Horror in video games has been quite the mainstay more or less since the industry was invented. After all, unlike all those slasher films, games act as a way to put you directly into the action, so why not use that as an opportunity to readily scare the pants off of all of us? That's exactly what a lot of industry professionals have done, with some to much greater effect than others. I remember when I was little my first personal experience with the horror genre in a game  was the adaptation of Friday the 13th  for the NES. Sure today we may look on it and laugh with its poorly pixelated drawings and cheesy dialogue sequences, but believe it or not there are actually plenty of things this classic got right. It used basic scare tactics well enough to make players jump in their chairs out of fright. Mostly it was because you never knew when Jason was coming, but either way it's sometimes more frightening  than you think.

From there on out of course, we no longer had to rely on just music or startle tactics to create scary games. As graphics continueed to improve, we were able to get a better sense of environment. In that way then, it became less about a sudden reaction and more geared toward a constant uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. For me, I can remember one of the first games to really pull this off was Resident Evil 2. I swear even today some of those blood stained and barren rooms still give me the creeps. In my opinion that was really probably the first of the modern horror games. It was the template we used to build on, and even today we can see that sense of environment being a part of what makes games like Dead Space so darn great.

That being said, looking forward to the future of horror in games, I think most of the changes you'll find are going to be with regards to character models and gameplay mechanics. Let's face it, you throw enough blood in a room and we'll all get scared, but advances in graphics have allowed us to create monstrous models that just weren't conceivable in generations past. On top of that we now also have this surge in games that have perma-death options. The upcoming game called Routine comes to mind. We've seen scary environments, heard scary music, but nothing can be more unsettling than knowing that when you die the game is actually over.

In a sense, I suppose what I'm saying is the horror genre is one that has developed quite a bit over time, and today has never been more popular. If you can, take advantage of this creepy holiday by playing some of the historic games I have mentioned. If you do so you'll be in for one big night of fright!

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