When looking back on the history of horror games, I feel like one generation is often over looked and not because it was an underrated era or anything, but because it was easily the darkest time for the genre. And not even in a spooky scary way either! I’m talking about the 360/PS3 generation which is when horror games were at their lowest. At least compared to the past!

The PS1 generation was truly the start of horror games. While there were some examples before this generation it’s hard to deny this is where horror games truly became a genre. And it all started with Resident Evil which is actually where we get the term ‘survival horror’ from! The series’ massive success, which lead to it getting two sequels and a spin off on the PS1 alone, inspired other developers to try and follow Capcom’s lead and make their own horror series. This mostly lead to a lot of Resident Evil rip offs but this also brought us Silent Hill, a series that left a massive mark on horror games and got people thinking about how to scare people in all new ways as it was the first real example of psychological horror! These two would be the heavy hitters from this generation and would carry that momentum over to the PS2.

The PS2 generation is where we not only got great continuations of Silent Hill and Resident Evil but we also started to see some new comers really show off their stuff! This is the era where Silent Hill really began to shine. We got Silent Hill 2, 3, 4, and the spin off Origins all on the PS2! And while lots of people will argue the quality of Silent Hill 4 and Origins, everyone seems to be in agreement that Silent Hill 2 and 3 are amazing. In fact, Silent Hill 2 is often considered to be one of if not the best horror game of all time! A sentiment I very much agree with personally.

Resident Evil was both less and more impactful this generation compared to the last. The series only got one mainline game this generation compared to the three released during the PS1’s life cycle. However, that game was, as you probably guessed, Resident Evil 4! And while it isn’t much of a horror game when compared to previous entries, you cannot deny the massive impact it left on the game industry as a whole! But that’s a topic for another time.

Resident Evil and Silent Hill remained top dogs of horror this generation but that doesn’t mean they were alone. This era of horror games was a bit of a golden age honestly. This was the era that gave birth to Fatal Frame after all! A series I love to death despite the fact that it never managed to reach the mainstream success that Resident Evil and Silent Hill got even in this generation where the series got three games. Beyond that though, we also got lots of other horror games that didn’t get any sequels but that doesn’t mean they weren’t amazing. Games like Eternal Darkness, Siren, Haunting Ground, Rule of Rose, and Kuon! Most of which weren’t truly appreciated at the time but now have fans begging for remakes, remasters, or even just ports so there is someway to play these obscure horror games without having to shell out an insane amount of money to buy a physical copy.

However, as this generation came to a close and the HD generation of the 360/PS3 began, we not only got less horror games, but we’d see the death of the two biggest horror series…

Silent Hill and Resident Evil both had two mainline games released this generation. Resident Evil got fifth and sixth entries, and while Resident Evil 5 is a pretty fun game especially if you’re playing in coop, Resident Evil 6 is just bad. Like, really really bad. So bad that most people, myself included, assumed this was the end of the franchise. Luckily we were wrong though as five years later the series would be brought back from the brink with Resident Evil 7 in the next generation which brought Resident Evil into a more modern light. Sadly, this is where Silent Hill would die and never return like Resident Evil managed to do. It’s two games were Silent Hill Homecoming and Downpour, and they were both so terrible that Konami decided to stop trying with the series all together. Not that they were trying particularly hard before which is how we got such bad games but still! The series almost got the chance to make a Resident Evil 7 style comeback with Silent Hills by Hideo Kojima, but with the cancellation of that game the series is truly dead. And the Silent Hill 2 remake in the works will probably just be salt in the wound at this point…

So! Resident Evil and Silent Hill both fell off this generation, and Fatal Frame was locked to Japan with Nintendo now having their hands on the series, but surely some new franchises would pick up where they left off, right? Well yes and no. Oddly enough, this era had a few stand out horror game series but all of them started and ended this generation. Two series in particular showed a lot of promise. Those series being Dead Space and FEAR.

While Dead Space is very much remembered to this day, FEAR is not despite the fact that both games followed an extremely similar path. Both had a great, scary first game that was followed by a great slightly more action focused sequel before dying with their third games both of which were coop focused weirdly enough. And all of these games came out on the 360 and PS3! With the third game in both series killing of their franchises. Although Dead Space has been given a second chance with it’s extremely well made remake released earlier this year! Sadly, I do not see FEAR getting this same treatment. And while it is sad that these series died in this generation, it’s honestly hard to be too upset given just how much they crashed and burned in the end. There were a few other horror games this generation to be fair, the Condemned series which got two games was another big one, but nothing that saw it’s start this generation managed to continue it on to another. That is besides one game. And while it wasn’t an easy road to it’s sequel, Alan Wake managed to do it 13 years later! Showing that it really was a bright spot in another wise dark era for horror games.

Alan Wake comes to us from developer Remedy, who were best known for the Max Payne series, with this being their first real try at some horror! And while Remedy had very different plans for the game, they still managed to make a horror game that stuck with fans all these years as they begged for a sequel. This is mostly due to the fact that Alan Wake draws from some neat inspirations and crafted a gripping narrative that manage to make it stand out from the crowd even now!

Alan Wake is a third person shooter horror game all about author Alan Wake! Alan, who is currently suffering from writer’s block after finishing his extremely successful crime thriller series, is visiting the small town of Bright Falls with his wife, Alice. He wanted to get away from the busy streets of New York in hopes that a change of scenery would help get his mind off things. However, things quickly take a crazy turn. The game actually opens up with Alan in the middle of a nightmare. He’s being chased by a seemingly invincible killer who bizarrely seems to be a character from one of his books! As he runs a mysterious voice tells him to use light for safety and to avoid the dark at all costs. This section ends when another character from one of Alan’s books attempts to saves him but really only buys him sometime. Eventually Alan makes it to the lighthouse that the voice had been telling him to reach and wakes up. This is when we’re introduced to Alan and his wife as they ride the ferry over to Bright Falls. And this is when the game properly starts!

The narrative of the game is easily the biggest driving force. That’s not to say the game play is bad or just passable but the story is really where things shine with Alan Wake! It’s very clear that a lot of elements of the story were inspired by horror writer Stephen King and the TV series Twin Peaks. At the time, these were rather original inspirations when it came to horror games! Before the 360/PS3 generation, most horror games came from Japanese developers. And while the developers of Silent Hill and Resident Evil got a lot of inspiration from Western media, the inspirations that Alan Wake was drawing on still felt very different.

The way the story unfolds in Alan Wake is very entertaining! Alan himself actually narrates the story, which at first just seems like a way to tell the story but soon enough it actually ties into the story itself. After arriving in Bright Falls proper, Alice drops Alan off at a diner where he is suppose to pick up the key to the cabin they’ll be staying at for their trip. Very quickly it becomes clear that people are familiar with Alan’s work as he sees a cardboard cutout of him as soon as he walks in and the waitress of the diner can’t contain her excitement when she sees him. This is where some of the Twin Peak‘s inspiration shows as it’s clear the people of this small town are a little odd. After getting around the waitress he runs into two older guys who want him to play a song on the jukebox, they both don’t really seem to understand where they really are though but Alan brushes that off as them being a little too past their prime. Still trying to get the key he came for, Alan goes toward the back of the diner looking for the man he’s suppose to meet but before he can, he’s stopped by another odd character as she tells him not to go back there because the lights aren’t working. Brushing her off as well, Alan finally goes into the dark where he doesn’t meet the man he’s looking for but he does run into an old woman who is dressed like she’s in mourning. As odd as that is, she has his key so he’s finally set to return to Alice so they can get some peace and quiet together. As they drive off though, the man Alan was suppose to meet comes running out of the diner, yelling for him to come back because he forgot the key…

Alan and his wife come to the cabin at long last just as the sun is going down. The cabin is out on a small island in the middle of Cauldron Lake. Which is actually above an underwater volcano that hasn’t gone off in years. At this point it’s revealed that Alice has a terrible fear of the dark which is why she left to get flashlights and batteries while Alan got the keys. While they are checking out the cabin and such, Alice brings Alan to one of the rooms revealing that she brought him a typewriter in the hopes he might be able to start writing again. This causes Alan to get rather angry as he doesn’t even want to think about writing right now and he storms off out of the cabin. This is when the lights suddenly go out and Alice begins to have a panic attack. Alan rushes back into the house but it’s too late. In her panic, Alice seems to have fallen into the lake! Alan then dives in after her, frantically swimming, trying to find her. As he continues to dive deeper, searching for her, he blacks out only to wake up in his car after a crash!

Now I’m not going to retell the entire story, mainly because you should experience it for yourself, but I wanted to give enough set up to get to here because this is when one of the coolest story aspects comes into play. As Alan searches around the woods for help he starts finding pages of a manuscript. Bizarrely though, the author of said manuscript seems to be none other than himself! And even more bizarre than that, the manuscript is the story of everything going on in the game. These aren’t just collectables you can find through out the levels either, they play into the story too! It’s a really cool story aspect and one that ties into an awesome twist which I won’t spoil here. Taking more inspiration from Twin Peaks, or rather the media it was presented in, the game is presented as a TV show with every chapter ending with credits and a preview of what’s coming next. It’s a nice extra touch that wasn’t needed but it’s very cool that it’s there at all!

Moving on from the story though, the game play is actually rather fun too even if it does feel a touch dated nowadays. The game is a third person shooter but not like many of that generation actually. As I was saying earlier, Resident Evil 4 was a massively influential game. Most third person shooters took it’s game play and ran with it. For example, Dead Space and the way it plays were directly inspired by Resident Evil 4! Alan Wake on the other hand feels like it gets most of it’s game play feel from Remedy’s previous work Max Payne. It’s a little hard to describe but Alan Wake, and Max Payne, feel a lot more loose when it comes to how they play compared to something like Resident Evil 4. The camera is pulled much further back and it feels like you can move much more easily. Which works very well for Alan Wake as it’s combat features a lot of quick enemies that seemingly come out of nowhere! But how the game really sets itself apart from all the rest when it comes to it’s game play is it’s combat gimmick of fighting off the dark with the light.

The unkillable enemy in Alan’s dream at the start of the game wasn’t just a one off thing. All of the enemies in the game are seemingly invincible. The enemies in question appear to be the towns people of Bright Falls who have been taken over by a dark force that is revealed later in the story. For the sake of game play, all you need to know is that this dark force is what’s keeping your enemies alive and after you. The most you can do is make them recoil a bit when shooting them. If you want to take them down, you need to get that darkness off of them. And this is why Alan always makes sure he’s equipped with a gun and a flashlight! In order to beat these foes, you need to focus your light right on them for long enough that the darkness will fade and you can attack! And how long it takes to get that darkness off of them depends on the enemy type. So bigger and tougher enemies will of course take longer. There are also some instances where you can trick your foes into running into a powerful light source like a lamp post light or a search light. Doing so will cause them to die instantly rather than just knocking the darkness off so you can deliver the finishing blow. And watching them just erupt from a big beam of light is always satisfying. This is the main pull of the combat and honestly it works very well! Not only as a fun game play mechanic but also for the story, since it’s all about fighting back the dark with the light. However, this is kind of the only thing Alan Wake has going for it in terms of game play. There are some puzzles here and there, and driving sections, but the game is mostly about going from one place to another defeating darkness monsters. Luckily there is enough variety to keep the combat feeling fresh and the story is always present, so the game never feels like a bore! That being said, if it feels a bit odd to play, like in general, that’s most likely because Alan Wake was originally going to play very differently.

Alan Wake was originally going to be an open world horror game. The player was going to be able to travel all around Bright Falls, getting to know the world and characters a bit more and experience more of that Twin Peaks influence as they would really see just how odd the small town was. This is why so many levels in the game feature driving sections. It’s clear that they didn’t want to cut all that content even though it doesn’t really fit with the level structure anymore so they just added it in to a lot of the levels. Something I kind of wish they didn’t do as a lot of the driving sections do feel like padding but it is neat to be able to see what the game was going to be like before the shift. This big change mainly came about because of just how long the game was taking to develop. Apparently it would have taken a lot longer to fully implement the open world so they decided to scrap it before getting too far in.

Despite that, Alan Wake managed to be a beacon of light during the dark age of horror games. And while the game very much feels like it comes from that era with it’s game play, it’s still worth checking out now! The story and acting is great all the way through, and while the game play is dated that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun. And while it didn’t do well enough back in the day to get the sequel it set up at the end of the story, it’s clear that Remedy poured a lot of love into this game and Alan Wake in general. Most of their future releases would included plenty of references to the game after all. This ended up going so far that in their next big hit, Control, they actually confirmed the two games took place in the same world and Control even got DLC all about Alan Wake! And of course, after so many years, we are finally getting the sequel Remedy always wanted to make for Alan Wake. And with it, we’ll be getting to see what they originally had in mind as it was confirmed early on that Alan Wake 2 would in fact be an open world horror game! We won’t even have to wait that long to play it either since it’ll be out next week! A great way to cap off Spooky Month for sure.

Although… There is one more game that I would like to recommend. A game that I think everyone should play for Spooky Month or any time of the year honestly. It’s a game that managed to hit me in a way that no other horror game besides Silent Hill ever could. And that game is… SIGNALIS. But that’s a review best save for next week so I hope you check it out as we end this Spooky Month with that final recommendation!

For now though, what are some of your thoughts? Have you ever played Alan Wake? Thinking about picking it up now or maybe getting the sequel? I’d love to hear your thoughts so don’t be shy!

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