Touching on Horror
I will be the first to say that I’m a big chicken when it comes to horror. Five Nights at Freddy’s, Bioshock, and Singularty have me flinching and squirming. However, there is something I’ve noticed in the horror genre.
There is a strict abidance to the player facing the fear: the animatronics, the time mutants, and the long-haired psychic girl. The player is somehow helpless against this imposing and powerful “other”.
There is a reason for this. Removing power from the player is a key part of creating the sensation of horror. The helplessness removes the locus of control from the player. The Locus of control is how much a person feels like they can control what happens to them. Removing power moves that loci of control outside of the player; they don’t control their fate anymore.
Subverting Horror
I’m speaking of horror subversion as making the monster not scary. Some ways to do this are by empowering the player such as supercharging the TMD at the end of Singularity, or by weakening the monster like when a glitched Slenderman gets stuck in a tree while you walk around him.
These tactics of subverting horror are often used to create humor. Parody movies such as Scary Movie use this to mock the horror genre and its tropes. The Scooby Doo series did this extremely well. The subversion created humor for the cartoons, but also eased the tense atmosphere created by the monsters the gang would find.
Subversion works to manipulate horror. It allows horror to run its course, building tension and creating atmosphere. Then, subversion interrupts the horror to create a new emotion: dropping tension to make a joke or causing a break just to hike the horror up again.
Flipping Horror for Fun and Profit
With all of that covered, there is a trend that isn’t as explored: being the monster.
The player is often on either side of the man vs. other conflict. In Singularity, the player is the “other”, but faces the hordes of time mutant zombies. In the F.E.A.R. series, Alma is the “other” that the player must defeat. In all these games, you aren’t the monster either way.
However, there are some games that do make you the monster. The PROTOTYPE and Overlord series do this very well.
In PROTOTYPE, you play as the perfect expression of a deadly virus fighting a paramilitary group. You are the monster to man. However, the mutants created by the virus are hostile to the player. Even to the monsters, you are the monster. Both sides are hostile to the player, but the player is still the biggest threat to both sides. As the player, you become a predator who must become as dangerous as the prey it hunts.
In Overlord, you are the dark and powerful Overlord conquering the land. There is no overly complicated scheme, no ambiguous moral choices, and no hero being pulled through hoops to a final confrontation. You are the evil Overlord and you get what you want. The player isn’t just a monster, they are the monster. The foes you face, none are greater than you, but they oppose you. As the player, you don’t face threats; you face obstacles that will be eventually overcome.
Both PROTOTYPE and Overlord make excellent settings for horror to take place: a rampant viral infection plaguing a city with mutants or a fantasy realm being overrun by an evil overlord’s minions. But with these settings, you are placed in a vastly different position. The loci of control are both outside of the player by the world being in motion without them, but control is also within them because they can make direct changes on a world in motion. A river demonstrates this view of control. Instead of carving the river themselves, the player causes an already flowing river to change its course or divert its flow.
The Wrap UP or TL;DR
The horror genre is ripe for flipping, changing, and subverting to create a new experience for players and I’d like to see this happen more often instead of making scarier games.