, I got to see the whole story because he played all the minigames from the third game

Things that are scary make you jump for 1 second and then you're fine. Things that are creepy make you afraid to move for several hours. When 5 nights are freddy's first came out, I watched it with some friends overnight at a warehouse where we were working all weekend. It was great!

I wouldn't mind them ending after the first game lol. The second game was kinda dumb and the third game was damage control.

@BoredMormon are you too grown up & mature to be afraid of possessed children's toys?

 

Quite the opposite. I have a bedroom full of children and there associated toys next to my room. I prefer not to be terrified when I go in there at night and Queen Elsa is looking at me funny.

I get scared, just as much as the next guy. I just don't find the experience enjoyable.

 

You can make a horror game with creepy dolls. Solution solved