Why was the PS2 era of survival horror games not more popular? - And survival horror general

[Dom Cruise]

I remember during the PS2 and Gamecube era survival horror games like Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3, Fatal Frame 2, Fatal Frame 3, REmake, RE0, Haunting Ground and Rule of Rose really stood out to me because they were so much more graphically impressive than the vast majority of other games on console at the time.

I loved the GTA games as much as the next guy, but when compared to something like Silent Hill 3 the difference in visuals was mind blowing, it was insane that it was even the same console and I wonder why that didn't "wow" the normies more, you'd think normies would be all about whatever's the most graphically impressive*

I also really scratch my head in the case of Fatal Frame because those games came out around the time of movies like The Ring and The Grudge, you'd think it would have really been a big seller and you can tell Tecmo did too because the production value for the second game were so much higher than the first game, even down to the game's cover, but then the third game, while graphically impressive too, reused areas from the first 2 games which implies to me it had a lower budget than 2.

While these games obviously found some success as many of them had multiple entries, they were nevertheless cult classics at best, not big money makers like your GTAs and your Halos, the only one that was a major seller on that level, Resident Evil 4, did so by stripping out almost everything that made the genre what it was in the first place and even then didn't sell as much on the GameCube as the PS2 port did.

I just wonder why, was it really because people couldn't handle the sometimes odd controls and combat? The Puzzles? Are people really just that dumb?

Those type of games are my all time favorite type of game ever, but the genre, exactly as it was circa then, literally went extinct once the PS3, 360 and Wii genre was introduced, they literally never made another game that stuck to the formula as close as say REmake or Silent Hill 2 and 3 did, eventually they made games that brought some of that old magic back like The Evil Within, RE7, RE2 Remake and the upcoming RE8 and hey, that's great, but there's always some angle that's different than before ie third person or first person camera etc.

The most recent game that stuck the closest to the old formula was the RE2 remake and it kind of blew my mind because it was almost exactly like the old games, it just had a third person camera, I was like yes! Finally! but then RE3 Remake wasn't as faithful and while I'm looking forward to RE8 and I'm sure it's going to be great, it sticks with the first person camera introduced in RE7 which changes the feel a lot from the old games when you can't see your character.

It remains to be seen if another game will be as close to the old formula as RE2 Remake, I know there was that recent game The Medium that seemed like it was going for an old survival horror style, but I haven't played it yet so I can't vouch for what it does and doesn't do.

fyi here's what I mean when I talk about the old formula, not all the games did the same thing, but generally it boiled down to 1. fixed camera angles, 2. limited inventory space or some kind of inventory management (ie limited ammunition or health items), 3. disempowered main characters, there may not have been actual combat but simply running and hiding ala Clock Tower and Haunting Ground, but the point is the enemies were significant threats even if you could fight back and finally 4. level design based around exploring a specific area with some backtracking, not a linear straight path from point A to point B.

I have not seen a single game stick to all those formulas since Rule of Rose in 2006, almost 15 years ago (over 15 years ago in Japan in fact), but hopefully as time goes on and nostalgia grows, that will be a style developers will bring back.


*I guess not if The Order 1886 is anything to go by.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

Wasn't that the most popular part of the PS2? Silent Hill?

 

[Dom Cruise]

Wasn't that the most popular part of the PS2? Silent Hill?

Silent Hill was never a massive seller, it was a cult classic at best.

From what I understand the first game did sell well and so did the second game, but the 3rd and 4th didn't, which is some serious bullshit in the case of 3, but that's why Konami eventually gave the ip to American devs.

I'm not saying none of these games didn't sell well, I'm just saying they weren't even close to the numbers that your Halos and GTAs did and while I would never expect them to do quite those numbers, I do find it odd that they didn't get closer considering like I said, you'd think the huge differences in graphics would have "wowed" normies more.

On a side note I'd like to list a few games from even back then that didn't stick to the typical formula but we're still very much survival horror, there's Echo Night: Beyond which had a first person perspective anticipating RE7 and RE8 today and then there was Siren, which I'm pretty sure had a third person camera (not in a modern sense, but was generally behind the back of the character instead of at fixed, cinematic angles)

So I'm not saying games have to rigidly stick to the purest formula, I definitely consider modern games like The Evil Within, RE7, RE2 Remake and the upcoming RE8 to fall under the bracket of "survival horror" much the same way Echo Night: Beyond and Siren do, but it would be nice if at least on occasion a game was made in the classic formula, like I said it's been 15 years.

 

[LOWERCASE LETTERS]

because a lot of them sucked

 

[White Devil]

In that era of survival horror, I can really only remember people talking about Silent Hill (I don't know where you get this cult classic thing from, everyone I knew then that gamed had and loved it. This was during the age when strategy guides were still being sold), MAYBE the Fatal Frame games, and of course the RE remake which was on Gamecube at the time I believe. That being said, back then there just weren't a lot of them, I guess? The best ones were still PS 1 games, the Xbox had just come out so Sony had to compete against them, etc.

 

[Book Thief]

I can only speak for myself here, but when the 6th generation of consoles were new, I was at the age where I was more interested in shooters and racing games for those particular consoles. I remember my brother once renting The Suffering: Prison is Hell and being terrified of even trying it, so clearly horror games weren't my "thing" at the time.

 

[Idiot Doom Spiral]

Because a lot of them during the PS2 era weren’t great or actually survival horror games.

Code Veronica, as much as I enjoyed it at the time, felt quite derivative even then.

SH3 had potential to be a completely terrifying experience but was ruined by an infuriating perma-sarcastic and indifferent main character, as well as the bollocks plot.

SH2 somehow completely escaped me and I never played the game until many, many years after its release.

SH4 was poor, no matter how anyone tries to spin it years later.

RE4, as much as I loved it, just wasn’tsurvival horror once you left Pueblo Village (arguably no survival horror at all).

The Suffering was decent, but the shock value wore off after a while.

The original Fatal Frame actually ended up being the one I replayed most often.

The genre was very much being distorted by the time the PS2 arrived; either graphical frippery or merging into fps/stealth/adventure type games - not many stayed faithful to the idea of ‘survival’ horror.

 

[Lemmingwise]

Good survival horror is hard to make. That's all.

 

[BillionBisonBucks]

Survival horror is easier to make pretty, for a variety of reasons I won't get into here. On the PS1, at the dawn of 3d gaming, nothing was more immersive than resident evil and silent hill. Even metal gear was clearly making serious compromises that the zoomed-in view of horror didn't have to.

On the PS2, those compromises didn't exist anymore. You could have the scale of metal gear with better graphics than anything the PS1 had been able to sniff at. It made games in the 'old' style seem behind the times, simply because most other genres were undergoing a quantum leap.

 

[Dom Cruise]

because a lot of them sucked

Not really, all the really bad ones were PS1 era like Countdown Vampires, I'm talking the PS2 era.

The only one that really jumps out me as being flat out bad would be Dino Crisis 3, but I never actually played that one so for all I know I might like it, all the other games out of the ones I've played or the few ones I haven't but am well ware of were at least really interesting or interesting looking, despite a few flaws.

The only other one I can think of that might have been flat out bad was Galerians: Ash and that's another one I've never actually played.

I really am struggling to think of enough bad ones to justify the statement "a lot of them sucked", you have to get really, really obscure, Galerians: Ash obscure lmao.

I'm sorry but I think you're flat out wrong, now granted it was an acquired taste and not for everyone, I know a lot of people just couldn't handle fixed camera angles etc, not a lot of these games were critical darlings either and the whiners eventually got their way and they stopped making games like that, hope they're happy.

But not being your cup of tea doesn't make a game objectively bad, which is something that always frustrated me with critics of the era, never understood why they were often so harsh on the genre.

In that era of survival horror, I can really only remember people talking about Silent Hill (I don't know where you get this cult classic thing from, everyone I knew then that gamed had and loved it. This was during the age when strategy guides were still being sold), MAYBE the Fatal Frame games, and of course the RE remake which was on Gamecube at the time I believe. That being said, back then there just weren't a lot of them, I guess? The best ones were still PS 1 games, the Xbox had just come out so Sony had to compete against them, etc.

I'm just repeating what I've heard, I've heard 3 wasn't a big seller, heck speaking of Konami I've even heard MGS3 Snake Eater was not a big seller either (that was a really crowded fall to be fair)

But of course I could be wrong, this is just something that I've heard, where can one go to get actual sales data on games? It'd be interesting to know.

Silent Hill was certainly popular but I would say it was a cult classic compared to GTA or Halo.

I can only speak for myself here, but when the 6th generation of consoles were new, I was at the age where I was more interested in shooters and racing games for those particular consoles. I remember my brother once renting The Suffering: Prison is Hell and being terrified of even trying it, so clearly horror games weren't my "thing" at the time.

Oh yeah, I kind of forgot western horror games of that era like The Suffering or Manhunt, those were pretty cool too, especially Manhunt, but they were definitely not as interesting as the Japanese ones to me.

One I did really enjoy though was Ghosthunter.

Survival horror is easier to make pretty, for a variety of reasons I won't get into here. On the PS1, at the dawn of 3d gaming, nothing was more immersive than resident evil and silent hill. Even metal gear was clearly making serious compromises that the zoomed-in view of horror didn't have to.

On the PS2, those compromises didn't exist anymore. You could have the scale of metal gear with better graphics than anything the PS1 had been able to sniff at. It made games in the 'old' style seem behind the times, simply because most other genres were undergoing a quantum leap.

I'd like you to share some reasons if you can, but it isn't hard to guess why a game with static (or semi static) camera angles, smaller, more intimate environments and less characters on screen at one time could really amp up the detail.

That's part of why I want to see this style come back, what if you made a game like today, how detailed could the graphics get? I'd imagine you could already get freakily close to photorealism, at least in the environments.

And I'm talking fully 3D rendering, there's also no telling what a game would look like if it was prerendered ala Resident Evil 0 which is a game that still looks impressive almost 20 years later.

I don't know about anyone else, but I would find that really cool to see what could be done today.

 

[ShortBusDriver]

I have a soft spot for the first Resident Evil, it reminds me of one of my all time favorites, the first Alone in the Dark game.

I wish a company would bring back an explore-the-mansion survival horror game but i feel like with the costs associated with AAA titles these days anything that can't sell a billion dollars worth isn't going to get made.

I guess I remember some survival horror games like Code Veronica and Outbreak but the market felt kind of oversaturated at that point, and FPS games were quickly becoming popular.

 

[Ita Mori]

Halo and the rise of online multiplayer.
Contrary to today; the idea of playing your favorite shooter/sports/fighting game online was a novel and exciting thing.

People were already used to survival shooters and the best examples of the genre belonged to the previous generation.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I just wonder why, was it really because people couldn't handle the sometimes odd controls and combat? The Puzzles? Are people really just that dumb?

None of these things, but all of these things.

I wish a company would bring back an explore-the-mansion survival horror game

I want to make a game like that. My game dev skills aren't advance enough yet.

In the mean time, Alisa on steam has you covered.

i feel like with the costs associated with AAA titles these days anything that can't sell a billion dollars worth isn't going to get made.

This is ultimately the heart of the matter.

PS2 horror games were popular, and profitable. I doubt I'm the only one that thinks horror died right after Dead Space 2. That was when EA wanted the games to make Call of Duty money, so turned the game into a focus tested co-op action game. You need only look at Fuse to see how badly focus groups get things wrong.


And repeating what others said. Most of them weren't any good. I remember Clock Tower 3 getting bad reviews at the time, while games like Haunting Ground and Rule of Rose were only really known to survival horror fans. These days their classic status seems to be due in part to them becoming highly valued by the collectors market.

 

[Lone MacReady]

It was quality over quantity I suppose. Most don't like being scared, and we hadn't gotten to the age of "screaming autistically at a jump scare game on stream to get rich" which made horror games so much bigger. PS2 had the best one so it doesn't matter to me if the rest of the catalogue was low. Intelligent symbolism that doesn't assault you with cheap jump scares, chilling atmosphere, and a story conceit which personalized the town's horror from the first game to the player = brilliant sequel.

 

[trent]

It's much the same as horror movies.

You'll occasionally get a big crossover hit but most horror films/games are fairly niche and vary wildly in quality.

 

[invictus]

Why don't they make them like that anymore? Probably because as graphical capabilities enhanced over the years, there became less incentive to try and "invent" ways for a game to be scary. Less prerendered backgrounds because the hardware didn't always "need" them to take the load off of everything else (even if prerendered still looked nicer for a lot of things, imo). Same with fixed camera angles: less need to ensure your players only see what you want to, as every developer was jumping on the full 3D train then and there's more expectation for it now more than ever.

Which brings to why the PS2 survival horror games weren't as "popular" or made in much smaller supply. You have to remember, the gap in technology was far larger from the PS1 generation to the PS2 generation than it is from the PS4 to the PS5. The ones that followed the old style survival horror methods were thought to be seen as "outdated" by a lot of consumers. Full range and freedom in a 3D environment was all the rage since a building or room actually looked like it was supposed to, as opposed to the polygonal, jagged edges of PS1 where you still had to use a lot of your imagination in some cases (not all).

Back then, and even before that (and I guess even now), when a new gen started up, it was a mad dash to be the most "advanced" experience. As an example, it's why a not insignificant amount of JRPGs had weird CG FMV crap in them or fully 3D models that looked like ass. Fully 2D sprites and pixelated environments were seen as "outdated" back then in the PS1 era and were thought to potentially be a turn-off to consumers. Not to say there weren't very beloved PS1 games that were fully 2D, but we're talking about the business point of view and thoughts of the time, what publishers were looking for and what they thought would be most profitable. And that was advancement.

So certain survival horror games of the PS2 era, when they were new, were passed over by a lot of people either because they looked and felt archaic or because of advertising budget. People simply didn't know they existed a lot of the time; the advertising budget for a lot of those games (unless it was Resident Evil, I guess) was clearly low. As a kid, I was constantly looking at new game info and the Hot New Releases and I hadn't even heard of games like Rule of Rose or Haunting Ground until well after their prime.

Oh. And they controlled like ass, so there's that too.

 

[Dom Cruise]

I have a soft spot for the first Resident Evil, it reminds me of one of my all time favorites, the first Alone in the Dark game.

I wish a company would bring back an explore-the-mansion survival horror game but i feel like with the costs associated with AAA titles these days anything that can't sell a billion dollars worth isn't going to get made.

I guess I remember some survival horror games like Code Veronica and Outbreak but the market felt kind of oversaturated at that point, and FPS games were quickly becoming popular.

I forgot to mention the Resident Evil Outbreak games as another example of how graphically impressive these games could get on the PS2, the Outbreak games still look pleasing to the eye to this day.

There's just something detailed PS2 graphics like that that still gets me hyped.

This is ultimately the heart of the matter.

PS2 horror games were popular, and profitable. I doubt I'm the only one that thinks horror died right after Dead Space 2. That was when EA wanted the games to make Call of Duty money, so turned the game into a focus tested co-op action game. You need only look at Fuse to see how badly focus groups get things wrong.

Alien: Isolation was fucking great and that was years after Dead Space 2, I don't think it's fair to say horror died after Dead Space 2, not in general (did you mean in general?) or in the west.

However horror games are less popular among western devs these days, but Japan eventually took up the slack with The Evil Within (flawed for sure but still pretty great) and Resident Evil's comeback.

And repeating what others said. Most of them weren't any good. I remember Clock Tower 3 getting bad reviews at the time, while games like Haunting Ground and Rule of Rose were only really known to survival horror fans. These days their classic status seems to be due in part to them becoming highly valued by the collectors market.

Clock Tower 3 is a lesser one, but still pretty good, it was one of the earliest ones I played though so I have some special fondness for it, but the game does take a bit of a downturn after you kill the gasmask guy.

Haunting Ground is a legit great game I think and one of my favorites, but I will say it too peaks early and takes a bit of downturn turn after you kill Daniella, for the rest of the game the environments become less interesting, though there's still a few interesting areas, but nothing as cool as that room with the dolls or the marionettes, almost as if the development became a bit rushed near the end.

Last time I played Haunting Ground I actually got the secret ending where you can beat the game during the Debilitas part, almost as if the developers knew that was the peak part of the game, I've not actually played the entire game start to finish in over a decade, but there's still something about the game that has strongly fascinated me for the last 16 years.

In the case of Rule of Rose, there's no getting around the fact that the combat can be a pain even for a grizzled old veteran of the genre like me, but Rule of Rose is still one of the most unique games I've ever played with such a fascinatingly unique atmosphere and story, a story that is actually incredibly dark but leaves it to you to suss out the details based on subtle clues (like the reason for the bloody medical gloves in the attic of the orphanage for example).

They just don't make games like Haunting Ground and Rule of Rose anymore and that really saddens me, RE8 seems to be bringing some of the vibe of Haunting Ground back but what I really mean when I say "they just don't make games like Haunting Ground and Rule of Rose anymore" is those games have a surrealist edge to them, much like Silent Hill did, surrealist horror just isn't something you see much in games anymore.

It was quality over quantity I suppose. Most don't like being scared, and we hadn't gotten to the age of "screaming autistically at a jump scare game on stream to get rich" which made horror games so much bigger. PS2 had the best one so it doesn't matter to me if the rest of the catalogue was low. Intelligent symbolism that doesn't assault you with cheap jump scares, chilling atmosphere, and a story conceit which personalized the town's horror from the first game to the player = brilliant sequel.
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For my money, from an artistic standpoint, Silent Hill 2 is the greatest game of all time.

So certain survival horror games of the PS2 era, when they were new, were passed over by a lot of people either because they looked and felt archaic or because of advertising budget. People simply didn't know they existed a lot of the time; the advertising budget for a lot of those games (unless it was Resident Evil, I guess) was clearly low. As a kid, I was constantly looking at new game info and the Hot New Releases and I hadn't even heard of games like Rule of Rose or Haunting Ground until well after their prime.

I have G4 to thank for introducing me to both Haunting Ground and Rule of Rose.

Although the magazines I read at the time talked about them or even had ads, on G4 I saw trailers had got my attention a lot more, for Haunting Ground they played the TGS 2004 trailer and right off the bat it heavily caught my interest, but what was really amazing was on Cinematech: Nocturnal Emissions they played the trailer for Rule of Rose, which I think was basically just the intro CG cinematic and I still vividly remember the night I first it, it completely blew me away, never since have I seen a game that hit me as being as fresh an idea as that one did.

Despite being my intro to the game, G4's X-Play still gave Rule of Rose a bad review, I quit watching not long after and today Sessler is a huge asshole, need I say more?

I'm not trying to be too down on modern gaming, but there was a certain high level of creativity in the PS2 era when budgets weren't as high but the technology was already at a fairly realistic point, put it to you this way you certainly aren't seeing AAA games today revolving around a 1930s British orphanage lol.

 

[augment]

Survival horror games have 0 to near 0 replayability. Even a racing game is more engaging.

 

[Rotollo 2]

The genre was very much being distorted by the time the PS2 arrived; either graphical frippery or merging into fps/stealth/adventure type games - not many stayed faithful to the idea of ‘survival’ horror.

This plus the genre was being over saturated at the time, so many people were trying to recapture stuff like resi and SH at the time with stuff like haunting ground it dilluted the brand, and once those two crown jewel series either stepped away from the genre (RE) or became complete shit after Silent Hill 4 was kino the rest of them just went away. Ironiclly enough capcom could have held the PS2 style together had they not made stuff like Bolder Puncher 5

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

I was young during the PS2's heyday and my parents were some of the only ones that actually followed the ESRB ratings, so even if I became aware of the PS2's survival horror library, I wouldn't have been allowed near it.

Honestly though, I find myself more attracted to the PS1 era if only because I find the low-poly creatures and gore far more terrifying than what was found in the sixth generation. Not to say the sixth gen horror titles were inferior, because REmake 1 is the scariest Resident Evil in my opinion and Siren's atmosphere is so crushing I can't get past the second level without turning it off in a panic (the fact it has stealth mechanics doesn't help). There's just something about the PS1 era I find more fascinating. I think it's the shitty early 3D; my earliest gaming memories were on the PS1 and included stuff like Spyro, so to see that early 3D used in a horror context excites me. That's probably why Silent Hill 1 is my favorite out of the first three, because it's the only one that really got under my skin. 2 and 3 are great, don't get me wrong, but they just never creeped me the hell out like 1 does.

As for why the PS2 era wasn't more popular, I couldn't really tell you except I didn't know anyone who played horror games. GTA and FPS games were all the rage among the kids. It's not like horror wasn't popular because I knew a lot of kids my age who were into slashers. The only game I could think of that everyone played was RE4, but of course everyone knew about that.