This Weekend's Showcases Were Chock-Full Of Horror. What Gives?

Summary

• Man, there sure were a lot of horror games announced this weekend at various game showcases.
• Part of this is because horror is seeing a real resurgence alongside a growing acceptance of the genre as an art form, not just a medium for cheap scares.
• But it might also be because the world is a dark and scary place, and horror is one of the primary ways artists express that.

As I watched Summer Game Fest and the subsequent Day of the Devs showcase this weekend, I was impressed by how many smaller games were on display. This was somewhat inevitable, since triple-A gaming is suffering right now and there just aren’t that many big games to go around.

But more than that, I was surprised at the trends I saw arising across both indies and bigger games. Mainly, wow, there’s a lot of horror. At Summer Game Fest, we saw No More Room In Hell 2, a full slate of six indie horror games from Blumhouse Games, Slitterhead, and Alan Wake 2 DLC. Day of the Devs gave us trailers for Karma: The Dark World, Zoochosis, Tom the Postgirl, and Psychroma.

Slay The Princess’ free DLC got its time in the spotlight at the Future of Play Direct, and we saw Hyde’s Haunt & Seek at the Women-Led Games Showcase. Future Games Show offered Dredge’s The Iron Rig DLC, and a deeper look at The Casting of Frank Stone. There are probably more, I haven’t had time to watch every single showcase yet.

That’s a lot of horror games. While the genre has always had an established place in both indie and triple-A spaces, I’m very impressed by not just the number of horror games, but the variety of styles of horror. We’re not just seeing action, combat-heavy games – though these are certainly present – but games that if they had launched a couple years ago, would have been left to languish on Itch.io and been overlooked by the majority of gamers. I’ve always loved those types of games, and I’m thrilled to see them getting platformed, but also, what on earth is happening?

Nine Sick Indie Games We Saw At The Guerrilla Collective Games Showcase

The next year of indies is already packed with gems, and we haven’t even seen what’s going to be announced at Summer Game Fest yet.

The Horror Resurgence Spreads

I’m aware that horror has been a gaming mainstay for decades, and that indie developers have been dabbling with unconventional interpretations of the genre for just as long. At the same time, it feels like the horror genre has been facing a huge resurgence in the last few years.

In literature, where contemporary horror has historically been considered to be less ‘literary’ than traditional novels, we’re seeing a huge rise in critical recognition of speculative fiction with horror flavours. In cinema, arthouse horror has entered the mainstream in a huge way thanks to companies like A24. One of last year’s biggest contenders for GOTY was Alan Wake 2, a horror game that was praised not for its scares, but for its complexity and metatextuality.

I have a feeling that the wider acceptance of the genre across mediums is making horror games far more appealing to mainstream audiences – no longer do people hear ‘horror’ and think of walking simulators with jump-scares, nor are they able to picture Resident Evil and nothing else. Horror is as thoughtful and experimental as it’s ever been, but now mainstream audiences are seeing it too.

Unless… It’s Something Else?

This is just one theory as to why there are so many horror games floating around the ether right now, and it works in combination with tens of other factors. Maybe since there are less triple-A games right now, indies are flooding the space, and indie devs love a surreal, abstract, 2D point-and-click horror game.

Maybe it’s because franchises like Resident Evil have thrived so much and for so long that more studios want to emulate that flavour of action-horror. Maybe it’s because Blumhouse single handedly jacked the numbers to a record high, which tracks, since the company is best known for its dedication to publishing horror movies.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s because there’s so much to be afraid of. Horror has always been a way for creative people to express their anxieties, and with ecological disaster, political strife, wars, the curtailing of human rights, and the perpetual nightmare of trying to eke out a decent living under capitalism, there’s a lot to mine from. It sucks to be a human being right now, but I guess at least we get cool horror games.

Summer Game Fest

Hosted by Geoff Keighley, Summer Game Fest is an annual event dedicated to showcasing upcoming games, initially created as an online alternative to cancelled events during the pandemic.