Imagine a typical survival horror setting. You enter a strange, decrepit home. In this strange derelict mansion, for some reason, the residents have turned into malevolent entities, and you have little to defend yourself. Furthermore, the little you have isn’t enough for you to take on everything inside this wretched house. And like the wretched icing on some depraved cake, you have little to no pockets, and the house is riddled with strange puzzles and contraptions. Which game am I referring to?
You might think I’m talking about Sweet Home (1987), Alone in the Dark (1992), Resident Evil (1996, 2002), or even Fatal Frame. You are probably right. Multiple elements unite these video games. One of these elements is that they’re all entries in the survival horror genre.
Survival horror is an extensive umbrella term for a myriad of video games in the adventure genre. These games often either have you fighting or hiding for your life against a rogues gallery of terrifying monsters. One franchise that truly defined survival horror is the Resident Evil franchise.
Resident Evil and Survival Horror
Resident Evil created a whole genre overnight due to its critical and commercial success in 1996. Soon after, sequels, prequels, a glorious remake were released, and a franchise was born. Apart from that, many companies sought to make a name for themselves in the survival horror genre. After Resident Evil came the seminal series, Silent Hill, which had an atmospheric, psychological blend of horror. Silent Hill and many other games have benefited from Resident Evil‘s success, creating multiple equally successful franchises. Games like Parasite Eve, and Dino Crisis took heavy inspiration from Resident Evil. Even up to today, the horror franchise is lauded to be one of the founding fathers of survival horror. So what is Resident Evil’s brand of survival horror? What makes it stand out as one of the trendsetting franchises for the horror genre?
In this article, we’ll be talking about five elements of Resident Evil-style survival horror that allow it to be one of the most popular horror game franchises ever. Specifically, we’ll be looking at the 2001 Resident Evil remake, and its remastered editions, since this game is the best entry that Capcom has made.
1. Oppressive Atmosphere
Resident Evil wouldn’t be an amazing game without its oppressive atmosphere. Survival horror games all thrive on such an atmosphere, given that it ramps up the tension to a point that you dread walking through a dusty hallway. You could do a lot with dilapidated environments, immersive (and creepy sound design), and the an amazing score. All these aim to set a mood for the player as they progress through the levels of the game.
After sound design, visuals also contribute a lot to setting an oppressive atmosphere. How the game looks and feels will be important if you want it to exude creepiness. Carefully placed viscera can be used to show that there are many dangers waiting for you.
One great example comes from the remake of Resident Evil. The mansion is a dilapidated husk of its former glory, and the sound design builds up the tension. Furthermore, there’s a very Gothic element found in the architectural design as well as the color scheme. The game displays environments draped in brown, gray, dark-blue or even black. You can hear zombie moans throughout the mansion, which is blood curdling, since you know danger is near, and it isn’t easy to dodge them.
2. Claustrophobic Environments
Which leads us to our next element. Resident Evil’s brand of survival horror involves being trapped in claustrophobic areas with monsters slowly lunging at you, as you scramble for space. You see this in the hallways of the Spencer Mansion.
In the Spencer Mansion, zombies roam the halls, providing you with just a few inches of breathing room. You would have to be skilled in dodging them in order to survive the night. This fills the player with dread as they traverse the dilapidated mansion, knowing that the monsters could be lurking down this hallway or hiding in that room, and that they have little space to maneuver around them.
3. Labyrinthine Locations
The Spencer Mansion and its surrounding areas host a plethora of labyrinthine hallways and rooms that will be confusing to someone who doesn’t have a map. These areas are littered with a myriad of monsters that raise the tension for the player. Worse is the fact that, given its labyrinthine design, the mansion hosts a number of puzzles, whose items are found elsewhere.
Of note is a pesky mansion door in Resident Evil. This simple gameplay quirk forces you to weigh your choices and make smart decisions. Is it wise to use the doors at that moment, or do you leave it for future use, knowing that you might need to use it later? These things truly make up a huge part of Resident Evil‘s survival horror gameplay.
4. Item Management
Given the labyrinthine structure, the number of puzzles, and the deadly cast of monsters, item management becomes an important feature in the game. However, it’s so easy to fill up your inventory, forcing you to wisen up and choose items you’ll truly need to solve the mansion’s puzzles and proceed. Furthermore, the game tries to alleviate this tension by giving you item boxes that teleport your items to other item boxes, which does ease the nerve-wracking tension to an extent. Which is why we recommend that players should unlock Real Survival Mode for Resident Evil to truly get the whole experience.
5. Combat Philosophy: Empower to dis-empower
Lastly, the final element of Resident Evil‘s brand of survival horror is disempowerment. This is the most important characteristic of the older Resident Evil games. Comparatively, many games nowadays attempt to scare you by removing weapons altogether. This is indeed effective. However, games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill prove that the game doesn’t need to remove weapons to scare players. A game only needs to empower its players with weaponry, only to take away that empowerment with every shot.
In Resident Evil, you had to choose which enemies you should dispatch and which ones you had to evade. This fores you into a conundrum. Every foe you take out means that you have less ammunition for greater threats. For example, carelessly putting down zombies meant that you had less ammo to deal with hunters and zombie dogs. The purpose of giving a weapon in a survival horror game isn’t just to eliminate more enemies. The purpose is to eventually disempower the player as they kill each foe.
This is the most crucial element of survival horror, for around this philosophy encircles every other element. Resident Evil wants players to feel disempowered. This is the goal of the game. It wears them down through the use of the derelict mansion and its harsh residents. The player must backtrack through the labyrinthine mansion with only a few handgun clips to their name, while the sound design raises the tension as zombies slowly advance toward you. This is one element of Resident Evil’s survival horror that emphasizes “survival” to amp up the horror.
Looking Forward
Resident Evil 7 is just around the corner, and fans all hope this will be as good as advertised. We hope to see these survival horror elements return in Resident Evil 7, as we wander through the derelict Dulvey Haunted Mansion. Now given the promotional materials, we think it might actually deliver on its promises. With fingers crossed, we will be waiting to install our copies when the game arrives on January 24, 2017.
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