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This page is about the videogame subgenre. For the movie genre, see Horror film. For other areas, see Horror (disambiguation).

Survival horror is a subgenre of video games inspired by horror fiction. Titles in the genre often focus on a protagonist, or multiple protagonists, surviving against a specific evil phenomenon or entity. Games take elements from traditional horror media, such as creepy atmosphere, low lighting, or jump scares. In terms of game mechanics, survival horror often connotes limited resources and save points, puzzle, crafting, and a weapon and ammunition system.

Japanese video game series Resident Evil is the first recorded game to be described as survival horror, by its publisher Capcom, but games preceding it such as 1992 Alone in the Dark have been identified as survival horror games.

Survival Horror takes typical tropes of the horror genre and applies them to a video game setting - so the origins of the ideas of survival horror trace much further back, to the beginning of the Western Horror genre in Ancient Greece and Rome, but also Japanese Horror which began in the Edo and Meiji eras.^[1]

The first Survival Horror game is believed to be Nostromo, developed by University of Tokyo student Akira Takiguchi for the PET 2001, taking inspiration from 1979 film Alien and 1980 stealth game Manibiki Shoujo. Nostromo exhibited several tropes of later Survival Horror games, such as the player being constantly chased by a creature, while attemtping to collect limited resources.^[2]

The 1980s period also saw the release of many more widely recognized Survival Horror originators, such as James Andreasen's Haunted House for the Atari 2600, Malcolm Evans' 3D Monster Maze for the Sinclair ZX81,^[3] and, the first to be released by a large scale publisher and not independent developer. Bandai's Terror House^[4]. This was released on Bandai's own proprietary console, a handheld, solar powered system. This allowed for the game to change based on how much light was currently in the player's environment.^[5]

1989 saw the release of one of the most prominent Survival Horror games, Sweet Home for the Nintendo Entertainment System.^[6] This is the game that is credited as the main inspiration for the Resident Evil franchise, and was developed by later director of Resident Evil, Tokuro Fujiwara.^[7]

The first Resident Evil game was released in 1996, under the name Biohazard in Japan, and the first mainstream use of the term 'survival horror' was from Capcom's marketing.^[8][9] Resident Evil began as a remake of Sweet Home,^[10] and despite moving away from this premise, elements of the game were still present such as puzzles, setting, and multiple endings.

Thanks to the success of Resident Evil, not only has the Sony Playstation began to dominate the console market,^[11] but led to many imitators attempt to create similar games to mimic its success. The most successful of which being Konami's Silent Hill, directed by Hideo Kojima. While there were many actual clones, many games attempted to differentiate themselves while also having elements of Resident Evil - for example, Corpse Party is a pixel, anime style survival horror that does not have combat, but other elements of the genre. This period in general was very much driven by Japanese developers and Japanese depictions of horror.

The success of Resident Evil spawned a whole franchise of sequels and even movie's, and eventually remakes.

From the end of the 'Golden age' and onwards, the line between action and survival horror became blurred - some endeavors were successful, such as Resident Evil 4 incorporating elements from the action genre to positive critical reception. Interestingly it was commented that as the combat in Resident Evil became more sophisticated, it became less of a survival horror game; reinforcing the genre's predisposition to combat as the least viable option. ^[12][13]

The turn of the decade saw a trend of the opposite; action games incorporating elements of survival horror. By and large the most notable being The Last of Us in 2013. The game received critical acclaim, however reviews also distanced it from the survival horror genre.

"If this was pretty much any other recent survival horror title, the answer would be simple – reach for the trusty military grade shotgun, grenade launcher or plasma cutter as appropriate, paint the walls with rotted brains and waltz across the room, scooping up an assortment of high-powered ammunition along the way. This isn't one of those games though, this is The Last of Us, and your arsenal right now consists of a brick and a length of drainpipe with some scissors taped to the end. Good luck, you're going to need it."^[14] - Paul Sartori, The Guardian; 'The Last of Us - review'

The most recent entry in the Resident Evil franchise, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, has been a 'return to form' for the series, and has been praised particularly by longtime fans of the series.^[15]

Survival horror games will intentionally limit healing items, ammunition, and even save points, in order to create a sense of tension and danger. Often there will be a hard limit on how many of these the game can generate, but may be bypassed using techniques such as reloading. Because of this, ammunition is usually in the same place for every player.

Player characters will usually be regular humans with no supernatural power or unique quality. This is done to further a feeling that the main enemy is an insurmountable obstacle for the player. Coupled with this trope is the conditioning of a player that upon an encounter with an enemy, the most effective strategy is to run away. The most notable example of this is with Mr X in Resident Evil 2.

See Fog of War

Games will use the players uncertainty about a situation to create tension that may otherwise not exist. The medium of video games allows a developer to purposefully hide information from players, and most commonly in survival horror games is used to make areas of the map invisible before they have been visited. This not only encourages exploration of the game world, but also artificially creates fear by putting the player at a tactical and knowledge disadvantage.

The roots of Survival Horror are often traced back to the H.P. Lovecraft universe, specifically the themes of investigation and higher beings being responsible for calamity - one of the earliest survival horror games, Nostromo, involves the player escaping from an unseen 'alien' or higher power creature. The influence is still seen today, with recent games such as Bloodborne being obviously inspired by eldritch lore.