Well, for this article in the second season of my “Horror Videogames Series“, I thought that I’d talk about an interesting paradox which can sometimes happen with “edgier” horror games.
This article will contain SPOILERS for “Amnesia: The Dark Descent” (2010), “Deadlight: Director’s Cut” (2016), “Downfall Redux” (2016) and “Lorelai” (2019).
This was something I ended up thinking about after I started playing a horror platform game called “Deadlight: Director’s Cut” (2016) which takes place in an alternate history version of mid-1980s America that has fallen victim to a zombie apocalypse. It’s a reasonably solid “realistic”-style 2D platform game, with really compelling gameplay that fits really well into the sweet spot between being challenging and forgiving.
However, when it comes to the story, the game tries to be as “serious”, “moody” and “grim” as possible. Yet, from the opening cinematic onwards, I found myself laughing and grinning ridiculously often 🙂 And I think that this is probably because the game tries a little too hard.
Everything from the fact that you play as a grizzled bearded survivalist, to the way that the game earnestly insists on not calling the zombies “zombies”, to the cliched ultra-melodramatic “I had to shoot this character…. or they would have turned into a zombie!” introduction, to the obligatory post-apocalyptic gangs and nefarious military schemes early in the game etc… Just made me laugh warmly. This isn’t a criticism, by the way. I was in a bit of a bad mood before I started playing it, and it was just the game I needed to play to cheer me up.
And this is hardly the only horror game to evoke this sort of reaction in me. “Downfall Redux” (2016) is an edgy horror adventure game that literally had me grinning and laughing ridiculously often. Yes, it certainly includes some deliberately humourous moments, but even many of the more “shocking” moments evoked laughter rather than fright, because of the sheer ridiculous intensity, frequency and over-the-top “edginess” of them. Again, this certainly wasn’t a bad thing. I had a lot of fun with the game.
So, what is going on here?
A lot of this is to do with the pacing of a game. I mean, there are “edgy” horror games out there that are genuinely disturbing and terrifying – such as “Amnesia: The Dark Descent” (2010), “The Cat Lady” (2012) and “Outlast” (2013). Don’t expect to laugh or smile very often when playing these games!
Yet, the main reason why these games are so disturbing is because of their pacing and style. All of them take their time to gradually build in intensity, with “Amnesia: The Dark Descent” (2010) probably being the best example of this. The first hour or so of the game is only mildly-moderately frightening and will probably seem like an enjoyably corny “Dracula movie” type thing. But, by the mid-late parts of the game, it becomes a genuinely ultra-disturbing cosmic horror story about the depths of human evil. And this works so well because of all of the build-up, the drawn-out way that the story gradually becomes more and more horrifying.
On the other hand, “Deadlight: Director’s Cut” (2016) literally begins the game’s story in what would typically be the mid-late parts of a zombie movie. There’s little in the way of suspense and build-up, just sudden melodrama. And, well, I couldn’t help but be amused by it. All of the earnest drama and grim cynicism just appears from nowhere, without the chance to get to know the characters first or see the build-up to this. It almost seems more like the set-up for a dark comedy sketch or something like that. Because the player hasn’t had the chance to get invested in the story, everything just seems hilariously melodramatic.
And, yes, this build-up is really important. Another example of this sort of thing done well can be found in “Lorelai” (2019). The opening hour or so of this game is one of the bleakest, grimmest and most shocking things that I’ve seen in a videogame.
Yet, the game still takes a bit of time to build things up. A conversation spirals into a bitter argument. We get a chance to learn a little bit about the main character. The game’s villain shows up fairly early, but doesn’t do anything too bad until quite a few minutes later. There is a constant subtle mood of depressing misery, which gradually builds to a hopelessly bleak climax.
All of the ultra-edgy horror of the game’s first hour or so works as well as it does because the game takes a bit of time and doesn’t launch into everything at full intensity from the very first second. We get a bit of time to get invested in the characters and story before things take a seriously horrific turn.
In addition to this, the best edgy games will often try to avoid de-sensitising the player by carefully choosing what to show and/or when to “shock” the player. Going back to “Amnesia: The Dark Descent” (2010) again, not only are some of the most shocking elements of the game mostly left to the player’s imagination, but gruesome or disturbing imagery also only really appears at well-defined times – with enough “recovery time” between them for each moment to maintain a lot of its shock value.
On the other hand, remember how I mentioned “Downfall Redux” (2016) earlier? On paper, this is a ridiculously edgy and ultra-gruesome game, filled with numerous shocking moments. However, because so many of them happen within a relatively short space of time (the whole game is only about four of five hours long), they quickly lose their shock value and often become something closer to unintentional dark comedy than horror.
And this is perhaps the main paradox with “edgy” horror games. If a horror game tries to “turn it up to eleven” from the very first moment or bombard the player with too much “shocking” stuff too quickly, then it – paradoxically – becomes a lot less frightening. Ironically, the very best “edgy” horror games actually have to know when to hold back and when to take their time.
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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂
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