Survival Horror Games (Is Now The Best Time?)

TLOU Part 1, The Callisto Protocol, Dead Space Remake, and RE4 Remake are all coming out between September 2022 and March 2023, which begs the question, is now the best time in the history of gaming to be a fan of survival horror. The few reasons why I would argue for the upcoming months is that even though 3 of the games mentioned are remakes, they are still remakes of some of the best games of all time.

Dead Space looks to be going above and beyond what can be expected from a remake.  With RE4 we have seen what Capcom is capable of after the masterful works of RE2 and RE3 remake.  The argument could also be made that RE2 is the best remake of all time, and when you combine the quality they have put into the past two remakes with what many consider to be the best Resident Evil you have what could be a phenomenal experience. Finally, you have The Last of Us: Part 1, which even though it has already been remade for the PS4, it still remains a must play for fans of survival horror.

1999

It seems hard to imagine another six months of gaming history coming close to the upcoming six months of survival horror. Looking back through the decades of history, there is only one period I found that comes remotely close and it’s back before Y2K. The year is 1999

Silent Hill

Let’s take a quick, chronological look back at 1999, a year that started off with the introduction to one of the greatest horror gaming series with Silent Hill in February. Although most consider the second entry the best in the series,  if the original didn’t create the psychological horror genre, it at the very least Made it popular to the masses. Instead of being constrained by technology, silent hill embraced things like fog, darkness and radio static to create an unnerving mood the whole time.

Dino Crisis

Capcom was already deep into survival horror with Resident Evil 1&2 but with the success the company saw in the genre, we were introduced to another series, Dino Crisis. Dino Crisis capitalized on the survival horror of resident evil and the popularity of Jurassic Park and made a game that was able to stand on its own away from resident evil.  The game was directed by Shinji Mikani who is The Godfather of survival horror with games like Resident Evil, RE4, Dino Crisis and The Evil within on his resume. It’s actually very surprising that Dino Crisis hasn’t been rebooted or remade yet.

System Shock 2

Although it wasn’t a commercial success, it was a critical success and can still be pinpointed as a revolution for implementing RPG elements into FPS, mainly skill trees. I didn’t have a Pentium chip strong enough, and my voodoo card was probably underpowered but I was able to watch and play some of it at a friends.

System Shock 2 was ahead of its time. The mainstream didn’t come around to all of the elements of system shock 2 until the spiritual successor was also made by Ken Levine and irrational games nearly a decade later in 2007. In 2006 X Play ranked system shock 2 as the second scariest game ever only behind Silent Hill 2.

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

The final game in 1999 was RE3: Nemesis, which came out in November. Capcom was now in full Resident Evil mode as 2 came out in 1998, 3 in 99 and code Veronica in 2000 in addition to the Dino Crisis survival horror series. Nemesis was the beginning of the series moving more into the action. It was a shorter experience but choices mattered meaning that different play throughs were encouraged.

1999 vs Now

The difference between 1999 and now is that back then these were all original titles vs remakes. 1999 was also a span of about four titles in nine months compared to the upcoming four games in six months that begins in December 2022. Meaning you have a higher survival horror per month ration. Both timeframes have their benefits and there isn’t a wrong answer but if I had to decide I would say that we are currently coming up on what appears to be the best time to be a fan of survival horror.

In addition to all the new content heading our way, we also live in an era that makes playing all of these past survival horror classics just a button click away for most of them.

If you’ve never played some of these upcoming remakes, then its no contest, and even though we don’t know if Callisto Protocol will be good, all ingredients are in place including setting and developers. As for TLOU, Dead Space and RE4, many consider these entries to be the best in their series.