"Welcome to Survival Horror"
It was the summer of 1999 when I first played Silent Hill.
I remember sitting in front of my parents’ television set with my PlayStation hooked up and a beat-up controller in hand. My older sister was back from college for the summer, and my younger brother had just finished the fourth grade. Instead of our usual scary movie night, we decided to change things up a bit, so I booted up my new game instead. That was when I began playing one of the most influential horror experiences of my life.
In Silent Hill, you play as Harry Mason, an everyman protagonist who wakes up after a car accident and realizes his seven-year-old daughter is missing. Panicked, he follows her tracks through the woods to the town of Silent Hill, where he eventually befriends a cop named Cybil. Together they search for Harry’s daughter, and also for a means of escape. They stumble across hallucinatory terrains, fight possessed townsfolk infested with strange parasites, and meet other survivors battling through their own personal demons—all the while uncovering a strange cult trying to revive a dead god from a limbo-like place called the Otherworld.
The thing is… this is a video game. But my siblings watched me play it for hours. They watched me wander through barren streets and alleyways and even helped me solve some of the more cryptic puzzles. Yes, I was controlling the character, but they were helping me with my journey. Our journey. My brother at one point even walked up to the TV and started tapping the screen, pointing at things I had missed. He was completely engrossed in the experience.
At this point, still somewhat early in the game, I entered an area leading to an abandoned school. A menacing fog horn sounds far off in the distance, and the night turns darker, and dissonant music swells to a crescendo. My radio emits static, warning me of creatures drawing nearer (a wonderful game mechanic, by the way), and the radio is now going batshit crazy as creatures are about to attack me on all fronts.
I knew I was surrounded, so I quickly checked my inventory to see what weapons I had at my disposal. And of course, being a survival horror game, I had one bullet.
I remember the look of horror on my brother’s face, how he slowly stepped away from the TV, and then turned and ran back and jumped up on the couch next to my sister. I remember my sister yelling “Run!” and my brother joining her, and my mother in the kitchen asking why we were all shouting at the TV.
To me, this defines the survival horror subgenre.
I only have one bullet…
(and)
Run…
#
The term “survival horror” was first coined by Capcom for the Japanese release of Resident Evil in 1996. If you’re not familiar with this term, you might be asking how it differs from other horror subgenres. Here is the best answer I can give.
Survival horror is a subgenre of horror video games in which the protagonist(s) must face dire situations in locations far off the beaten path by using the environment, or items found in the environment, to survive. While it's safe to assume that "survival" is a common element in most horror stories, there is an extra emphasis in a survival horror story. It could mean finding escape, or fortifying a position and awaiting rescue, or fighting the threat head on with the use of traps and/or under-powered weaponry. Overall, the challenge is making do with a very limited amount of resources, and often in extremely hostile environments.
This style of gameplay was incredibly popular from 1996 to 2004. During this time, every video game company wanted their own survival horror franchise. Some succeeded; most didn’t—but all of the games had similar characteristics: evasion, puzzle solving, item management, key cards, doorways, clunky controls (nicknamed “tank controls”), and item/weapon crafting.
Over the years I’ve come to realize that Silent Hill and Resident Evil had a tremendous impact on my writing as well (I tend to write with a lot of doorways and people running). But I think the seed may have been planted far earlier through movies. Steven Spielberg’s Jaws instantly comes to mind. Also, Ridley Scott’s Alien, John Carpenter’s The Thing, and George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. As far as books go, Richard Matheson’s I am Legend is probably my all-time favorite. Also, Stephen King’s excellent novella, The Mist, and of course H.P. Lovecraft’s, The Shadow over Innsmouth to name a few.
There are more… a lot more, but we have to keep moving so you can get on to the stories.
#
Around 2005, survival horror died a short, painful death. Video games were becoming faster paced, with better graphics and cooperative gameplay. Survival horror, with its clunky controls, hostile environments, and higher-than-average difficulty, had become obsolete.
Flash forward fourteen years…
Recently I began hearing talk online about a resurgence in old-school horror games. I bounced around various chatrooms and went on eBay, and to my surprise, came across several horror titles that are now considered extremely rare. Some copies were even selling for a thousand dollars in their original packaging! (Rule of Rose, Kuon, Clock Tower… I’m looking at you.)
So what happened?
For starters, I believe there is a shifting trend toward retro aesthetics—in music, in movies, in just about everything. And I think other hugely successful games like Minecraft reintroduced item crafting and made it cool again.
But I really think the most important aspect is the story—the part that lingers in the mind far more than what weapon to use or what button to push. This is where survival horror excels. Ask anyone who’s played Silent Hill 2 or The Last of Us about their experience, and you’ll be surprised when they talk at length about story, theme, symbolism, and character.
I recently played a handful of older games from what’s nicknamed the “golden age of survival horror,” (1996-2004), and I fell in love with them all over again. So I asked myself… are there other writers out there influenced by this subgenre? And since it was initially created by video games, how would the stories translate to narrative fiction writing? I thought about it more and finally decided to open up my first anthology submission call to find out.
As far as the title goes, the idea came from a writer named Chris Pruett. I used to visit his website back in the day, called Chris’s Survival Horror Quest. I spent countless hours reading reviews on rare games and articles about how horror is changing in the digital age. One of his blog posts in particular caught my attention, called The Value of Uncertainty Part 2: Negative Space.
He states:
In this context, the term {negative space} describes the bits of the story that are never explicitly communicated to the player. If we write a complete narrative down on index cards, with one event per card, and then pour the whole lot on the table, the cards that land face down are in the negative space. The reader can probably piece the story together from the cards that land face up, but he’ll have to use his imagination to fill in the blanks.
This is such a wonderful way to think of storytelling—of showing parts of the overall whole and letting the reader fill in the other details. This limbo-like state is where horror writers love to dwell and breed ideas and make babies that horrify the reader with their twisted offspring.
#
And so, before we start, I just wanted to say thank you to all the authors involved with this anthology, who fought their way to the top of the submission pile, and who trusted me to edit and showcase their work: Scotty Milder, Michelle Tang, Amelia Gorman, S.R. Miller, Jude Reid, Maggie Slater, J.C. Martínez, Richard Beauchamp, P.L. McMillan, M.J. Mars, Eric J. Guignard, and Jay Wilburn. Thank you.
For the rest of you… here’s your one bullet. Let’s make a run for it.
Welcome to survival horror.
I remember sitting in front of my parents’ television set with my PlayStation hooked up and a beat-up controller in hand. My older sister was back from college for the summer, and my younger brother had just finished the fourth grade. Instead of our usual scary movie night, we decided to change things up a bit, so I booted up my new game instead. That was when I began playing one of the most influential horror experiences of my life.
In Silent Hill, you play as Harry Mason, an everyman protagonist who wakes up after a car accident and realizes his seven-year-old daughter is missing. Panicked, he follows her tracks through the woods to the town of Silent Hill, where he eventually befriends a cop named Cybil. Together they search for Harry’s daughter, and also for a means of escape. They stumble across hallucinatory terrains, fight possessed townsfolk infested with strange parasites, and meet other survivors battling through their own personal demons—all the while uncovering a strange cult trying to revive a dead god from a limbo-like place called the Otherworld.
The thing is… this is a video game. But my siblings watched me play it for hours. They watched me wander through barren streets and alleyways and even helped me solve some of the more cryptic puzzles. Yes, I was controlling the character, but they were helping me with my journey. Our journey. My brother at one point even walked up to the TV and started tapping the screen, pointing at things I had missed. He was completely engrossed in the experience.
At this point, still somewhat early in the game, I entered an area leading to an abandoned school. A menacing fog horn sounds far off in the distance, and the night turns darker, and dissonant music swells to a crescendo. My radio emits static, warning me of creatures drawing nearer (a wonderful game mechanic, by the way), and the radio is now going batshit crazy as creatures are about to attack me on all fronts.
I knew I was surrounded, so I quickly checked my inventory to see what weapons I had at my disposal. And of course, being a survival horror game, I had one bullet.
I remember the look of horror on my brother’s face, how he slowly stepped away from the TV, and then turned and ran back and jumped up on the couch next to my sister. I remember my sister yelling “Run!” and my brother joining her, and my mother in the kitchen asking why we were all shouting at the TV.
To me, this defines the survival horror subgenre.
I only have one bullet…
(and)
Run…
#
The term “survival horror” was first coined by Capcom for the Japanese release of Resident Evil in 1996. If you’re not familiar with this term, you might be asking how it differs from other horror subgenres. Here is the best answer I can give.
Survival horror is a subgenre of horror video games in which the protagonist(s) must face dire situations in locations far off the beaten path by using the environment, or items found in the environment, to survive. While it's safe to assume that "survival" is a common element in most horror stories, there is an extra emphasis in a survival horror story. It could mean finding escape, or fortifying a position and awaiting rescue, or fighting the threat head on with the use of traps and/or under-powered weaponry. Overall, the challenge is making do with a very limited amount of resources, and often in extremely hostile environments.
This style of gameplay was incredibly popular from 1996 to 2004. During this time, every video game company wanted their own survival horror franchise. Some succeeded; most didn’t—but all of the games had similar characteristics: evasion, puzzle solving, item management, key cards, doorways, clunky controls (nicknamed “tank controls”), and item/weapon crafting.
Over the years I’ve come to realize that Silent Hill and Resident Evil had a tremendous impact on my writing as well (I tend to write with a lot of doorways and people running). But I think the seed may have been planted far earlier through movies. Steven Spielberg’s Jaws instantly comes to mind. Also, Ridley Scott’s Alien, John Carpenter’s The Thing, and George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. As far as books go, Richard Matheson’s I am Legend is probably my all-time favorite. Also, Stephen King’s excellent novella, The Mist, and of course H.P. Lovecraft’s, The Shadow over Innsmouth to name a few.
There are more… a lot more, but we have to keep moving so you can get on to the stories.
#
Around 2005, survival horror died a short, painful death. Video games were becoming faster paced, with better graphics and cooperative gameplay. Survival horror, with its clunky controls, hostile environments, and higher-than-average difficulty, had become obsolete.
Flash forward fourteen years…
Recently I began hearing talk online about a resurgence in old-school horror games. I bounced around various chatrooms and went on eBay, and to my surprise, came across several horror titles that are now considered extremely rare. Some copies were even selling for a thousand dollars in their original packaging! (Rule of Rose, Kuon, Clock Tower… I’m looking at you.)
So what happened?
For starters, I believe there is a shifting trend toward retro aesthetics—in music, in movies, in just about everything. And I think other hugely successful games like Minecraft reintroduced item crafting and made it cool again.
But I really think the most important aspect is the story—the part that lingers in the mind far more than what weapon to use or what button to push. This is where survival horror excels. Ask anyone who’s played Silent Hill 2 or The Last of Us about their experience, and you’ll be surprised when they talk at length about story, theme, symbolism, and character.
I recently played a handful of older games from what’s nicknamed the “golden age of survival horror,” (1996-2004), and I fell in love with them all over again. So I asked myself… are there other writers out there influenced by this subgenre? And since it was initially created by video games, how would the stories translate to narrative fiction writing? I thought about it more and finally decided to open up my first anthology submission call to find out.
As far as the title goes, the idea came from a writer named Chris Pruett. I used to visit his website back in the day, called Chris’s Survival Horror Quest. I spent countless hours reading reviews on rare games and articles about how horror is changing in the digital age. One of his blog posts in particular caught my attention, called The Value of Uncertainty Part 2: Negative Space.
He states:
In this context, the term {negative space} describes the bits of the story that are never explicitly communicated to the player. If we write a complete narrative down on index cards, with one event per card, and then pour the whole lot on the table, the cards that land face down are in the negative space. The reader can probably piece the story together from the cards that land face up, but he’ll have to use his imagination to fill in the blanks.
This is such a wonderful way to think of storytelling—of showing parts of the overall whole and letting the reader fill in the other details. This limbo-like state is where horror writers love to dwell and breed ideas and make babies that horrify the reader with their twisted offspring.
#
And so, before we start, I just wanted to say thank you to all the authors involved with this anthology, who fought their way to the top of the submission pile, and who trusted me to edit and showcase their work: Scotty Milder, Michelle Tang, Amelia Gorman, S.R. Miller, Jude Reid, Maggie Slater, J.C. Martínez, Richard Beauchamp, P.L. McMillan, M.J. Mars, Eric J. Guignard, and Jay Wilburn. Thank you.
For the rest of you… here’s your one bullet. Let’s make a run for it.
Welcome to survival horror.
Copyright 2020. Dark Peninsula Press.
Published in: Negative Space: An Anthology of Survival Horror (2020)