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With all the sci-fi horror these days, where's the fantasy horror?

PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
Member
Oct 25, 2017
115,625
So anyone who's been paying attention to the past few weeks would be hard pressed to miss the sheer volume of sci-fi horror game announcements. Loads of games set on derelict space ships or abandoned planets featuring heavily body horror-inspired monsters as the primary combatants. Fans of sci-fi horror are eating well these days, as I'm sure basically anyone could agree.

But that begs the question: with all these examples of big-budget sci-fi horror practically piling on top of each other, what about some good examples of fantasy horror? There's so many more settings that could be used for horror games than abandoned spaceships or modern-day Earth, but it feels like the genre is kind of limited by a few cardinal inspirations - Lovecraft, The Thing, Alien/Aliens, Silent Hill, and zombie films - and that limits the kinds of settings and bestiaries we get to grapple with.

I would love to see a horror game set in, like, baroque-era Italy, or in a medieval German castle, with monsters based on folklore and myth instead of goopy body horror zombies or insane robots/killer AI. Or a full-on fantasy setting but with horror as the genre instead of straight RPG or action. Anyone else feeling a distinct lack of fantastical horror in the industry today? Would you be into games like this or is this another thing I'm alone on?
 
NovumVeritas

NovumVeritas

Member
Oct 26, 2017
9,133
Berlin
I agree. I think Eternal Darkness was also one of those games into the fantasy horror part ? I would be open for more fantasy horror games. And sci-fi horror is pretty apparent as seen with the last revelation of games.
 
CielYoshi

CielYoshi

Member
May 10, 2018
1,258
Santiago, Chile
Huh, the first thing that comes to mind is Nightmare Creatures back in the PS1 days...but yeah, old eras/fantasy horror is kind of lacking right now
 
OP
OP
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
Member
Oct 25, 2017
115,625
NovumVeritas said:
I agree. I think Eternal Darkness was also one of those games into the fantasy horror part ? I would be open for more fantasy horror games. And sci-fi horror is pretty apparent as seen with the last revelation of games.
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Eternal Darkness is definitely on the borderline, for sure. As would something like Bloodborne, though both games lean heavily on Lovecraft as their driving inspiration.

Ryuji said:
So like re8 but if the whole game was in the manor
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And with no guns. Actually setting-appropriate weaponry would go a long way towards pushing the fantasy horror conceit further.
 
Wrexis

Wrexis

Member
Nov 4, 2017
21,245
Tormented Souls touched on the edges of that for me, but has some of the problems you mentioned.

I do know what you mean though. I was watching The Witch a while back and thought this would be an interesting horror game.
 
heathen earth

heathen earth

Member
Mar 21, 2020
2,007
I think maybe the fantasy genre in general is a lot more geared toward power fantasy/wish fulfillment than horror is. I'm mainly approaching this from a reader's perspective, but the fanbases of the two genres don't seem to overlap at all. From everything I've seen, fantasy fans tend to be very averse to horror. As for myself, I don't generally like fantasy, but historical horror set on Earth is rad.

I found a lot of stuff in Elden Ring pretty horrific, for whatever that's worth.
 
NightmaresHunter

NightmaresHunter

Member
Apr 3, 2020
2,640
Closet thing we have currently are Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne.

BB is the most game embraced the horror aspect, one of the reasons why it's masterpiece.
 
OP
OP
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
Member
Oct 25, 2017
115,625
heathen earth said:
I think maybe the fantasy genre in general is a lot more geared toward power fantasy/wish fulfillment than horror is. I'm mainly approaching this from a reader's perspective, but the fanbases of the two genres don't seem to overlap at all. From everything I've seen, fantasy fans tend to be very averse to horror. As for myself, I don't generally like fantasy, but historical horror set on Earth is rad.

I found a lot of stuff in Elden Ring pretty horrific, for whatever that's worth.
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Given the extreme popularity of horror-themed D&D campaigns like Curse of Strahd, I would say I don't really agree with this. But gaming devs may see it that way because a lot of game devs aren't very good at genre mixing. From Software pulled it off with Bloodborne and to a lesser extent Elden Ring, but they're one of the few developers that seems to want to give it a shot.
 
Piggsy

Piggsy

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
640
While the examples you list are nice OP, please let us enjoy of the sci-fi fad for while.

I'm sick of medieval fantasy in video games, Zelda, Elder Scrolls, The Witcher, Fable, Dark Souls, Dragon Age, every single J-RPG, Warhammer, Total War, Chivalry, every AA non-action RPG, most AA action RPG...
 
The Gold Hawk

The Gold Hawk

Member
Jan 30, 2019
4,522
Yorkshire
I would also love to see a fantasy horror. Doesn't need to be an RPG or a survival horror either

The closest things I can think of are Plague Tale: Requiem and the new Hellblade game. Probably Hellblade would be closer to horror.
 
tokkun

tokkun

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,404
PlanetSmasher said:
I would love to see a horror game set in, like, baroque-era Italy, or in a medieval German castle, with monsters based on folklore and myth instead of goopy body horror zombies or insane robots/killer AI. Or a full-on fantasy setting but with horror as the genre instead of straight RPG or action. Anyone else feeling a distinct lack of fantastical horror in the industry today? Would you be into games like this or is this another thing I'm alone on?
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Not really clear if you are asking for fantasy horror (i.e. horror with magical / supernatural elements) or horror in a pre-industrial period setting.

For instance, Little Nightmares is a game that has magical elements in it, but it has an industrial setting.
 
OP
OP
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
Member
Oct 25, 2017
115,625
tokkun said:
Not really clear if you are asking for fantasy horror (i.e. horror with magical / supernatural elements) or horror in a pre-industrial period setting.

For instance, Little Nightmares is a game that has magical elements in it, but it has an industrial setting.
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Mostly the latter, but the former is fine too. But the prevalence of industrialized or post-industrial/spacefaring settings has definitely worn me down.
 
OP
OP
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
Member
Oct 25, 2017
115,625
Kasey said:
Spooky Skyrim is what I've been saying. Todd won't return my faxes tho.
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I think a full-on open world is the wrong kind of setting for a horror game. Horror thrives on curated experiences - setup, payoff and the betrayal of expectation are key to effective horror execution - and a horror game would lose its edge pretty quickly if you have to spend five to ten minutes walking in a straight line just to get to "content".
 
tokkun

tokkun

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,404
PlanetSmasher said:
Mostly the latter, but the former is fine too. But the prevalence of industrialized or post-industrial/spacefaring settings has definitely worn me down.
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The Count Lucanor on Steam

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The Last Door - Collector's Edition on Steam

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Amnesia: The Dark Descent on Steam

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Gray Dawn on Steam

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Ragnar Blackmane

Ragnar Blackmane

Member
Feb 19, 2018
1,650
PlanetSmasher said:
So anyone who's been paying attention to the past few weeks would be hard pressed to miss the sheer volume of sci-fi horror game announcements. Loads of games set on derelict space ships or abandoned planets featuring heavily body horror-inspired monsters as the primary combatants. Fans of sci-fi horror are eating well these days, as I'm sure basically anyone could agree.

But that begs the question: with all these examples of big-budget sci-fi horror practically piling on top of each other, what about some good examples of fantasy horror? There's so many more settings that could be used for horror games than abandoned spaceships or modern-day Earth, but it feels like the genre is kind of limited by a few cardinal inspirations - Lovecraft, The Thing, Alien/Aliens, Silent Hill, and zombie films - and that limits the kinds of settings and bestiaries we get to grapple with.

I would love to see a horror game set in, like, baroque-era Italy, or in a medieval German castle, with monsters based on folklore and myth instead of goopy body horror zombies or insane robots/killer AI. Or a full-on fantasy setting but with horror as the genre instead of straight RPG or action. Anyone else feeling a distinct lack of fantastical horror in the industry today? Would you be into games like this or is this another thing I'm alone on?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
For someone not fully up-to-date and a big fan of sci-fi horror, can anyone do a quick list of the new announcements you are referencing? I know about the Dead Space Remake (2023) and The Callisto Protocol (December), but not of any others (I'm not going to count RE4 Remake).
 
AAION

AAION

Member
Dec 28, 2018
1,603
Darkest Dungeon (and the upcoming Darkest Dungeon 2) are very Lovecraft, but there are plenty of folklore inspired gross monster designs.
Nothing screams horror like a full party wipe and a few hours of grinding your heroes back lol. Or even campaign restart
 
Katmeister

Katmeister

Banned
May 1, 2021
2,434
How would you do combat in a fantasy horror game without it feeling like the enemies are no threats? Souls come close but aside from bosses its usually pretty easy to deal with most things coming your way.
 
Nayenezgani

Nayenezgani

Member
Jan 16, 2021
469
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Maid of Sker on Steam

Maid of Sker is a first-person survival horror, set in a remote hotel with a gory and macabre history from Welsh folklore. Brave the nightmares of the Quiet Ones. Do not panic…don’t even breathe!
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Magic Mushroom

Magic Mushroom

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,470
Ragnar Blackmane said:
For someone not fully up-to-date and a big fan of sci-fi horror, can anyone do a quick list of the new announcements you are referencing? I know about the Dead Space Remake (2023) and The Callisto Protocol (December), but not of any others (I'm not going to count RE4 Remake).
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Fort Solis and Routine are two other recently (re)revealed games in this genre.
 
GungHo

GungHo

Member
Nov 27, 2017
6,134
V-Rising is in Early Access and you are the horror, but its there. Not the "fantasy" with the same trappings most people imagine, but Weird West is out and Evil West is coming soon. Obviously the theme is American Western, but the fantasy & Lovecraftian horror is part of the mix.
 
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