I have a confession. I’m a massive coward with horror games. I mute the sound or look away at scary moments. I don’t get a thrill when I get scared like some people I know. I even fear-quit Dead Space on my first playthrough. Despite that, I still go back to them. Maybe I am a sucker for the punishment, but I do have two nerdy reasons for my curiosity: The vibes and the design that adds to it.
What do I mean by a Vibe?
It’s the overall atmosphere of a section of the game where level design, art, lighting, and music work to set the player up to feel something. Combined with cutscenes and gameplay, the player feels a spike of emotion. Take the opening of Spiderman, for example, where the cutscene, music, and transition to the swinging gameplay are exciting and make you feel like Peter.
There are a lot of games that get a vibe right for a sequence. The Scarecrow levels in the Arkham games come to mind. We have even discussed how Naughty Dog used gameplay and interconnected sequences to help the player live through Nathan’s attempts to fix his relationship with Elena. All games will have a fully realized world but don’t need every minute to be atmosphere-heavy. To ensure the narrative has an ebb and flow, designers will create specific sequences to dial up the vibe to create a spike of emotion. It would be exhausting if every moment of your 30 to 100-hour game was fraught with tension.
Except horror games need to have a constant hum of unease/fear. There is a simple psychological reason: you are more likely to overreact if you are already upset or tense. So, if you are already uneasy, you are more likely to swing into terrified when presented with the right stimuli. Or more likely to believe that you reached a safe zone even if you know it is false.
Still Wakes the Deep that got me thinking about this. It has been a while since I was this excited for a horror game and it’s simply because every piece of footage has had that correct ‘vibe.’ So let’s break down some of it.
The Ingredients for a Good Horror Vibe
You’d think it would be easy to craft horror, considering that we are scared of everything. Theoretically, all we need to do is echo a fear. However, creating the scenario to trigger that fear and finding the balance of narrative, music, and art is much harder than you would think. It takes more than just creating a monster and making it dark.
Creating The Foundation
Design for the art and level starts with narrative elements. It’s usually based on common fears that are easy to understand, even if a person doesn’t have that fear. These include concepts like loneliness, isolation, loss of control, fear of the dark or the unknown, being trapped, getting hurt, etc. It’s easy to see why these work. Take isolation, for instance. As a species, even introverts, we need connection and companionship. Our friends and support networks make us stronger and less depressed, giving us courage. Within a narrative like Outlast or Amnesia, you are alone and weak compared to everything else. It translates to a constant fear of being caught, which gets harrowing.
Horror games manipulate story and design elements around these concepts to subvert our ‘normal’ expectations. Let’s look at another example: the ability to see and anticipate the enemy. In older games, this was hindered by gameplay elements like the smog of Silent Hill or the fixed cameras that made it difficult to look around. This fixed view is still used in games like Five Nights at Freddy’s to drum up anxiety.
There is always the question of what is just beyond our view. It’s the first step in taking away our control. Designers will then add to it by creating maze-like environments where it’s easy to get disoriented, especially if you are getting chased. Or levels that steadily constrict around you to increase claustrophobia.
Gameplay footage from Still Wakes The Deep shows that The Chinese Room has used these common techniques to great effect. Starting with the location. Most of our world is designed with the comfort of the average able-bodied person in mind. However, places like Submarines and Oil Rigs, the game’s location, prioritizes machinery. If you aren’t used to it, it becomes uncomfortable quickly since it feels wrong.
The flow of each level is then dialed up to be even more extreme. Not only do you have to squeeze through tight places, but you sometimes have to do so while underwater. Then, you step out into the open, where it’s no longer dark. Except that the platform is falling apart miles above the trashing ocean. The design has you quickly moving between different types of fears, from claustrophobia and darkness to a fear of heights and falling. Even if you don’t have an issue with tight places or heights, this constant shift and its extreme quality make you uncomfortable.
Building The Ambiance
Designers create basic block levels that provide the shape. We only interact with a level after the art team dresses it. They decide the lighting and graphics, creating the visuals that set up the emotion the player should feel. It’s a balancing act of hiding details while still ensuring that the player can see enough to play the game. A great example is Dead Space. The flickering lights and shadows, trails of smoke, floating debris, slashed wires, and random organic detritus make it clear that something is wrong. Enough that you can’t help but study each moving shadow to see if it hides a monster.
Then there is the soundscape. The muffled, metallic echoes of yells, thuds, and the sounds of electrical equipment malfunctioning fill up the space between low orchestral notes that rumble through your headphones. Occasionally, sharp, loud alarms blare when an enemy appears; these layers create a sense of dread, becoming almost overwhelming because it is constant, yet barely there. Sound and Silence are used within games to provide information while throwing the player off. The constant but inconsistent use of it keeps us on the edge, especially when nothing sounds as it should.
Still Wakes the Deep has a similar feel. The Oil Rig is being pulled apart around Caz, the main character, by an unknown foe. Levels plunge into darkness and are being freshly filled with water as it takes damage. As a result, the soundscape is the rig screaming as it tears apart. The team has also talked about building sound elements to interact with the rest of the game. Caz’s whispered prayers add to the disorientation and anxiety as he tries to maintain his composure when he hears the dying screams of the colleague he was just helping. Or the enemy’s gurgles and screeches that follow him as he tries to run. The fact that you can’t see them but can hear them builds anticipation and fear.
Where this game is also impactful is the otherworldly details. It’s in the mutilated bodies of Caz’s dead colleagues. And in that amazing ‘bubbling film’ effect, which warns you that the monster is near. It’s a rather beautiful example of art being a key design tool and serves to scare the player.
Barely Scratching the Surface
Of course, the vibes are only the start of what makes a Horror game successful. It’s the promise that then needs to be fulfilled by everything else. On the narrative front, it is the story, the characters, and the villains. It also includes details like Enemy AI Behavior and how the main character reacts. That, however, is a discussion for another day. Until then, we have Still Plays The Deep to play when it releases on the 18th.
