Wikipedia defines survival horror as a game genre in which odds are stacked against the player so as to de-emphasize direct combat, and instead encourage the player to avoid enemies. This is generally done by limiting resources such as ammunition and healing items, and by making the player’s avatar relatively weak, as opposed to other action games like Halo or God of War. The setting in a survival horror game is generally dark and horrific, and challenges are often non-combat related, taking the form of puzzles, mazes, and inventory management.

From my perspective, survival horror titles are a dying breed. The old greats like Resident Evil 2 and Eternal Darkness may never be topped. Newer games like Dead Space and Resident Evil 5 are very good, but their status as survival horror titles is questionable. A quiz that I recently took identifies me as a “Survivor-Achiever”, apparently meaning that survival horror is my genre of choice. I’ll certainly admit that I absolutely love being startled/scared by games. But it happens so rarely.

Let’s take a quick look at the history of the survival horror genre. Leaving out oldies like the Atari 2600 game Haunted House, the genre sees its origins with the 1992 PC game Alone in the Dark, and with Silent Hill and the Resident Evil series that appeared in the late 90’s on the Playstation.

In the early 2000’s, we see Resident Evil: Code Veronica X and Fatal Frame, which are both clearly within the survival horror genre, and also Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, one of the first non-Playstation survival horror games.

The 2004 game Doom 3 has many survival horror elements, but most people agree that the game is first and foremost a first-person shooter.

In 2005, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth was released. Although there is little question that it’s a survival horror game, I found it to be buggy and horribly frustrating. It also marked XBox’s attempt at an entry into the survival horror genre.

2005 also gave us Resident Evil 4, which to me really marked the death of classical the survival horror genre. Resident Evil had always been the flagship of survival horror games. While Resident Evil 4 was a fantastic game, it was clearly far more of a third-person action game than a survival horror game. Condemned: Criminal Origins and F.E.A.R. came out right around the same time. While both tried, neither was truly survival horror, due to a focus on combat in each.

Dead Space gave me new hope. While it can’t really be classified as survival horror, there were a few brilliant moments in the game that gave me a frightened feeling I haven’t really gotten from any game since Resident Evil 2. This is probably the best we’ll see in terms of survival horror for the forseeable future. I hope that games like this thrive in the future.

Lastly, Fatal Frame 4, which I have not played. Fatal Frame 4 was released for the Nintendo Wii in 2008, but only in Japan. That would be why I haven’t played it. It’s sad, really.

I’m not sure whether true survival horror as a genre is dead or not. I really do miss running from horrible creatures that you’re not supposed to kill. In most of the true survival horror games, you gain nothing from killing monsters. No cash, no loot, no experience points. Thus, running is generally a more attractive option. You’ll need that ammo when you’re backed into a corner.

5 – Dark Messiah of Might & Magic

Fairly early on in the game, a ghoul steals an important artifact, and to catch him you’ve got to do a poor man’s parkour across rooftops, through windows, and across rickety scaffolding to catch it. While the ghoul is climbing walls and leaping twenty feet through the air, you need to resort to climbing ladders and leaping two foot gaps between wooden planks. Being forced to take a far more circuitous route and leap before you look makes the chase frantic, and I personally plunged to my death at least a half dozen times. But once you learn the route you need to take and are racing along, the chase is indeed exhilirating.

Watch the Ghoul Chase from Dark Messiah of Might & Magic

4 – Enter the Matrix

I don’t remember very much detail about the gameplay in Enter the Matrix. The game was most notable for its FMV sequences with footage that was filmed at the same time and with the same actors that were in Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions. But once part that I remember quite well is being chased by an agent early in the game. If you remember the opening scene in the first Matrix movie, Trinity was in a frenzied flight from an agent. The sequence from the game captured that feeling perfectly – you’ve got to run as fast as you can, and you have absolutely no chance to look back. If you look behind you, you die. It’s the most frantic chase scene in any game I’ve ever played.

3 – Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

Overall, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth was a frustrating game. A bug prevented me from even completing it. But the first real action in the game, before you have any weapons, is a scene where you’re running from townsfolk who want to kill you. You’re staying in an inn, and you’ve locked your door, but you’ve only got a few seconds before the townies break it down. You move to the adjacent room and push a bookcase in front of the door to block it, then start working on opening the window to get out. This is the beginning of an insane chase that constitutes the only really well crafted part of this game. Very memorable.

Watch the Call of Cthulhu chase

2 – Gravity Bone

It’s very possible that you’ve never heard of Gravity Bone. It’s not an actual commercially available full game. It’s a short, free, downloadable game that I’ve featured on Free Game Friday. But it’s one of the best Free Game Friday games I’ve ever covered. If it were a full game, I’d buy it in a minute. The first level is a 2-minute romp. The second is fun but not phenomenal… until the end. The twist is brilliant and unexpected, and leads to an amazing chase with an equally unexpected ending. I loved it. You can link to the video below, or better yet – download and play the game.

Watch the Gravity Bone chase (skip to 3:30)

1 – Beyond Good and Evil

I’m sure that the people of Lungfishopolis wish by now that I’d shut up about Beyond Good and Evil. I try to keep my raving to a minimum, but when I thought of chases in games, this is simply the best. The cinematic chase near the end of Beyond Good and Evil breaks the rules of the game by changing the camera angle multiple times and intercutting slow-motion mini-cut-scenes in a way that results in a beautiful foot chase. At one point, you’re actually running directly towards the camera, which seems odd until you realize that in that point of the chase, dodging projectiles thrown by your pursuers is more important than dodging upcoming obstacles.

Watch the chase from Beyond Good and Evil