Anybody else feel happier when they play horror or post-apocalyptic games when they're feeling down?

[AppleBlade]

Whenever I'm feeling down or depressed I find that playing post-apocalyptic games (especially open world ones like Fallout 3/4) and horror games (like Resident Evil) are effective at helping me feel better. Similar books, movies and shows also have a similar impact on me when I'm feeling down.

Is anyone else like this? Why do you think my brain reacts this way?

 

[Jawmuncher]

I guess I could see that.

"Things might suck, but at least I don't live in a post-apocalyptic setting or have to fight monsters in my everyday life".

 

[Strings]

But I get you OP. The Souls series is my comfort food (alongside Kingdom Hearts which leans heavily on melancholy).

 

[Ryuelli]

I don't play a ton of horror games, but this definitely applies to me and horror movies.

 

[Weiss]

I don't think I've done this specifically with games (usually I want something that's chilled out and easy to get lost in) but I did recently go through a period of time where I clung to the one-off manga My Broken Mariko.

Sometimes I need fiction to go to that dark place.

 

[Bradford]

I love playing stressful things when real life gets intense. It allows me to focus my stress into something and get lost in its superfluous, low-stakes decisionmaking.


Like, replaying Pathologic and Pathologic 2 during COVID was incredible. An almost life-changing experience. I highly recommend it.

I also watch a lot of extremely depressing arthouse indie horror and tragedy films when I am depressed or angry. Again. It channels it, and then I process it when I arrive at the film's catharsis., it's like a proxy.

 

[Swiggins]

When I was in my darkest hour I got really into Dark Souls PVP.

 

[Deleted member 29691]

Lol yes I do this all the time with all media and can't put my finger on why. I guess it's more in sync with my current emotions and allows me to feel them while still having some sense of escapism, rather than just trying to force myself to dramatically shift my emotions. I like to play animal crossing when I am already feeling cute and happy, I don't want to try to force myself to feel that way when I'm not in that head space. Like, it's OK to not feel great about the state of the world, and it's important to let yourself feel that ya know?

 

[Hokey]

It's my fave genre so I prefer it anytime

 

[L4DANathan]

That's just regular cognitive dissonance. It's a pretty well known psychological trait that when you're down, you enjoy sad media, when you're angry, angry media, etc. Same reason telling an upset person to "calm down" just makes them more upset.

 

[texhnolyze]

Post apocalyptic is by far my favorite setting in games, especially if it's from nuclear war and not zombie outbreak.

I spend a lot of my time in this Pandemic playing various Fallout games, and there are more post apocalyptic RPGs coming out soon too.

 

[plagiarize]

I remember playing RE7 in VR while I was coming to terms with Trump being present and thinking to myself how glad I was to have something like that to escape to.

I think I was strudging through a basement full of monsters at the time. I'm not sure why it helped me so much.

 

[MagicPhone]

Yeah, I've been weirdly drawn to playing The Division and The Division 2 this year, despite them being about awful pandemics and the downfall of the US government. Because it's a fantasy version of what we're actually dealing with, I find it helpful.

In a similar vein, I've also been reading Stephen King's The Stand.

 

[Inki]

I've heard people use death metal to calm down so I could see it. For me, I prefer games I can go on auto pilot, just enough engagement to remove my ability to think about stuff other than the game. Fenyx Rising is great for instance.