It’s been a busy summer for indie horror game announcements. There are so many horror games in development, looking for funding, or recently shipped that you might think the world has gone insane. Actually, I think the real reason is that we suddenly have platforms where niche communities (like this one) can vote with their wallets for the types of games they want, and it turns out a lot of them want horror games.
Here are a bunch of games you should consider / back / play / keep an eye on. This is far from an exhaustive list! Please add your favorites in the comments.
- Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs is out on Steam. Developed by The Chinese Room, the guys behind Dear Esther, this is one you should go play now.
- Outlast is another popular recent release that I haven’t played because it’s Windows-only. Check it out.
- The Long Dark probably isn’t a horror game per se, but the folks working on it are all awesome and it promises to tread ground familiar to any horror aficionado.
- Neverending Nightmares is a horror game looking for funding. Love the Edward Gorey art style!
- Long Night is another horror game trying to raise development funds. This one promises psychological scares without the need for combat or gore.
- Finally, here’s another shot of the game I’m working on. No details, yet!
Outlast is the kind of cheap screamer horror that no fan of survival horror should back or support. And when it’s not, it’s a tedious chore to play with a totally uninteresting story that makes you wish it would just end already. I’m disappointed that you would recommend it.
Amnesia almost falls into that category as well, now if it actually was a game and not an interactive novel I would think about it.
I’ll be honest here, I’m really tired of these overdone cheap first-person games which rely on throwing jumpscares at your face while “telling” a story through countless and tedious diary logs that no one wants to search for and read.
Neverending Nightmares and Long Night do look interesting though. That’s something.
Thanks for the list.
And I’m very much looking forward to the new Robot Invader game.
You mentioned them before in a post here, but I’m still looking forward to playing DreadOut and The Forest.
I also have very high hopes for the Evil Within.
There’s another game that looks interesting called Memories of a Broken Dimension, although I’m not sure if it can be classified as survival horror, or if it’s very good.
Has anyone played it?
(Sorry for the double post)
The footage for Outlast failed to grab me. I love the video camera perspective, and I wish more games would use it, but it really does seem to rely way too heavily on jump scares, and the whole “experiments on patients in an asylum” premise is overdone.
That being said, I do want to play the new Amnesia, and Long Night sounds interesting, at the very least. And of course, I think we’re all immensely curious to see how you apply everything you’ve learned to your own game.
there’s a great looking game on kickstarter called “Middle of nowhere” I backed it the first time and it didn’t get enough funding, so he’s trying a second time. hopefully it works because the game looks pretty good.
I loved Machine for Pigs, it filtered out the bits of the original I wasn’t too fond of and told a story I really enjoyed. It wasn’t as scary as the original, but I don’t think it tried to be.
Plus, it incorporated manipulation of space quite well, which you mentioned a while ago and is something we haven’t seen much of.
I pitched for the Neverending Nightmares campaign, I was excited to discover Matt is a follower of this blog and has been following your exploits and read many of the books you recommended prior to this project, so I really think he will do a great job!
Nice suggestions, thank you 🙂
I suggest Memories of a Broken Dimension also, really weird and nice.
P.S. Lone Survivor The Director’s Cut has been released on PS3! WOOOO
http://laucap.tumblr.com/
i’m highly anticipating your horror game chris! (I’ts a Horror game, isnt?)
also, the Evil Within looks wonderful, almost like a RE remake.
I really like that Long Night is in third person, it seems like every recent horror game, besides sequels to older games, has been in first person.
We need another game to justify transitions between the two viewpoints like Fatal Frame, and achieve the best of both worlds in the process. Or Shibata could just hurry up with Fatal Frame 5, that would do.