Well, for this article in the second season of my “Horror Videogames Series“, I thought that I’d talk briefly about how some of these games make their chase sequences so suspenseful.
This article may contain mild SPOILERS for “Resident Evil 3” (1999), “The Evil Within” (2014), “The Devil” (2020) and “Korpus: Buried over the Black Soil” (2020).
This was something that I ended up thinking about after playing two modern indie horror games called “Korpus: Buried over the Black Soil” (2020) and “The Devil” (2020) and finally figuring out the “secret ingredient” that made the chase sequences in both games feel more suspenseful than I’d expected. And it is ridiculously simple.
The best and most suspenseful horror game chase sequences will make the main character marginally faster than whatever is chasing them. The key word here is “marginally”. What this means is that the player is technically always safe… unless they make a mistake. One mistake that slows them down enough for the monster behind them to make up the difference.
This keeps the gameplay relatively fair, whilst also requiring the player to think quickly and feel nervous about making even the smallest of errors. And this style of game design is at it’s very best in “The Devil” (2020). During the chase sequences in this game, you’ll often have a crowd of monsters barely even a couple of metres behind you – very slightly out of attack range – whilst you try to navigate a disorientating maze of corridors and stairways that you had a chance to learn earlier in the game. Again, one mistake means a “game over”. It’s brilliantly nerve-wracking stuff!
This is a screenshot from “The Devil” (2020). It’s a bit difficult to see, because I took a screenshot of one of these chases after “pausing” everything via by reading some in-game text, but notice how the enemies aren’t that far behind the brightly-lit main character. You are faster than them, but only very slightly. One mistake and they will catch up with you…
And the interesting thing about this design technique is that it’s completely ratio-based. In other words, it’s about the difference in speed between the main character and whatever is chasing them, rather than the actual speed itself.
This was something that I noticed when I was playing “Korpus: Buried over the Black Soil” (2020). Although this game takes some inspiration from the “walking simulator” genre – including the movement speed – it actually includes some dramatic chase sequences too. The first one involves the ghost of an old man who, as you might expect, isn’t ultra-fast. Yet – to my surprise – this segment felt almost as suspenseful as something from a faster-paced horror game like “Outlast” (2013) or “Monstrum” (2015).
A lot of this is down to the difference in speed. Your walking speed is only slightly faster than the ghost’s and, although you have a limited “sprint” ability, it isn’t really that fast or long-lasting. Not to mention that you’ll start getting scary warning animations when the ghost even gets close to you – so, this part of the game feels like a frantic high-speed “run for your life!” type of thing, even if you are actually moving relatively slowly.
This is a screenshot from “Korpus: Buried over the Black Soil” (2020), albeit played at a low resolution, showing the first ghost in the game advancing towards the player. Although he’s a few metres away, the screen starts showing a warning animation if you are even close to him – it’s “game over” if he actually touches you – not to mention that you can’t “sprint” for that long and you both have similar movement speeds.
Of course, this is hardly the only thing that horror games can do in order to make chase sequences suspenseful – but it is definitely one of the best techniques. Still, there are a couple of games that get a lot of suspense out of making their monsters faster than the player.
The classic example of this is the original 1999 version of “Resident Evil 3“. In this game, you will sometimes get chased by a recurring boss called Nemesis. This giant monster can easily outpace you if you aren’t careful. As such, there’s a real feeling of panic whenever he appears.
This is a screenshot from “Resident Evil 3” (1999), showing the Nemesis charging towards the main character. He can run faster than you, although….
The game balances this out by keeping each area where he can chase you relatively short and also giving the player other options and strategies that they can use. You can fight him and/or slow him down using weapons. He’ll also stand still when performing ranged attacks (and if you dodge one of these, it gives you a slight headstart). Plus, I found that running in a zig-zag pattern can sometimes confuse him a bit and maybe give you a chance to reach the nearest door.
Another good example of a “faster than the player” monster can be found at the beginning of “The Evil Within” (2014). During the early parts of this game, you have to avoid a “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”-style killer. Not only that, about halfway through this segment of the game, the main character suffers a leg injury which slows him down quite a bit. All of this means that you’ll never be able to get away if the villain actually starts chasing you. This is a deliberate design decision, because the game wants you to sneak around and hide rather than run away.
This is a screenshot from “The Evil Within” (2014), showing the main character hiding from a dangerous killer. With no weapons and no chance of out-running him, stealth is your only option here…
And it’s actually a really clever piece of game design, in terms of suspense, because your character also doesn’t have any weapons during this part of the game. Usually, in horror games with unarmed protagonists, running away is as much of a central part of the gameplay as sneaking around is. However, the player is also denied this option too. So, literally the only thing remaining is to stay out of sight. Needless to say, it’s one of the scarier parts of the game.
Still, like with the “just slightly faster than the monster” examples I gave earlier, the key thing here is difference in speed. This is what all chase sequences in horror games, however they are designed, boil down to. It is the one thing that makes the difference between a really suspenseful chase sequence and a mildly suspenseful one.
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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂
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