Why Old Horror Games Were Scarier

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the most important thing about old horror games is the sound of only foot walk, the music anticipates the jumpscare.

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I think an aspect alot of people forget about when it comes to games especially horror games is it's presentation. Two of my favourite horror games, Silent Hill and Resident Evil 7 couldn't be more different yet their presentations are what hooked me on the games in the first place with their more psychological approach to horror and the graphics served as the cherry on top that added to the experience, atmosphere and horror of the games overall. Great job on the video bro!! 👍

I think it´s more about how good the team is about translating the feel of the old horror games into new ones. basically make real what happened in your head in the old games. same for movies. the haunting of hill house, the US ring remake, Kojima´s P.T. and even death stranding are glossy high budget products and they nail that horror really well. and as much as people fear the sh2 remake by bloober, their past games have a great horror vibe ( all done in various unreal versions ). Another example is the re8village baby; that became an instant meme and that game can rival any game in 2023 in terms of graphics

CarnEvil and Clock Tower are good examples of this phenomenon :) something about older blood textures are creepy.

Silent Hill were my comfort games. Siren on the other hand kind of scares me.

I'd already seen so much blood and whatnot I have no problem with that sort of thing. Black ooze and an almost organized militia that 1. doesn't stay dead and 2. is babbling incoherently but combatively organized regardless on the other hand.

if you liked Lost in Vivo you owe it to yourself to play Silent Hill 2

Also manhunt 1 has atomospher close to silent hill at times

The suffering on PlayStation used to scare the shit out of me as a kid… also Alone in the dark: the new nightmare was pretty terrifying

Silient hill 1 is not scary it just funny

Silent hill 2 is so uncanny to me. Creepy voice acting with a disassociated feel, low Polly creepy environment, and an overall fake feeling that drives you mad

Man you could not speak about this topic without knowing Silent Hill 2. This is an absolute mistake to avoid the number 1 concerned.

For me, the best horror game I played was Cry of Fear. Even though FEAR wasn't that scary in my opinion, at least nowhere near as Cry of Fear, the first time run definitely left me unprepared at times for the shifts between being attacked by ghosts and then clone troopers.

the ps2 era and the early 2010s for survival horror were both peak fr

I kinda seeing the current wave of old resolution horror games like Nun Massacre and Mothered.

I think this is a legacy of the once trending analogue horror aesthetic that being us to these revival such old style.

man i love your videos!

You definetly need to play the silent hill games they are just masterpiece

I agree the older ones just look more scary ,because they dont look good,especially silent hill

I realized that og Berkin is scarier than remake berkin because of he doesnt really seem as human, his face is stuck in one expression (because of the graphical limitations) so it just makes you feel like youre not up against a big guy with tumors all over his body.

I was thinking the same thing hours ago,but I got even further,for example,Counter Strike 1.6 is not horror game,but is creepy as hell,the ambience,graphics,specially in the larger maps with just a few players or bots to make the experience even creepier,encentually you will be alone,with "silence",and you don't get it with Source,CS2,the same with Tomb Raider,I had nightmares as a child,a huge freak mansion with just Lara and old butlers making creepy noises,appearing all of the sudden,forest with traps and wild animals,Half Life is the Resident Evil 7 (which is scary) of the 90's/00's, and again,the silence,so old games in general brings this creepy sensation,obviously is not every old games,but most of 3D ones are creepy,but at the same time brings an strange felling of comfort,at least for me,and to complement,older horror/suspense tv shows/movies gives me the same fellings

I mean, to a degree I can understand the point being made, but I don't think that's IT either.

The big problem with modern horror is it can do anything and it often does *everything*. Very rarely do modern horror games have subtlety in the horror elements. Everything is loud and bombastic. I think Alien Isolation did a fantastic job of generating the atmosphere and subtlety. The world building, the tension.

The reason the RE4 Remake lacks a lot of its tension IS down to changing the control scheme, and the way the combat loop works, and changing the overall ambience of the game. Yeah, that stuff matters a great deal. Changing it as they did, changes the whole vibe. Same thing for the RE2make. They changed the gameplay loop, the changed the music, and ambience, and in so doing the feel that the original RE2 had is all gone.

finally someone understands

A old horror game with a bit song is scary as fck

the fucking video preview is the nu carnirval momment

Agree and disagree, look at amnesia the bunker, alien isolation, RE7, all modern games that in my opinion are terrifying and dont get me started on subnautica and outlast

Have to completely disagree. Seems like it just comes down to nostalgia.

The more "realistic" shit tries to be, the less dreamlike or otherworldly they feel. Seeing a creature that looks like it obeys the confines of our reality, makes it no different from any other animal.

The eel from sm64 is straight up nightmare fuel

They were also made with more love and care from the developers unlike most games that are driven by cash flow and not passion.

I remember Undying being a bit of a scary game.

You need to stop swearing.

I love low poly games and new games just don’t compare because everything looks too normal, if it looked worse and more abstract I think they would be way scarier than old games, especially since game devs put so much effort into looking normal that the re8 devs made lady dimitrescu's ass have more polygons than re1

It's the low poly mostly I think makes everything scary

Tank controls

Look, I agree with you. But...

"Older horror games were scarier!"
narrator hasn't played any older horror games

Games used to be harder, too, creating more tension which matters a lot.

Nowadays they want to hold your hand and walk you through it. This is why the Mega Man games on the old NES are scarier than modern Resident Evil games.

Old horror games put a lot of work into storytelling and gameplay , while new horror games put more work into graphic . Graphics doesn’t matter if the story sucks.

Evil Within had that grainy graphics effect that made everything more unsettling, but it didn't have the tank controls.

I’m glad I’m not the only one! Maybe I’m just desensitized to it, but these days I’m not easily spooked by horror in games. But there’s something about the older games that to this day is deeply unsettling to the point where I don’t want to play it.

Cold Fear was such a good game. I think it's an honorable mention

The regenerators in the RE4 remake look terrifying. Like another comment said I believe modern horror games could be really good if they capture the tense atmosphere, along with creepy music and enemy designs. In my opinion, modern horror games are much better.
RE2 remake is a great example, it's honestly one of the best horror games I've played, aside from Dead Space and Doom 3 (when I was a kid) It was the most tense (being chased by Mr X had my adrenaline pumping!) Also, using good headphones to capture the ambience on modern games really adds to the experience in a way you couldnt in the past.
BTW, I've never fully played through the original RE4 but I recently got it on the Switch, but Ima buy RE4 remake for the Series S and play through that first, then the original.

Haunting Grounds has a very precise texture, graphical style that I always see as the best for games.

Textures like that aren't big sized and can be used to make a video game lenght multiplied by 4, and they're also adding to the eerieness, the mystery.

Good graphics ruins everything for some reason, I do not feel the mystery when playing a good high rez texture video game.

I could never ever say that I was as frightened when playing Silent Hill, Resident Evil or Obscure than I am when playing Amnesia, Outlast or Layers of Fear.
To me old horror was only scarier back then because I was a kid but today's horror completely shatters me and leaves my crying in the corner even as an adult.

Max Payne 1 the parts when they drugged you with V were scary as hell with the child screaming in the area with falling blood droplets. I had to switch off the sound to pass it the first time.

Realms of the Haunting was really good low poly experience. Never finished it though, because when the old computer died the savegame (to the middle of the game) was lost with it.

This is so true dude.

D1 and D2 are so much creepier than D3

Hercules facing Hydra in the 97 game
Max Payne's nightmare dream where he goes from room to room while unconscious.
Hitman contracts(fat guy chopping people in Romania) and Requiem for dream.
Remember doc ock as carnage in Spiderman 2000?

I agree