US Settings In Horror Games

Well, for this article in the second season of my “Horror Videogames Series“, I thought that I’d talk about US settings in horror games.

Although there are certainly horror games made in the US, a surprisingly large number of horror games have been made outside of the US (for example, many classic survival horror games were made in Japan). And, even though there is a greater variety of settings these days, the US has traditionally been the most common location for horror games to be set in. But why?

First of all, there were probably business reasons. Back in the days when videogames were pretty much exclusively “AAA” games that were released on physical media, it made more sense for horror game developers to aim their games at a US audience because of the country’s larger population (compared to, for example, Japan or individual European countries) and the fact that – unlike Europe – only one or two languages (English and Spanish) are widely spoken there. Lower localisation costs and a larger number of potential players probably made US settings a good business choice.

Secondly, thanks to the worldwide popularity of Hollywood movies and US TV shows, the US has become something of a “universal” setting. I’ve never actually been to the US… and at least some of my childhood nostalgia still takes place in fictional versions of 1990s California. Given the ubiquity and international popularity of US media, it makes sense that this would be a setting that most players across the world would be able to relate to and/or understand to some extent. So, if a developer wants to make a horror game with wide international appeal, a US setting can be a fairly “safe” choice.

Thirdly, in more traditional-style survival horror games, a US setting allows the characters to find larger amounts of weapons without it appearing “unrealistic” and breaking the audience’s immersion. Although laws obviously vary from country to country, I’m from one with really strict ones. As such, a horror game set here where the characters could easily find lots of military-style weaponry just lying around would seem laughably immersion-breaking. Not so much when a horror game is set in the US.

Ok, this is less of an issue these days – given the popularity of scarier horror games that feature completely unarmed protagonists. Still, when a more traditional style survival horror game is set outside of the US, this usually affects the weaponry that the characters can find and/or how it is presented.

“Siren”/”Forbidden Siren” (2003-4) is set in rural Japan, and the game’s weapons are both less common and noticeably more “civilian” than those in games set in the US. “Tormented Souls” (2021) is set in Canada, and the game’s weapons are cobbled together from old tools and scrap metal.

“Remothered: Broken Porcelain” (2020) is mostly set in 1970s Italy, and it is a major source of horror and shock value when one of the villains is shown to have a small revolver. This weapon is presented in the kind of fearsome, deadly, evil and threatening manner that wouldn’t be as common in US media. Though, of course, the Coen Brothers’ 1984 film “Blood Simple” managed to do something vaguely similar to this, albeit more subtly.

Fourthly, the inspirations for a lot of horror games – especially during the 1990s and early-mid 2000s – were Hollywood movies and US TV shows. The “Resident Evil” games were famously inspired by George A. Romero’s genre-defining zombie movies (and Romero later directed an advert for one of the games and wrote a script for a – sadly unproduced – film adaptation). Likewise, the earlier “Silent Hill” games were famously inspired by both the movie “Jacob’s Ladder” (1990) and the first two seasons of “Twin Peaks” (1990-1991).

Given the large influence that these two series have had on horror videogames as a whole, it makes sense that post-apocalyptic and/or slightly surreal US settings would be relatively common.

Finally, horror games – like most types of entertainment – are meant to be enjoyable escapism. Yet, horror games also have to be “realistic” enough to frighten the audience. Given that such a large number of these games are made outside of the US, setting the game in a different country is the easiest way to allow for “realistic” escapism. And, although this seems to have changed in recent years, it was also popular wisdom that US audiences preferred media set in the US – as shown by the numerous Hollywood remakes of non-US films. So, these two things dovetail with each other absolutely perfectly.

Although, of course, horror game designers outside the US have found ways to add “escapism” to horror games set more locally, mostly via the use of historical, rural and/or ambiguous settings. For example “Project Zero”/”Fatal Frame” (2001-2) is set in a rural part of 1980s Japan. “Alisa” (2021) is set in an unnamed European country during the 1920s. Even so, setting a horror game in the US can be one of the easiest ways to balance escapism and realism.

Is all of this a bad thing? Not really. US settings allow horror games to have a wider appeal and also make it easier for some elements of these games to seem “realistic”. Even so, this was probably more of a historical trend than anything else. With the majority of horror games these days being made by indie developers across the world, the variety of locations in these games these days is a lot larger than it perhaps once was during the heyday of “AAA” horror games.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂