Horror games are video games that are designed to scare the player. A convincing horror game relies on creating immersion and building tension in order to make the experience terrifying. Key features of horror games’ design include a lack of UI compared to other game genres, a powerful antagonistic force or enemy, and game elements that instill a sense of dread or outright terror. Traditional horror games focus on the player’s vulnerability, rather than the power fantasy or escapism common to other genres. The design of enemies, atmospheric effects, sound, gameplay mechanics, and UI all factor into building a scary and immersive experience for the player.
Traditional types of horror games play on the player’s fear and sense of danger, as in psychological horror, survival horror, or stealth horror. New or hybrid genres vary in how much the traditional perspective and emotional tone is preserved. Action horror, for example, empowers the player through combat and weaponry, while reverse horror makes the player an antagonist who hunts other players or characters. Horror sub-genres also exist in combination with other genres, such as Spec Ops: The Line being an action shooter with psychological horror elements. Limbo is another example of a cross-genre horror game, due to it also being a puzzle platformer. Learn more about horror game design below.
How to make a psychological horror game?
To make a psychological horror game, create a disturbing atmosphere and introduce mysterious enemies or hostile forces in ways that create uncertainty in the player. Playing on psychological fears and unsettling the player are defining factors of psychological horror, rather than just focusing on survival and physical safety. Emotions that psychological horror games play on are meant to be disturbing as a result. Building an atmosphere that overcomes players’ sense of psychological safety and adds tension during the game is what makes the experience of playing a psychological horror feel convincing.
Psychological horror’s goal is to evoke fears that are psychological in nature, threatening more than the player’s physical safety. Making players question their perception of reality is a hallmark of psychological horror. Examples of ways to do this are unreliable narrators, deception, confusion, or paranoia. Amnesia: The Dark Descent makes the world around the player behave strangely when the player’s sanity meter is low, such as making solid structures move in almost imperceptible ways. Outlast plays on fears of criminal insanity, taking place in an asylum where the patients serve as both victims and antagonists.
Psychological horror aims to evoke disturbing emotions. Emotions like doubt, guilt, and feelings of isolation are more important to psychological horror games than traditional horror aspects such as gore, action, or jump scares. Designing a game around these concepts means creating realisations and experiences that make players uncertain, such as doubting their perceptions, their character’s motives, or the world around them. Building disturbing emotions requires giving players time to wander around between moments of confrontation, with plenty of time for tension to build and players to overthink. Slowly building tension and players’ sense of unsettlement is the purpose of atmosphere in psychological horror games.
Atmosphere is used to unsettle players and build tension over the course of a psychological horror game. Strong immersion is needed to build players’ suspension of disbelief, as the awareness of being in a game brings a sense of safety and psychological stability. Designers must create immersion through effective lighting, sound, and environmental details to make the game’s scenarios feel convincing. Events and environments that lack the right atmosphere aren’t as effective. Amnesia: The Dark Descent doesn’t just change the player’s environment: the game’s atmosphere blurs the player’s vision so that everything feels dream-like, and has dark, shadowy effects throughout the game. This makes the events feel more sinister, and the lack of visual clarity makes players question whether they really saw what they thought they did.
What instills fear in the player in horror game design?
What instills fear in the player in horror game design is when the threats players face – such as enemies, dying, or suffering – feel imminent and real. Instilling fear in horror games involves creating tension to make players feel vulnerable, the environment hostile, and encounters with enemies terrifying. Building tension is what keeps players in suspense during gameplay. Limiting the player’s abilities and making them feel trapped in the environment increases players’ sense of vulnerability. Making the environment feel threatening to players involves playing on common human aversions as well as giving direct signs of the danger around them. When players finally encounter an enemy, using built-up tension effectively maximizes the fear players experience.
Horror games rely on building tension in immersive ways to keep players on the edge of their seats during gameplay. Built-up tension also makes the feared outcomes, such as running into a monster, feel properly scary when the encounter happens. The majority of a horror game experience isn’t the player being under attack, but moving through the game world trying to avoid or mitigate danger as tension builds. Think about the difference in experience between constantly running from or fighting an enemy vs. having to hide, stay on high alert, and tread quietly. For the majority of gameplay, what occupies players’ focus is the uncertainty of when an enemy will appear, while having plenty of time to be made aware of their own vulnerability.
Limitations add to players’ sense of vulnerability. Traditional horror games give players little if any protection and reduced stats compared to other game genres. An ordinary or weak human character makes the threats feel more believable than one who’s adept at fighting or has superpowers. Ordinary humans are also easier to empathize with and project onto, making the horror game scenario more immersive. The ways that characters are limited affect how they’re able to respond to a threat, such as being slow, having limited vision, or lacking defenses. In Amnesia: The Dark Descent, players have no weapons and low visibility. Players also aren’t able to rely on running, as it attracts enemies and drains sanity, making escape more difficult.
Making players feel trapped increases players’ sense of vulnerability. Small rooms with limited space to evade enemies, narrow corridors that induce claustrophobia, and doors that need manual activation induce the feeling of having fallen into a trap. Obstacles that block the way forward and force players to backtrack to find a solution feel restricting. Designers are also able to add literal traps that box the player in, such as sealing off all exits to a room until an enemy is defeated. An example of a horror game trapping the player is in Resident Evil 4, where a gate slams down as the player moves through the courtyard, forcing them to find a lever to open it. Feeling trapped is an instinctive human fear.
Natural human aversions are interpreted as signs of a threat, even if on a subconscious level. Humans have evolved to recognize and fear patterns that are associated with danger. Unexpected rustling in bushes nearby, encountering strangers in isolated places, and animal cries that are unusual or sound like predators all invoke fear. Darkness is a primary aversion horror games play on, due to our fear of unseen threats and our instinctive wariness of nocturnal predators. Visual effects, environments’ designs, and sound (or the lack of sound) offer opportunities to play on natural human fears. Examples of this include using dim lighting or creating structures that have a sinister or monster-shaped appearance.
Direct signs of a threat, such as an enemy or environmental hazard, instead evoke fear by signifying the threat itself. An example concerning enemies is hearing the distinct clicking and hissing sounds of the Xenomorph in Alien: Isolation. This is interpreted by players as indicating the specific threat itself – the Xenomorph – rather than simply atmospheric or ominous signs that indicate general danger. Direct signs don’t have to show that the threat is approaching to be fear-inducing: just reminding players of the threat’s presence and disturbing nature in effective ways is chilling. The creepy drawings with scrawled warnings about Slenderman in Slender: The Eight Pages, which are unsettling even without being indications that an encounter is imminent.
Encounters with enemies use built-up tension to maximize the encounter’s scariness. One way is ramping up the intensity and frequency of warning signs. The warning for Slenderman getting closer in Slender: The Eight Pages is players hearing louder, faster drumbeat sounds and seeing increasing screen static. Bernard Perron’s paper studying the effects of early warnings in horror games notes that the warnings are what make events scarier when they happen. Another way tension is used to amplify an encounter’s impact is when sounds die down to feel “too quiet”, followed by a jump scare, though some players find these cheap and feel cheated. An effective alternative is having an enemy that lurks around, even if it doesn’t attack at once, or one that pursues the player. The Xenomorph from Alien: Isolation does both.
How to design enemies for a horror game?
To design enemies for a horror game, focus on appearances or behaviors that play on innate human fears and threaten players in convincing ways. Different types of enemies threaten or appear to threaten players in unique ways. Predatory enemies threaten the player by having superior natural abilities and an instinct to kill. Human enemies are a threat due to their intelligence and the reminder that humans are able to harm us in reality. Uncanny enemies feel threatening due to strange appearances or confusing behavior. Physically imposing enemies appear powerful and unbeatable. Force-of-nature enemies are unstoppable, like a natural disaster.
Predatory enemies are a threat due to having superior attributes, like being bigger, stronger, or faster than humans. Enemies that are predatory evoke fears of being hunted and exhibit lurking or pursuing behaviors. The Leviathans from Subnautica are lurking enemies that attack players who dive too deep. A pursuing enemy is the Slenderman in Slender: The Eight Pages, who constantly follows the player. An enemy that both lurks and pursues is the Xenomorph from Alien: Isolation. Predators don’t have to be larger, stronger, or faster than players to be predators: enemies that are more numerous fulfill this role, such as the zombie hordes from Days Gone, which are easy to kill but overwhelming in numbers. Paranormal abilities are also effective as superior abilities, like Resident Evil 4’s mind-controlling parasite. Other attributes effective in predatory enemies are unpredictability or having intelligence rivalling humans’.
Human enemies are frightening due to their intelligence and the reminder that humans are capable of harming others in reality. An example is the murderous Baker Family from Resident Evil 7, who are unsettling even before starting to mutate. Human enemies evoke fears similar to facing predatory enemies that are intelligent and, depending on the human, stronger than us. The natural wariness of meeting strangers alone also plays into what makes human enemies scary, given horror game scenarios usually involve isolated locations. Enemies that were once human or resemble humans in some ways, the way the Baker family becomes over time, are also able to serve as uncanny enemies.
Uncanny enemies unsettle or disturb players through strange appearances, behaviors, or abilities that throw players off. Uncanny enemies make players uncertain of what they are dealing with. The anomalies from the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games, for example, cause reality to break down in unpredictable ways. Beings that look familiar but distorted seem uncanny, such as the animals from Zoochosis having some resemblance to real animals. Strange humanoids, like the Dead Space necromorphs, evoke this familiar-and-disturbing feeling, as well as the wariness of other humans. Uncanny features don’t have to be obvious to be effective. Subtle changes to an ordinary human or creature are able to be unsettling or alarming, such as making weird sounds or moving in unnatural ways. Uncanny enemies play on the fear of the unknown, making the enemy appear threatening even if it looks smaller and weaker than the player.
Physically imposing enemies appear large and powerful. Making a physically imposing enemy act without hesitation or fear reinforces the perception that it isn’t able to be stopped. An example is the Cerberus from Cyberpunk 2077, whose size, movement, and impenetrable armored appearance make it clear it is indestructible and hostile. Enemies like the Cerberus, who not only appear unstoppable but are unstoppable in reality, are also “force of nature” enemies.
Force of nature enemies are a threat that aren’t able to be fought under normal circumstances (if at all). The player’s best hope against a force of nature enemy is usually to survive as long as possible by running or hiding. The term “force of nature” doesn’t mean the threat is natural (though examples involving nature do exist, like the rats in A Plague Tale), but rather compares the unbeatable nature of the threat to a natural disaster. Another type of force of nature is a paranormal, unnatural, or supernatural phenomenon, such as the Entity from Dead by Daylight, which acts as the game world’s puppet master, throwing killers and monsters at the players endlessly.
How to design a level in a horror game?
To design a level in a horror game, construct the layout, appearance, and events in ways that are immersive and build tension throughout the gameplay. A horror game level’s layout refers to the physical design of spaces in the level, including optional safe zones. The appearance of a horror game level must be thematically consistent in order to keep players immersed and maintain tension. The appearance of levels is also used to convey environmental storytelling. The primary gameplay within horror game levels centres around events, which are scripted, dynamic, or semi-scripted.
Physical spaces in a horror game level are designed to make players feel vulnerable and restricted. Closed doors make players uncertain of whether they will open, and hide the next room. Navigating a series of small rooms and narrow hallways feels claustrophobic and gives the sense of being in a maze. Narrow corridors and small rooms also make evading enemies difficult. Dense-packed structures also make it easier to obscure lines of sight and create shadows for enemies to hide in. Open-world horror games are uncommon, as the free-ranging space provides significant agency to avoid enemies. Effective open-world horror games do exist, though: The Forest uses the vegetation as structures for enemies to hide behind, and Subnautica’s darkness and deep water are where the Leviathans lurk.
Safe zones are an optional way to release tension, as keeping the player on high alert 100% of the time risks becoming tiring and desensitizing. Safe zones also give players somewhere to learn about the game mechanics. Making an area open and well-lit, in contrast with the general scary atmosphere, is a way to signal that it is a safe zone. Resident Evil 2 is known for its well-lit safe rooms, which play soothing music, contain home-like items like desks, and have warm lighting. These provide a sense of safety while still fitting the game’s themes.
Thematic consistency keeps players immersed in the game. If the story elements and environment seem to clash or the mood isn’t right, the experience feels less believable. Atmosphere is what maintains the mood of the environment the player is in, to keep the gameplay feeling scary. Creating atmosphere in traditional horror games involves using dim lighting, subtle and immersive sound, and visual effects that build a sense of anxiety. Atmosphere gives players a sense of being present in the game world, conveying tension and urgency as if the events are happening in the real world, and making the player feel vulnerable. Atmosphere is also an essential aspect of environmental storytelling.
Environmental storytelling uses the design of objects and structures and atmospheric visual effects to convey gameplay and narrative information to the player. Structures and objects in the environment hint at their purpose and the intentions of the inhabitants, and are jarring when seeming out of place, such as discovering a crow in the microwave in Resident Evil 7. Objects that have a malevolent appearance add tension, such as the “statues” or “dead” aliens in Tau Volantis in Dead Space 3. Using Environmental storytelling provides greater immersion than lengthy exposition, revealing information as players explore. Environmental storytelling also gives omens of danger, such as in the Dead Space 3 scenario, where the noticeably ominous “dead” aliens end up reanimating as Necromorphs that must be fought.
Gameplay events either confront the player with a threat, such as a monster attack or trap, or are used to evoke fear or give warnings, such as the sound of a monster in the next room. Scripted level events are used for pacing and storytelling, happening at a defined point in the narrative or at a specific location. Cerberus from Cyberpunk 2077 appearing when you enter the Cynosure facility is a narrative and location-triggered scripted event. Dynamic events are triggered by player actions, generated randomly, or directed by an AI in real time. An example of a dynamic event is Phasmophobia, where the ghost’s movements, such as deciding when to appear, hunt, or interact with objects, are randomized and unpredictable. The behavior of Mr X. in the Resident Evil 2 remake is semi-scripted, as he makes appearances during specific story points, but wanders around for most of the game dynamically.
How to design sound for a horror game?
To design sound for a horror game, use subtle, atmospheric sounds and music to build tension and louder sound for moments of confrontation. Effective sound design in horror games creates immersion, communicates necessary game feedback to the player, and instills fear. Avoiding excessive or overdone sound, keeping music thematic, and using realistic environmental sounds keep the immersion and help with building tension. Warning sounds, player sounds, and silence are also used to build tension and to provide players with feedback during the game. Loud noises are best reserved for climactic events such as boss fights, when tension is already heightened.
Avoid excessive or overdone sound. Sound that is too obvious in trying to scare the player at best breaks tension and immersion, and at worst makes the game feel over the top. Compare these two scenarios for letting a player know that a monster is coming. In the first scenario, the player enters a silent hallway which grows darker as they progress. They become aware that they are hearing the faint scrape and clatter of claws from the far end of the hall, growing subtly louder. In the other scenario, the player enters the hallway to dramatic, ominous orchestral music. As they venture down the hallway, the music swells to something like the Phantom of the Opera theme, announcing the monster’s approach. The first case is immersive and terrifying, while the second case feels forced and overdone. Music, as in the above example, is particularly obvious when overdone in horror games.
Music, if used, must be thematic in order to preserve immersion. Subtle, soft, atmospheric music excels at building tension, whereas louder music is more appropriate for moments where tension is already high. The Amnesia series starts with subtle music, which becomes louder and more frantic when the player is in danger. Soft, soothing music is also able to dispel tension for moments of reprieve, such as in Resident Evil 4’s safe zones. Lyrics tend to disrupt immersion when trying to build tension during gameplay, feeling too overt and distracting. Lyrics are best reserved for main menus, climactic events where the tension is already built, and end credits, if they are used at all. When going for a subtle atmosphere and a sense of realness, an immersive alternative is to avoid music entirely and just rely on atmospheric background sounds.
Adding environmental sounds that players expect creates a sense of realness of the world and the surrounding dangers. Environmental sounds include background sounds for an area or the level – such metal creaking as the player navigates the oil rig in Still Wakes The Deep – as well as sound effects of an object, like a campfire, that sounds louder and clearer as players move closer. Object sound effects also give players feedback on navigating terrain. Environmental sounds are also used as warnings to make players fear they are being attacked, such as the wind rustling through forest trees in a way that sounds like an enemy.
Warning sounds are used to alert players of game events such as an enemy encounter, as well as to instill fear in horror games. Enemy sounds, such as growls and footsteps, notify the player of the enemy’s presence. Other warning sounds are used to indicate the presence of an environmental hazard, either through an overt warning or through other sounds, such as sounds of the hazard itself. An example of an overt warning sound is the sirens that blare in the Dead Space games when the player gets locked in a room with necromorphs. A natural warning sound for an environmental hazard is the sound of a wildfire blazing. When creating warning sounds in a horror game, make sure that they aren’t drowned out by game music and atmospheric background sound. Player sounds, however, are able to drown out warnings in horror games.
Player sounds in traditional horror games don’t only include gameplay actions like drawing a weapon, or status indicators like wheezing if tired or hurt. Horror games often use sounds like breathing, footsteps, and heartbeats to make players hyper-aware of the character’s presence in the world and to give players a sense of vulnerability. Being able to hear every movement when trying to be quiet around enemies feels realistic and forces players to be careful. In Amnesia: The Dark Descent, sprinting away drowns out the sounds of the enemy, forcing players to walk slowly to listen out for sounds around them.
Silence is associated with the feeling of danger. A dead-silent environment in nature and in movies is a sign that something is hiding nearby. Horror games need a balance of silence and subtle sounds to build tension, as Total silence risks losing its effect if it persists too long throughout the game, particularly if the player thinks their sound has simply stopped working. Letting the player continue to hear their own footsteps and other player sounds, like their heartbeat, is effective feedback when other sounds fall silent, as well as making the player aware of how noisy they are. Silence is noticeable when following ambient sounds or music, and particularly stark when the drop-off from other sounds is abrupt, rather than a gradual fade. The contrast between sound and no sound is what signals that something loud and scary is about to happen.
Loud noises are jarring to players as climactic moments in a horror game. Enemy attacks, whether in horror games or other genres, are loud by convention. Loud noises are most effective when following silence or soft sounds, which have built up tension. Loud noises with an attack aren’t necessarily jump scares, such as when sound builds up once the threat is already active. An example is when an encountered monster hesitates and then starts chasing the player and the music switches from soft to loud. An example of increasingly loud sounds during enemy attacks is the drumbeats, loud distortions, and static that play in Slender: The Eight Pages when the player is caught. These sounds contrast with the sounds of breathing and footsteps that make up gameplay when the Slenderman isn’t nearby.
How to design the main menu for a horror game?
To design the main menu in a horror game, decide what menu options will be included, then create an effective layout and user experience (UX). Which standard game options will show in the main menu depend on what actions are allowed in the horror game. Constructing an effective horror menu layout and smooth navigation experience means building a menu where thematic elements don’t disrupt functionality.
Menu options in a horror game are a relevant consideration, as horror games are known to remove options from other game genres that make players feel safe, including save options. Slender: The Eight Pages doesn’t have save options, meaning the main menu has no Load option. Horror game main menus tend to include standard functions like Start a New Game, Load (if saving occurs), Options, Exit, and optional additional features. Menu layouts must also provide effective navigation.
An effective horror game main menu has a clear layout and involves an easy navigation experience. Main menus in the horror genre tend to be simple, with the focus on getting the player playing rather than drawing attention to the menu. Thematic elements set the game’s mood and build anticipation, such as the above menu from Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Some horror games do create elaborate menus with enhanced visual effects, such as Dead Space 3’s main menu below. This wasn’t a smooth experience, however, as players struggled to navigate it and found it time-consuming to cycle through animations. Whether or not to use enhanced visual effects and creepy music to build anticipation for a horror game is up to your discretion. Just make sure it’s usable!
How to design the UI for a horror game?
To design the UI for a horror game, minimize the number of UI elements to preserve players’ immersion, make necessary UI diegetic where possible, and ensure that practical UI doesn’t give undesired player advantages. Keeping the UI or HUD minimalistic makes the game feel more real. Making UI diegetic also feels more realistic than having non-diegetic UI. Practical UI is still needed where the user experience will suffer without it, requiring horror games to compromise between immersiveness and usability. Cross-genre UIs and HUDs tend to be more extensive in the elements used due to the horror game requiring design elements of the other genre.
A minimalistic UI or HUD design is the go-to in traditional horror games. Minimal or no UI reduces the visual reminders and overall feeling of being in a game. Not seeing HUD feedback makes the player feel isolated and forces them to pay close attention to what they hear and see in the game for feedback, making the experience more real and immersive. For example, instead of a stamina bar or ammunition counter, players must pay attention to their own breathing or keep careful track of ammunition as they would in reality. In Slender: The Eight Pages, the character’s heavy breathing and slowed movement indicate their stamina is low. Uncertainty about how long players are able to keep running or how much ammunition is left in the midst of a fight heightens gameplay tension.
Diegetic UI, an immersive alternative to minimal UI, is embedded into the environment rather than overlayed. Diegetic UI is interactable with and shown from the perspective of the player’s character, making the experience feel closer to real life. Dead Space 2 uses Diegetic UI, where players are forced to perform realistic in-game actions like examining weapons and inventory to check ammunition. Dead Space also embeds practical UI as diegetic UI.
Practical UI strikes a balance between immersion and user experience, conveying practical information like gameplay objectives without giving gameplay advantages. An example of practical UI is the Dead Space games, where pressing B makes a line appear on the floor to show players where to go for the current objective. The directional line’s ability to assist is limited as activating it forces players to stop moving. As a result, players aren’t able to exploit it as an escape advantage when pursued, or to be distracted by its utility by spamming it instead of focusing on the game. Which UI is practical or necessary also depends on the specific game and whether there are cross-genre UI requirements.
Cross-genre UI or HUD designs by convention have more elements than traditional horror games. The increased UI is still able to be immersive and practical, due to the requirements of the other genre. In Cyberpunk 2077’s Somewhat Damaged mission in Phantom Liberty, the player has many HUD elements, fitting the cybernetic aspects of the cyberpunk genre. The UI during the mission gives no advantage to the player, however, as the map and minimap are disabled during the quest. The damaged UI therefore foregrounds the player’s helplessness and the horror aspects. The Forest and Sons of the Forest have more UI elements present which do provide utility, however these fit the survival aspects of the genre. Bioshock uses a thematic UI that doesn’t blend in with the environment but draws attention to the elements through retro designs, however the game focuses more on action-adventure and FPS aspects than horror.
Are game mechanics important in horror game design?
Yes, game mechanics are important in horror game design, as well-designed game mechanics maintain players’ immersion and fear during gameplay. Horror game mechanics that are smooth and intuitive mitigate disruption to the player’s experience. Mechanics in a horror game are also used to handicap players to make the experience feel more real and scary, with progress seeming more of an accomplishment. Helpful mechanics are also used to provide utility where necessary. Combat mechanics, such as in the action horror sub-genre, require balance and consideration to maintain the risk and tension of a horror game. Horror games also use traversal mechanics, puzzle mechanics, or crafting mechanics to give players new types of challenge and a sense of their isolation and need for self-reliance.
Horror game mechanics must feel smooth and intuitive, as mechanics that feel unfair disrupt the experience and let players blame dying on poor game design. A smooth user experience is necessary even when limiting the player on purpose. A negative example is the first Resident Evil’s use of “tank controls”. The cumbersome nature of these controls felt unreasonable and caused players to be frustrated with the game’s movement design. A positive example is Amnesia: The Dark Descent, which has slow movement so that danger is always able to keep up, but doesn’t make the experience of moving around feel clunky. As a result, playability isn’t disrupted. Instead, tension is evoked by well-designed limitations.
Mechanics that handicap playable characters are used to make players feel vulnerable in a horror game. Handicapping mechanics are either subtle or overt. Subtle limitations avoid drawing explicit attention to the mechanic, such as limiting the player’s view distance in a horror game compared to other game genres, and having them walk instead of running. Although the game doesn’t point these out, players feel the effects during gameplay. Overt handicaps draw attention to the mechanic and require players to respond. In Slender: The Eight Pages, the player’s torch becomes noticeably dimmer and flickers out if overused, forcing the player to conserve power. The game also has a stamina mechanic, where the character wheezes and slows if tired, forcing players to stop running and replenish stamina. Although limiting players is the intention, horror games are also able to contain helpful mechanics.
Helpful mechanics provide utility in a traditional horror game, such as navigation or direction systems. Adding meaningful limitations to helpful mechanics prevents players from using the mechanic as an exploit. An example of a helpful mechanic being limited to avoid players exploiting it is Dead Space games freezing players’ movement when they use the navigation beam. As a result, players aren’t able to keep the navigation beam on permanently in order to speed-run a level or gain an advantage during combat.
Combat mechanics, if they exist, must be balanced in a similar way to helpful mechanics to avoid giving players too much power. In Resident Evil 4, drawing a weapon freezes the player in place. This makes drawing weapons a risky action rather than one that players rely on for comfort. Weapons in traditional horror combat mechanics mustn’t be overpowered. As a result, even weak minion enemies in horror games tend to take more bullets to kill than other combat genres. Other limitations on horror combat mechanics are making ammo scarcer and combat riskier than in other game genres. Game series like Dead Island and Dying Light incentivize riskier melee combat over projectiles. Traditional horror games incentivize running rather than combat, if combat is even possible, and hiding, through mechanics like crouching and crawling.
Traversal mechanics are movement mechanics, such as the ability to walk in different directions, run, or climb. Traversal mechanics are a way to limit players’ movements and play on human fears. An example is adding a crawl mechanic and forcing the player to crawl slowly through dark vents in order to progress. Traversal mechanics also work as ways to evade enemies or environmental hazards, such as in Resident Evil 4, where players must mash buttons in a quicktime event to dodge a boulder. Traversal mechanics also provide the opportunity to add new types of obstacles, such as rubble that must be vaulted over when fleeing an enemy. An alternative way to have players deal with obstacles is through puzzle mechanics.
Puzzle mechanics in horror games are used to add obstacles the player must overcome in order to either progress the game or to gain access to resources. Puzzles are a way to add achievable objectives for the player when enemies aren’t beatable. Puzzles are able to increase tension as a secondary objective or obstacle while fighting or evading an enemy. Examples of games that use puzzle mechanics are the Resident Evil and Silent Hill games. Another problem-solving mechanic is crafting.
Crafting mechanics force players to use objects or resources in the environment to create items and equipment. Crafting is prominent in survival horror games. Forcing players to be self-reliant and adapt increases their sense of isolation and vulnerability. Examples of games that use crafting mechanics are The Forest, Dead Island, and the Dying Light games. Combining herbs to make healing items in the Resident Evil games is also a crafting mechanic.
What are advanced horror game design tips?
Advanced horror game design tips are detailed below.
- Prioritize an immersive environment over creating a full narrative.
- Subvert players’ expectations, both inside and outside of the core game experience.
- Make enemy encounters scarier and more realistic by using immersive mechanics.
- Induce uncertainty in players and make them overthink what they experience.
Advanced tips of horror game design focus on immersion, subverting expectations, increasing fear, and creating uncertainty. Immersion is more important than a narrative storyline when creating a scary horror game. Subverting narrative, genre, and design expectations makes the player feel less able to rely on design conventions and tropes that are “safe”. Making the mechanics around enemy encounters more immersive for the player makes the encounter feel more realistic and scary. Using reality-changing mechanics is an effective way to make players uncertain, doubting themselves and the world around them.
Narrative isn’t required to create an immersive, scary, and successful horror game: what’s important is immersion. Whether a horror game benefits from or relies on narrative is specific to the intended gameplay experience. An example of a game that doesn’t rely on a narrative is Slender: The Eight Pages. Players don’t know who the character is, why they are in the woods alone looking for pages, or even their gender, but the game is still terrifying. If a horror game is immersive and effective at building tension, players are even able to superimpose themselves on an undefined or “blank slate” character and narrative, as in Slender’s case. Other games which don’t rely on narrative to be effective are Corridor, SCP: Containment Breach and Voices of the Void. By contrast, a game that does rely on narrative is Until Dawn, as players make narrative-based decisions about the characters and their fates.
Subverting narrative and game genre expectations in horror games is a way to shock players. One way to do this is through making the horror elements themselves the subversion, after lulling the player into a false sense of security. An example of this is the visual novel Doki Doki Literature Club, which uses game elements and narrative tropes associated with a dating simulator before transitioning to psychological horror elements that break the fourth wall. Subnautica is another example, as it subverts the open-world genre, which is not traditionally associated with horror as it doesn’t trap players in a location. Subnautica’s approach is to make exploring the deep ocean in a little submersible the horrifying element, forcing the player to dive deep and encounter creatures like Leviathans in order to progress the story.
Subverting basic game mechanics is another way to throw players off. Horror games as a genre don’t usually allow pausing, due to it making the player feel safe and easing tension in the game. In the Dead Space games, interactions that pause in other genres, like saving or interacting with vendors, leave the player vulnerable in the process. Some horror games intentionally mislead players through fake “pause” actions. In Voices of the Void, players have an option to “pause” the game, but the menu’s text glitches and events continue happening in the background. This breaks the fourth wall, making even mechanics “outside” of the game feel controlled by the anomalies of the game. Disrupting “safe” actions like pausing makes the game’s dangers seem more real and immersive.
Immersive enemy mechanics are a way to make gameplay feel more realistic and to make the enemy seem more formidable. One example of this is Until Dawn, which uses the PS4’s motion sensors in the controllers to avoid the monsters, forcing players to physically hold still to avoid detection. Alien: Isolation has a similarly advanced mechanic, where the Xenomorph is able to find your in-game location if it “hears” you through your microphone, forcing the player to keep quiet in the real world. Alien: Isolation also adds additional mechanics, such as the Xenomorph’s ability to learn from players’ actions, which makes it intelligent. The game also has a secondary AI that pings the player’s location periodically to the enemy. The enemy’s intelligence, adaptability, and apparent prediction of the player’s movements add to the feeling of being hunted in reality.
Reality-changing mechanics make players suspicious of the environment, their own perceptions, or even the main character’s motives. Isaac’s hallucination of his dead girlfriend in Dead Space 2 is nightmarish, used to unsettle players and show his sanity breaking down. Amnesia shifts reality in subtler ways depending on the player’s insanity level. In Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, player choices in the game and their therapy responses change the appearance of the Raw Shock enemies. Alan Wake 2 uses reality-changing mechanics to make players doubt the narrator, as the world changes based on the character’s own writing. Bloodborne makes the player’s perception change reality, where the more Insight players have, the more horrific the world becomes.
What are the best books to study horror game design?
The best books to study horror game design are Bernard Perron’s books, Silent Hill: The Terror Engine and The World of Scary Video Games: A Study in Videoludic Horror (Approaches to Digital Game Studies). An additional book worth looking at for horror game design is HR Giger’s Necronomicon for art inspiration.
Silent Hill: The Terror Engine digs deep into the ways that the first 3 Silent Hill games build tension and evoke fear in the player. Silent Hill: The Terror Engine discusses the different elements involved in creating fear, including audio, visuals, mechanics, and narrative. The book compares the early Silent Hill games against earlier influential games like the initial Resident Evil and Alone in the Dark games. The author, Bernard Perron, is a Professor of Film and Video Game Studies from Canada’s University of Montreal, and has been studying and writing about horror game design for over two decades.
The World of Scary Video Games: A Study in Videoludic Horror (Approaches to Digital Game Studies) is another book by Bernard Perron, and is useful if looking for a broad and contextual overview of horror in video games. Perron’s book explains horror as a genre, looks at how video games have evoked fear from their text-based origins to modern gaming, and describes the elements that make horror games scary. The author discusses significant games throughout the horror game genre’s history, like Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Dead Space 1 to 3, The Evil Within, and the Silent Hill games.
HR Giger’s Necronomicon is an art book that has inspired the design of several horror monsters and environments, such as the Alien franchise and the 1993 Doom game. H.R Giger himself designed the Xenomorph for the original Alien movie, and created the genre of biomechanical surrealism, which merges organic life with mechanical constructions. The book itself delves into these concepts and has inspiring art for body horror. While the original book was in German, there are versions available in English, French, Spanish, and other languages. Giger’s art has been published in other books such as Biomechanics and H.R Giger’s Retrospective.
What are examples of a horror game design document?
An example of a Game Design Document (GDD) is the Silent Hill 2 GDD, which includes sections on visual and audio design, game mechanics, story information, level design, and puzzle design. The visual design sections include concept art, interface design, and categories of assets for creation. Audio design describes the sound and music goals. The GDD’s game mechanics include core gameplay and game flow, and the details of characters, monsters, and game objects. The story information gives the synopsis, including the different possible endings. In the level design section are descriptions, design maps, and floor plans of different environments. The GDD’s puzzle design section describes the Silent Hill 2’s different puzzle scenarios, assigns difficulties to them, and explains the solution mechanics.
What are examples of successful horror games?
Examples of successful horror games are the Silent Hill, Amnesia, and Resident Evil games, which are long-running and established franchises. Additional horror games that have been popular with players include Five Nights at Freddy’s, Alien: Isolation, Slender: The Eight Pages, and Until Dawn.
Silent Hill is a popular game series that dates back to 1999 and the PS1 era. Silent Hill is famous for the creepy mist players wander through, originally designed to cover up the engine’s rendering limitations, but which became an intentional visibility-limiting mechanic in later games. The series ceased in production when the development team disbanded, however Silent Hill was later revitalized. The popularity of the P.T. demo of a never-released game generated significant attention towards the franchise in 2014. The later Silent Hill 2 remake in 2024 sold well, and Silent Hill F came out in 2025.
The Amnesia game series are a series of popular survival horrors which use environmental storytelling, an oppressive atmosphere, and puzzles that require physics-based interactions as solution mechanics. Amnesia: The Dark Descent is known for the “insanity meter” mechanic, designed to make players doubt their perception of reality. The game distorts the environment around the player in subtle ways depending on their level of insanity, which makes it difficult to distinguish reality from hallucinations.
Resident Evil is one of the longest-running horror game series. The first two Resident Evil games were survival horror games. Since then, the series shifted to action horror in games 4 to 6, with games 7 and 8 returning to the survival horror origins. The recent Resident Evil Village game of 2021 and Resident Evil 4 Remake in 2023 were critical and commercial successes. Resident Evil Requiem, also known as Resident Evil 9, is set to release in 2026.
Five Nights at Freddy’s is a popular game franchise involving animatronics that are possessed and resemble uncanny animal mascots. The player has to rely on surveillance cameras to keep an eye out for the enemies’ approach. The series combines nostalgia for Chuck E. Cheese and 80s to 90s childhood memories with the horror of being approached while immobile.
Alien: Isolation is set in the Alien universe, with the player playing as Amanda Ripley. The game involves hiding from and attempting to survive a Xenomorph that has broken free on a space station. Alien:Isolation used ground-breaking immersive technology at the time, having the enemy controlled by two different AIs, detect the player’s presence through their microphone, and learn from the player’s actions.
Slender: The Eight Pages, originally just named Slender, is a free indie game that became popular due to its scary atmosphere and effective building of tension. Slender also capitalized on the popularity of the Slenderman urban myth. The game emphasized the player’s vulnerability through mechanics like slow movement, limited visibility, low stamina, and a torch with limited battery power. The simple mechanics and short gameplay also allowed players to get into the game quickly. Gameplay in Slender involves avoiding the teleporting Slenderman, who stalks the player, and collecting 8 pages of spooky drawings and scrawled warnings. Slender’s success led to the making of Slender: The Arrival. A new game, S: Lost Chapters, is scheduled for release in 2026.
Until Dawn involves several friends visiting a ski lodge on the anniversary of the death of a loved one. The gameplay has the player trying to survive a wendigo attack and playing as several different characters. The game’s positive reception was in part due to its narrative focus and choice-and-consequence aspects, with player actions having a butterfly effect on the game and its characters.
