Beginner's Guide: Survival Horror
Fear and loathing.
But while the bigger players in the industry have followed Resident Evil 4's lead, the traditional horror game - with its emphasis on scares over fun - is far from dead and buried. At least when it comes to the indie scene.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent may be uncompromising in its adherence to disturbing players, but it's already sold around 300,000 copies since its September 2010 release.
"It goes to show that those who think it is impossible to sell these kind of games are wrong, because we had zero marketing," says Grip. "If we were to release it on a big budget and on consoles, I'm sure it would have sold 10-fold."
Reading List
So now you've got the lowdown on horror, here are some suggestions for where to begin your descent into gaming's dark side.
Project Firestart (Commodore 64) - The Rats may have come first, but Dynamix's sci-fi chiller is much closer to the horror games that we know and love today.
Resident Evil (GameCube) - The PlayStation original fixed the idea of horror as a distinct genre in our minds, but the GameCube remake is better in every way.
Silent Hill 2 (PlayStation 2) - This, the high point for the psychological horror series, takes us on a unsettling journey into the mind of its troubled protagonist and introduces us to the iconic embodiment of rage that is Pyramid Head.
Resident Evil 4 (Wii) - Not just an important game but also a major influence on games in general. If you play just one of the games on this list, make it this one.
Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360) - Multiplayer might seem at odds with the lonely atmosphere most horror games seek to create, but Left 4 Dead's desperate scrambles through zombie-filled wastelands deliver some of the most terrifying experiences in video game horror.
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Wii) - Silent Hill always traded in psychological fear but with this game it reaches out of the TV and into our minds, building a psychological profile of the player then using it to adjust the experience and get under your skin.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent (PC) - One of the purest examples of horror gaming. The monsters are so horrific that even looking at them causes your defenceless character to go insane. Possibly gaming's most frightening creation to date.
Dead Space 2 (PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) - It might sit at the action-orientated end of the horror game spectrum, but this sci-fi offering remains a terrifying experience.
What's Next?
It's not just about the classics - plenty of promising horror titles are set to appear on shelves over the next few months. Here's our pick of the bunch.
Amy (PlayStation Network) – June
From the man who created Flashback, way back in the day, comes this intriguing survival horror offering. Set in a small town where the inhabitants have been turned into killers by a strange infection, Amy casts you as an infected woman hoping to escape and find a cure. Her only hope is an eight-year-old girl with strange powers who the player has to protect and win the trust of.
Shadows of the Damned (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) - June
Japan's most unpredictable game designer, Suda51, teams up the creator of the Resident Evil series to make "a punk-rock horror from hell". What more could you want?
Dead Island (PS3, X360, PC) – August
Following that video, Dead Island can't be ignored. Thankfully its open-world RPG take on zombie horror seems different enough to suggest this game might not be fated to live in the shadow of its own trailer.
Silent Hill: Downpour (PS3, X360) – Autumn 2011
Fog, rain and a car crash are pretty much guaranteed, but it's the hints that Downpour will seek to build on the psychological profiling tried out in Shattered Memories that could make this something special.
Asylum (PC) – 'Sometime' in 2011
Argentine developers Senscape haven't revealed much about their creepy horror adventure. However, its purist horror approach and early videos smack of a game that is going to deliver some suitably disturbing play.