I'm quite curious of what people consider horror in an RE game.

Biohazard has gone trough some changes troughout the franchise along with the characters
that deal with bio terrorism.

For example, Leon who was a rookie cop managed to get himself into a situation where zombies were new to him. When fastforwarding to Degeneration. There isn't much fear for these zombies.

Resident Evil 4 personally made me feel it was more centered around survival. Leon encountering the Las Plagas forces him to adapt and survive.


There's various comments on how RE6 has driven away from the horror feel.
Mainly because these characters are focused on bio terrorism
While Kobayashi stated that there are various styles of horror.

So what defines "Horror" for you?
Is it because of the atmosphere, enemy design, limited mobility/ammo, Jump scares, inexperienced characters etc.?

A sense of being overwhelmed, of perhaps hopelessness. Because I sure as heck was hopeless when I first played as Resident Evil. Code Veronica, zombie intro was just humiliating, and my first attempt at Resident Evil 2 was just painful. I don't think I got past the second screen before I had Leon shuffle off the mortal coil. I started off as Leon so that I could get a feel for the game, and not kill off Claire straight away.

Atmosphere is extremely important. When I first bought Code Veronica, I "allowed" my friend to play it first, and the heartbeat on the stairs and the murkiness of the cell had him on the edge of his seat, and he was really quite nervous. After he died (first zombie) he handed it over to me. I lasted a little bit longer (third zombie).

I think that tension building is crucial. The hallway/bridge thingymabob in Code Veronica, with the thunder, and piano were genuinely unnerving. That's all you're getting from me!

For me it is the musical implements during the game/movie/etc.- It really helps define atmosphere and actually keeps me coming back and possibly re-watching it. Like the Silent Hill games, the soundtrack is simply amazing. Same for RE:5 and RE:4- made me buy the soundtrack.

Also it's "jumpy moments." That's honestly the only thing that is actually scary to me. I have never felt uncomfortable (even though I was aware) because watching scary movies as a child, I have been more desensitized to bloodshed, fictitious monsters, even rape (even though it's a very sensitive topic). I am incredibly prone to be scared at any silent and then ...BOOM! treatment.

Even as a child, my parents would let me watch "Child's Play, Night of the Living Dead", I will even go as far as to say they let me watch "Faces of Death." :\

Atmospheric tension, nothing more. Pace also plays a good part. While different styles of gameplay lend themselves towards the horror genre, any style can work if the above two factors are covered correctly.


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More atmospheric and the feeling that you could go from full health to dead in about a second. Music really brings the atmosphere to life and enemies that take a million shots to kill and wont stop chasing you. Thats pretty horrific to me

The atmosphere and the music track, with some unexpected surprise moments.

There are so many great examples of this, but one that stands out to me is when a zombie comes through a door (in remake) into a room you already cleared out. Your just making a trip to the item box...and suddenly you hear a door being banged on and it slowly opens and a zombie you weren't expecting to see is now another obstacle to deal with.

Just random scare moments like that make the game worth going back too.

For me, it's any creepy environment or situation that causes fear, tension or uneasiness of continuing on/moving forward...

Atmosphere, level design, art direction, sound design, enemy design, so on and so forth. There are a lot of factors, some more vital than others.

Some people also need to realize that, if they don't get scared often, it's probably because they're already desensitized. I haven't been truly scared by a game since I was about 10. The only things that scare me nowadays are games such as Amnesia or indie games like the SCP series or "Slender."

There's a lot of posts about the atmosphere and the music.
Biohazard 6 seems to be taken in the right direction with Leon's campaign when it comes to the sound design and atmosphere. Would you guys say that having the overall co-op experience in RE hurts these factors? (Wether you're playing with a friend or an AI)

What made RE4 so great in terms of Enemy design was that they were refreshing from previous RE games.
As News Bot mentioned some people get desensitized from new enemy encounters after dealing with them.
Resident Evil 5 re-used the same animations for enemies, toned down their AI and you've been provided with more Melee attacks.

Do you guys also think gore is an important factor to horror games? (More specifically when you're dying)