Survival horror games have finally made a comeback in a huge manner. First was The Callisto Protocol, which launched in 2022 to mixed reviews. It was followed by the Dead Space remake, which launched to critical acclaim. Then fans got a game called Resident Evil 4 Remake, and finally, Alan Wake 2 was launched by Remedy Entertainment.
Most of these games were incredibly successful; they were no doubt serving a market that had been overlooked for a while. The above-mentioned games also gave the fans of survival horror games hope that they can now see more such games released in the near future. But some of these games also took a bunch of inspiration from games that were before them, like Alan Wake 2, which was heavily inspired by a classic horror franchise.
Alan Wake 2 took inspiration from Silent Hill for its approach to horror
Horror in gaming comes in many shapes and forms; sometimes players would see a bunch of weird-looking monsters jumping out of the shadows. It would chase them; it would look for them when they hide, and it would react to their traps and weapons.
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Then there are horror games that make players feature something they’ve never seen. Heavily reliant on the music and environment, those games never show players what they need to fear, yet they remain scared.
Finally, there are games that go in a very different direction. They would allow players to see their monsters; they would even allow them to fight said monsters. Players have the power to fight and defeat their fears, and they will gradually grow throughout the game to be able to face stronger enemies.
Silent Hill Games stood out because it mixed the second and third types of games. Players explore a creepy environment designed to shake them psychologically. These environments are also full of enemies that would scare, but can also be killed by using some weapons.
If the game director of Alan Wake 2 Kyle Rowley is to be believed, this is the approach they took while developing their new game. They took a lot of inspiration from the Silent Hill series, specifically in building an atmosphere that builds dread inside the player.
For Alan Wake 2 we are much more interested in the type of horror that is a slow burn- where the atmosphere and audio does a lot of the heavy lifting. If I recall correctly, one of the bullet points on our core game pillars is ‘atmosphere over jump scares’ – which says a lot. The Silent Hill franchise and how it utilises atmosphere and the sense of dread that builds up slowly over time was a key point of reference.
This makes sense too, as jump scares start becoming cheap pretty fast, and there are already a bunch of games that are playing with jump scares to scare gamers. It was best for Remedy to go in the other direction and try to give their game more depth.
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Otherwise, they would have ended up on a list of games like Outlast; those games are brilliant at first but soon become tiresome. Jump, scare, run, and hide do not make for a satisfying core gameplay loop.
There’s another excellent horror game coming very soon
Fans who loved Alan Wake’s approach to horror would love to know that there’s much more to come in the near future. The most exciting game of them all is none other than Silent Hill 2 Remake, which would be released exclusively to PlayStation 5 and PC.
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But the game does not have a release date as of yet; let’s see when developer Bloober Team and publisher Konami decide to launch it.
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