Summary
For many fans, playing games is the ultimate form of escapism. We play them to escape the drudgery of our day-to-day lives and carry out our ultimate power fantasies. Because of this, most games, even many of the most difficult, focus on making the player feel empowered. Even some ofthe best horror games let the player fight backand feel powerful.
But that’s not true for all horror games. There is a whole genre of horror games designed to make the player feel helpless. In these, more often than not, the player is powerless to defend themselves as terrifying monstrosities hunt them relentlessly. These games dial the tension up to eleven and can offer the kind of immersive horror experience most horror film directors could only wish to copy. In the following games, the player’s traditional role of hunter gets turned on its head.
At first glance,Dead Spacelooks like a strange pick. Inone of EA’s best games, the player is far from helpless. Isaac Clarke may start ill-equipped to fight off the necromorph threat, but with the help of the Kinesis and Stasis modules, the game quickly becomes somewhat of a power fantasy. Especially once Isaac gets some decent weaponry.
However, the player never shakes the feeling that Isaac is being hunted. The necromorphs vastly outnumber Isaac and have a habit of jumping out and attacking at the least opportune times. Experienced players know to keep an eye on every doorway and every vent. Then the Hunter appears during Chapter 5 - an invincible necromorph with advanced regeneration, all the player can do is slow it down. For much of the rest of the game, the Hunter is a recurring enemy, hunting Isaac and the player through the bowels of the USG Ishimura.
While a lot of horror fans associateAmnesiawith creating the helpless horror genre, it’s actually much older.Clock Toweris a 1995 point-and-click adventure game that did an awesome job of making the player feel like they’re being hunted. It stars Jennifer, an adopted orphan being hunted by an unstoppable killer known as Scissorman through a mansion.
Like most point-and-click adventure games, the player solves environmental puzzles by interacting with the 2D environment and picking up useful objects. Scissorman is never far away though, and when the player hears the sound of snipping, it’s time to hide. The problem is that Jennifer has limited stamina, and running around too much will make her sit on the floor while she catches her breath. If Scissorman gets too close, Panic Mode kicks in. Jennifer is no fighter, and in this mode, she’ll start to fall over and trip. The player’s only hope is to run away and find a good hiding spot, or if they’re lucky, set a trap that will slow the hunter down.
Games where the player is hunted may have been around for a long time, butAmnesia: The Dark Descentpopularized this horror subgenre.Amnesiauses every tool at its disposal, from its terrifying sound design to clever use of lighting and physics to instill in the player as much fear as possible. The game’s corridorsare full of cosmic horrors, and all the player can do is run away.
InAmnesia: The Dark Descent, the player will spend a lot of time hiding in the dark. Unfortunately for them, being hunted by cosmic horrors is more than a little stressful. The more time they spend hiding, the lower their character’s sanity becomes. This causes side effects that only compound feelings of paranoia and being hunted. There is no fighting back, and if the player is spotted, the only option is to run, hide, and maybe slam a door between them and death.
Back in 2012, a little indie gem calledSlender: The Eight Pageswas released. It introduced the world to one ofthe scariest video game characters ever, Slenderman. Slenderman had first gained fame on internet forums as a creepypasta, but this indie game made him a household name. Stranded in the woods at night, the player has to collect eight pages while avoiding the teleporting Slenderman.
The game was a big enough hit that the following year it was turned into a full-fledged release.Slender: The Arrivaltook the original’s premise and added a narrative, more levels, and some more enemy variety. What didn’t change was how creepy the Slenderman was. He was just as good at teleporting in and terrifying the player at the exact moment they thought they were safe. Players were still defenseless, and they were still being hunted by one of modern pop culture’s most terrifying creations.
For a long time,Resident Evilhas focused more on action than straight-up scares, but that wasn’t always the case.Resident Evil 2and its modern remake brilliantly balanced zombie-killing fun with making sure the player never felt too powerful. That balance has a name; the unstoppable Mr. X.
Resident Evil’szombies are too dumb to make the player feel hunted, but not Mr. X. Showing up relatively early in the game, he constantly hunts both Leon and Claire through the halls of Raccoon City PD. He can’t be killed with regular gunfire, and trying to slow him down is just a waste of ammo. The remake upped the sense of being hunted by improving Mr. X’s AI. He’s a constant threat who responds to the player’s actions. For example, using guns to take out zombies will quickly grab his attention, and he’ll turn up in no time. It’s this relentless AI system that makes theResident Evil 2remake one ofthe best games in the franchise.
In 2023, theAmnesiafranchise broke from its tradition of not giving the player a weapon. Set during WWI within a bunker on the Western Front, the game sees its protagonist, Henri, trapped with The Beast. This huge mole-like monstrosity will follow Henri wherever he goes and has a nasty habit of bursting through the Bunker’s walls.
Lucky for Henri, he’s not unarmed. Unlike theAmnesiafranchise’s other protagonists, Henri is strapped and carries a revolver. Unfortunately for him, all it can do is slow The Beast down. The only real safety comes from light sources, which require Henri to hunt down and power up generators. What sets the game apart from other entries in the subgenre is its setting. The bunker itself is a claustrophobic maze that makes the feeling of being hunted all the worse.
TheAlienfranchise has given fans two of the best horror movies ever made. For a long time, though, its video game track record wasn’t anywhere near as impressive. Then 2014 gave playersAlien: Isolation, one ofthe scariest video games ever. The Xenomorph was designed to be the ultimate hunter andAlien: Isolationdid this iconic horror movie monster justice.
There are weapons to be found inAlien: Isolation, but at best, all they do is slow the monster down momentarily. At worst, they just make it more determined to kill the player. The best way to survive is to keep moving, stay quiet, and hide as much as possible. That’s easier said than done thanks to the game’s unique AI. The AI driving the Xenomorph has two “brains,” one that is actively hunting for the player and another that constantly feeds it hints as to where to look. More than any other game,Alien: Isolationreplicates the sensation of being hunted. There’s no cheesing your way to survival. At some point, the Alienwillfind you.
The originalOutlastwas an excellent continuation of the trend thatAmnesia: The Dark Descentbegan. It puts the player in the shoes of Miles Upshur, an investigative journalist foolish enough to break into the unsettling Mount Massive Asylum. Unfortunately for him, the inmates are in charge of the asylum, and something evil is controlling them.
Outlastfeatures all the hallmarks of the genre. Miles can’t fight back against the inmates who are hunting him. All he can do is run and hide. WhereOutlastexcelled, however, was in its use of lighting. Much of the asylum is hidden in darkness, and all Miles has is his handy night vision video camera. This camera burns through juice faster than a Sega Game Gear and the player must constantly hunt for batteries to keep it going. Letting it die means scrambling half-blindly through the dark, which is utterly terrifying. Being hunted is bad enough, but not being able to see what’s doing the hunting adds a whole new level of fear.
For the most part, a lot of what was said aboutResident Evil 2can be applied toResident Evil 3and its remake. The difference, however, is that Nemesis is even more deadly and an even more relentless hunter than Mr. X.
While Mr. X wasn’t absent for large chunks ofResident Evil 2, Nemesis is far more persistent and rarely takes a break. He doesn’t play fair either. Nemesis isn’t afraid to use weapons and has a tentacle attack that can grab a fleeing player from afar, making fleeing even more difficult. InResident Evil 2, gaining a bit of distance from Mr. X allowed the player to at least feel a little safe. Nemesis is far less forgiving, and a massive railgun is needed to put his hunt to an end. No wonderResident Evil 3is considered one ofthe best survival horror games ever made.
So far, every game mentioned has one thing in common. In each entry, the player is hurt by computer-controlled enemies. What makesDead By Daylightso special is that this time, the player’s enemy is another human being, and they must rely upon the help of other human players to survive. It’s a 4 vs.1 asymmetric horror game where four human-controlled survivors must find a way to escape a human-controlled killer.
For the most part, the survivors can’t fight back and, at best, can only stun the hunter. They need to run, hide, and work together to open an exit from the level. The game has been a massive success, and a ton of different killers and survivors licensed from popular horror brands have been added to it. Games likeAlien: Isolationmay have excellent enemy AI, but for anyone looking for the experience of being hunted, asymmetric survival horror games likeDead By Daylightare hard to beat.
