Are you like me? Do you sometimes lay awake at night thinking “How can I make this scary thing much scarier?” No? So I’m just crazy? Well, thankfully this is not true at all and is merely a slightly above average intro for this article. Seriously though, the thought of this article came from my good friend and one of the other writers/personalities of Respawn Station, Sri Kandula, while he watched me struggle through playing Outlast, which you can watch now on our GW&CO Plays YouTube channel, and he wondered what would make this a worse experience for me. The Answer? Virtual Reality. And since it’s Spookrober, this got me thinking, what other horror games would benefit from making the jump to virtual reality?
Slender: The Eight Pages | Storytime. I remember playing this game with my friends in the pitch-black room that me and my cousin created with sheets over the windows. After we finished playing, I was tasked with walking our female friends home since it had gotten dark outside. All was fine on the walk to their respective houses until I turned to head back to my cousin’s home only to realize that I did not know the area…So there I was in the dark of night, lost and alone, sound familiar? So naturally, my brain decided to make sure I felt like I was being watched and followed the whole time on the walk/run back by none other than Slenderman. If this classic game was updated for VR, I believe people would get a similar experience to what I did on that night.
F.E.A.R | This series is well-known in the horror game community as one that was terrifying not only for its time but even now as it is still known as one of the scariest games of all time. The use of AI for the enemies to allow them to almost think on their own was very innovative and different for its initial release back in 2005 and allowed for a different and unique experience every time you played, which kept it nice and scary each time too. And while this paranormal horror would be great for VR, it should at least be remade/remastered someday.
Outlast | Obviously. I already mentioned in the intro that I struggled through finishing this game and this was not because of my lack of gaming ability, but rather my inability to play the game for longer than 15 minutes consecutively without having to put the controller down and dry the sweat off of my hands. This game, although eight years old, holds up extremely well, and its first-person perspective would be perfect for an easy transition to VR. I can only imagine the struggle of the player having to hold their camera up with the night vision mode on as they do their best to capture the horrors of the asylum as any journalist would!
P.T. | I do not think we will ever see a demo be so popular ever again. P.T. was supposed to be the next installment of The Silent Hill franchise before Hideo Kojima and Konami had a dispute that ultimately led to the game’s cancellation. This demo was breathtaking with amazing graphics. It put you into a state of uneasiness very quickly by only making minor adjustments to the one hallway that the entirety of the demo took place in. After opening door after door and seeing horrifying things only to be put back right where you started to then have a different experience doing almost the exact same series of events. This created a sense of “will I ever get out of here?” making you feel trapped in this hallway. I think, and I can’t believe I am saying this, rereleasing this demo in VR would add to the immersion that Kojima and his team created 1000% and create a horror experience like no other.
Bioshock | This one may not be widely agreed upon as it is debatable if Bioshock is a horror game or not. My argument is that the first game in the series does an amazing job at creating this feeling of being unprepared for whatever next fight is to come, especially against a Big Daddy. Rapture is also an amazing setting to be explored and the splicers have created a nice dark and unpredictable environment that keeps you on the edge of your seat. In VR, I think this game would be very fun with the use of the plasmids and also very freighting when you find yourself in a big group of enemies fighting and you start hearing the pounding of the footsteps of a Big Daddy coming from behind you with his Little Sister rooting him on.
These of course are only five horror games that could benefit from the VR upgrade/update. Would you play these classic horror games if they were re-released for virtual reality platforms? Are there any other horror games you would like to experience in VR? Let us know down below in the comments!
