ultrakill, VIOLENCE, and the scariness of horror games

just exploring my thoughts

so i was playing ULTRAKILL.

i am going to assume you know about ULTRAKILL - it was a very popular? game (i saw it in many a tumblr post on r/CuratedTumblr).

but, ULTRAKILL isn't the focus of this.

i wanna talk about horror games. like resident evil, or fatal frame, or clock tower, and so on. all of these have one fatal flaw, that they share with ULTRAKILL, and the new(ish)ly added VIOLENCE layer.

You have a gun.

and because of that, i am never as scared as i should be in a 'horror' game.

when i think 'horror', i think 'feeling scared'. most of these are not like that. they can jumpscare you - ultrakill has the bit in 7-1 where the mannequins are behind you. there are other examples in other games, but i haven't played most of them. they can have a scary atmosphere, and most if not all succeed here. but, they don't scare me.

the fatal flaw, however, is that you have a gun. and because of that, i can't be scared, because whatever is coming, you can just shoot it in the face.

i mean, the obvious objection is "but games like re have limited ammo and you can't shoot it in the face sometimes!", but ultimately, however, the flaw is deeper, because the problem is that they treat the fear like a problem to be solved, and not something to run/be afraid of.

if i play a horror game, it should be scary. if it just has a horror atmosphere, then it isnt a horror game - its a horror shooter or a horror puzzler or a horror whatever.

ultrakill tries to be scary occasionally, but it fails utterly, because it isn't a horror game at its core - its a first person shooter style-em-up. and so when it tries to shift into horror, it just falls flat on its face.

i love fatal frame. its the only one of the above list that i have played (i played the first game, and only some). and i have no problem with a 'horror whatever'. the horror atmosphere is lovely to just bask in. but it isnt a horror game. and it shares that atmosphere with games no-one would consider 'horror games', such as dishonored, the darkness, dark souls.

this isn't really a complaint on any of the games. i don't want to be misunderstood here. but it is largely a problem in advertising and word-of-mouth understanding, because when someone says "resident evil is a horror game", i understand that to be "you will be scared". but i'm not. i am only focused on "how do i kill this incredibly ugly creature".

horror-wise, i would love a horror game where it is mixed with stealth. so that you are focused on avoiding the monsters. but then i would just fail to get past them seven times in a row and get frustrated, and frustrated isn't scared.

trying to conserve resources isn't scared. trying to shoot a thing in the face isn't scared.

i don't know how to fix this. i think that it is not trivial to fix. maybe it can't be fixed, because i am looking at the problem wrong (maybe its a mindset thing).

all i know that those mannequins are a horror monstrosity and a walking (well, crawling / folding / slithering) jumpscare. but i was never scared, and that this is not an ultrakill only problem.

i mean, i think that fatal frame is different in some undefinable way from re. maybe its the fact that you're just a schoolgirl, running around trying to find your brother, afraid of what might be behind every corner. i think its the characterization. horror atmosphere does nothing when the characterization is completely wrong. in ultrakill, you are a killing machine (literally). you can't be scared because the character of V1 would never be scared, it would just shoot the thing in the face (and probably be incredibly stylish while doing it). but in fatal frame, you (miku hinasaki) would be scared, because you are like 14 (i don't know) and are trying to survive and find your brother. you never set out to kill monsters.

in re, though, half the time you would be running into monsters deliberately because you were hunting them, or whatever. you are not running away from them, you're running to them.

but that's just my thoughts, incoherent as always

citations:

• wikipedia: list of horror games
• wikipeda: fatal frame