So a while ago I posted an article about why I didn’t consider Five Nights at Freddy ’s a horror game. I said I liked the game, and that everyone should play the game, and that the game was truly and honestly scary, but it didn’t really fit the trappings of the horror genre.
Well, even though I was supporting the game and telling people to play it, the internet flipped their shit. “You think this game is a dark comedy when we think is horror!? TO THE GUILLOTINE WITH YOU GOOD SIR!” What ensued in the comments, between the death threats and questionings of my sexuality, was a discussion about what the horror genre even was.
Well, to me the horror genre has to do with setting and atmosphere. Imagine you were sitting around a campfire telling scary stories. One person crafts an incredible narrative that makes you feel an intense dread throughout the entire story, chilling you to the bone at its climax. Another sneaks up behind you and screams in your eat. Both are scary, but it’d be rare to call the jump scare horror. This was how I regarded Five Nights at Freddy ’s.
However, this didn’t hold true for many people. Some people said a horror game is any game that is scary. Some said that emotions are more important than atmosphere, and since Freddy ’s creates an emotion of tension and dread even without a story or atmosphere that necessarily elicits tension and dread, it still counts as horror. In fact, some people felt this made it count more as a horror game than Silent Hill because it uses mechanics to elicit a feeling of dread, instead of story.
This got me thinking. Perhaps our fundamental disagreements here crop up because our system of defining game genres is kind of broken. Most game genres are kind of vague to begin with. Not only that, but we don’t actually use the same criteria to classify one genre as we do the next.
For example, we have genres that are based on where the camera is (the first person shooter), we have genres based on where the game is developed (the JRPG), we have games based on mechanics (platformers) and games based on tone (horror, cinematic drama.) We have game genres that sound the same but play very differently (shooters, shoot em’ ups, bemani games, beat em ups). Some game genres describe almost every game out there (action, adventure) and others describe a large group of games that have incredibly differing mechanics (sports, simulation, racing.) Heck, some game genres are defined merely by how many dimensions the game has (2D fighters, 3D fighters.)
So maybe this is why we couldn’t agree on what horror meant. There is so much overlap in our discussion of game genre that they almost don’t describe anything. Take Resident Evil 4 , for example. It’s a game where you kill a lot of enemies, so is it an action game? But it’s a game where you shoot things, so is it a shooter? It’s a game where you solve puzzles, so is it a puzzle game? It’s a game with zombies in it, so is it a horror? Most people would say horror, but why? What makes horror supersede all these other categories? Is it because Capcom was trying to make a horror game? If authorial intent is all that matters, can I make a tower defense and call it a shooter?
These questions aren’t easy to answer and they may never be answered definitively. But we are still interested in your opinions. Let us know what you think in the comments.