Is the survival horror genre essentially dead?

With capcom making resident evil a casual third person shooter and konami killing silent hill (cant understand why im sure theyll turn a profit especially with all the hype the demo received)

Is the genre many of us love dead?

That's the exact reason they're remastering and remaking the older Resident Evil games, that's when it was done right. Everything put out now is forgettable nonsense, however Alien Isolation was a pretty solid survival horror game.

Unfortunately, yes. Those games were never big sellers in the first place, aside from the first Resident Evil and Silent Hill games, most struggled to reach the million mark.

Yes, best we can hope for now is the Re2 remake

Alien Isolation also under-performed. I think it'll be the last big budget horror for quite some time.

if people didn't shit all over Dead Space and Dead Island we'd still have those, the third Dead Space game was actually quite decent

anyhow, we got games this gen like Dying Light, Fatal Frame for Wii U, State of Decay, Zombie Army Trilogy, The Evil Within, Dead Rising 3, nothing of great critical acclaim but anybody that loves horror in film knows you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel sometimes and sometimes it pays off big finding those great lesser known gems

@lamprey263: ugh, all those games you mentioned are either shit or turned into shit by the time their latest installment released. Im fucking livid that konami pulled the carpet out from under us with the whole silent hill debacle. It was on its way to greatness, much like the ps4 this gen.

@harrygooch: LIES!!

I think the upcoming virtual reality devices are going to breath new life into the survival horror genre. There is no better genre suited for VR than survival horror so I expect developers to start releasing a lot of new survival horror games once the VR devices hit the market.

@harrygooch: Yes, and FPS players killed it.

Pretty much. Alien: Isolation was alright, and the new Fatal Frame sucked. Silent Hills would have been a giant success, but it was cancelled... I love this genre but it's struggling.

No, I doubt we get a game as good as Silent Hill 2, but that speaks more to the excellence of Silent Hill 2. Frictional Games exists, there are plenty of under the radar horror games that come out such as Outlast, or attempts in the adventure space, and Alien Isolation at least breaking even, and The Evil Within doing fine in October gives me hope on some level. Capcom is remaking their classics, I'm mildly looking at that as a positive with the assumption that if they are stupid enough to continue with Resident Evil, they will take the chance to finally reboot the series. The Last of Us wasn't exactly horror, but it had survival elements, and was meant to be tense in spots like a horror game, and that game sold, very well actually.

I don't think it thrives in the Triple A space necessarily, but even looking back only Resident Evil was triple A in the strictest sense, maybe Silent Hill as well. The other horror games of those gens were more middle tier titles than anything, and frankly those were always scarier than Resident Evil.

Alien Isolation says hi.

Hopefully Sony Bend's survival horror game turns out good because it sounds interesting.

The release of Resident Evil Revelation's infernal mode was more difficult than any Resident Evil game to date.

Not remotely. PC has tons of great titles, even if they are indie.

No, but it should be.

Alien Isolation was great survival for the first half, then we all know how it went on the second half. I'm at chapter 5 on the Evil Within, and even though the story is shit, I find it very underrated. Very good game so far.

No they are remastering the old games because they don't want to shell out for an AAA budget Resident Evil 7 yet. I think the excitement for the announcement of Resident Evil 2 REmake and the crazy reception to Silent Hills(PT) proves that survival horror still has a market.

I think its kinda dead, we dont get good survival horror games hardly anymore. But then again, were they ever really alive in the first place, sure we had some big ones, but most were very niche.

Them early Resident Evil games where the good ol days. Hopefully they will go back to it before its too late.

Dying Light was awesome, so I'd say no... their latest expansion is supposed to be big enough to be a stand alone title.

No I don't think so. As a big fan of the genre I was quite happy with the console offerings of 2013-2014, I'm still playing some of those games. I'm still playing Slender man, haven't played the DLC for Outlast yet. The games have slowed down this year but thankfully not as much on PC it seems so hopefully as an Xbox One owner I can look forward to more fantastic PC ports in the future.

It's too bad my favorite horror franchise, Slient Hill, probably will not see a release anytime soon. But I just recently noticed the SEGA game Condemned appear in my XOne BC games, which is great because I always wanted to go back to that game and had forgotten about it, so that will be one of the next horror games I intend to finish. Hopefully the genre picks up some steam next year.

Slender The Arrival and Fatal Frame Maiden of Black Water were great.

And What about Outlast?

I think the Survival Horror genre is still alive. We just don't get many of them and stop relying on Konami and Capcom to make them.

There is NightCry and Forgotten Memories: Alternate Realities. Both are scheduled to be released this year, and I am just so pleased over how they resemble classics like Clock Tower and Silent Hill 2. While it`s a quiet period for the genre, be grateful for small mercies.

Silent Hill is officially dead I'd say. But those games are still great even today, I'm thinking about going through Shattered Memories again sometime soon.

Resident Evil is getting HD re-releases, maybe RE7 will go back to that style if the HD's keep selling well.

Alien Isolation was decent I hear, haven't played it yet though.

Depends on the definition of "survival horror" (I never liked the term much to begin with). I would say that Horror games in general are evolving, and we have had more horror games made in the last few years then we've had forever.

But the survival horror of "old" either got too action heavy or simply could not reinvent itself to stay relevant. We still have the evolved Horror games, and horror games as a whole is still around in spades.

Ironically It seems Horror on pc and console, is doomed to the same spot as in the movie industry, relatively low cost productions, with a high degree of crap amongst it.

Simple answer is likely that most people don't like to be scared, and won't go for anything horror.

I got Outlast in the Humble Bundle, is it any good ?

Does it have a good story ?

outlast and frictional games have stepped in to replace them.

Yeah it's a good game.

lolno

Dead? what about most boring but beloved walking simulator like SOMA and amnesia.

I brought Evil Within the other day(£15 Special Edition). The Controls are bit clunky, The graphics are reasonale at best but the lighting is good so that does add to the atmosphere. Its worth a dabble from the couple hours I've played.

Still to really play Alien, I brought it but i brought FFXIV at same time.

I thought Outlast and Silent Hill P.T. were good examples of that genre not being dead yet.

I'm excited for Outlast 2.

No, take off the nostalgia goggles. The only horror in old Resident Evil games were the controls. Trying not to die by bad camera angles is not survival gaming done right.

@jg4xchamp:

Don't tell me it's just jumpscares. Does it have a good atmosphere ?

I wouldn't say it's dead, but rather transformed.

Amnesia/Penumbra started a trend.

Indie games will save the genre