1) Character Vulnerability
To me, it seems that video game development has been leading up to a truly remarkable epoch. With the way technology has advanced over the years – spring-boarding games into a more reputable media limelight, despite obvious controversies and nay-saying – there is one unwritten goal that seems to bind many titles together: to make the player want to explore a carefully crafted world.
Graphical prowess, sheer scale, engaging plot and a slew of other factors all help draw the player in and keep them clinging to a virtual realm they’ve decided to invest hours of their own time into. A truly great game is one that makes players hopeful about discovering new things and investigating every nook and cranny of their chosen franchise; to keep them reaching for that next waypoint or sinking deeper into a new side mission.
Whether it’s the believable city life of Grand Theft Auto, the curious plot climax of BioShock: Infinite or the blank-slate mentality of Minecraft, what games ultimate want is for us to keep pushing forward.
So what does this have to do with horror games? Well, the exact opposite of everything I just mentioned, to be honest. What makes titles such as Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Outlast so memorable and terrifying is the way they thrust you into an unimaginably frightening world in a position of abject vulnerability that keeps you pinned to one spot, cowering. In other words, effective horror spins on a dime and undoes all the hard work other games have done to keep you moving forward. Great horror makes you not want to keep going.
