Articles

Home / XBOX
XBOX

Best “space horror” videogames

14 september, 20:08

457

For centuries, humanity has been striving for the stars. From ancient astronomers and philosophers to modern advanced technologies for launching rockets – all this is aimed at studying the depths of space. “What secrets do distant planets keep?” – this question bothers many minds. But what if space doesn’t necessarily reveal something good to us, but instead opens previously unknown horrors? The genre of space horror was born from such reflections, the influence of which can be found in many films, books, and of course – video games. It is the latter that will be discussing today, we will go through the most famous and high-quality games about space that you better not play at night!

Dead Space

  Most often, when talking about space horror, the first thing that comes to mind is “Dead Space” – perhaps the most famous game in this genre. A whole trilogy came out under this name: some parts were more successful, some – not so much, but it was the first Dead Space, released in 2008, that made the players jump in their chairs in fear, fighting off the necromorphs that suddenly appear out of nowhere.

  The the plot is quite common – one spaceship receives a SOS signal from another, the crew comes to the rescue and find not survivors, but the monster-necromorphs attacking all living things instead. However, soon the development of events quickly begins to reveal completely different horrors, which scare you way more than any monster can.

  Spectacular enemies, a depressing and tense atmosphere, as well as a wonderful plot are the main elements of the game’s success, so the story of Isaac Clark, the main character of the series, still remains popular.

System Shock

  Dead Space may have been the most famous space horror game, but it certainly wasn’t the first one. This title belongs to the “elderly” System Shock, who saw the screens back in 1994. Now it is rather difficult to play it due to the graphics and general impression, but it would be wrong to pass by such a genre’s classic.

  The plot revolves around the Shodan supercomputer, which controls the Citadel station in deep space. Shodan, like any self-respecting AI in horror / science fiction, rebelled and decided to reach the level of divine power by destroying humanity – which is why a hacker is sent to the station to hack and disable the AI, this hacker is our main character.

  Despite the flaws, System Shock was definitely a breakthrough for its time, and still has a fan base that even raises money to develop a sequel.

Doom 3

The Doom series is known primarily as a first-person action game, not a space horror, and the first two games in the series really confirm this fame – the action is focused on the spectacular destruction of monsters to the heavy metal music, and not on the fright or overwhelming atmosphere. However, the third part changed its approach and leaned closer to the sci-fi horror genre – the game has a significantly bigger amount of scripted scenes, searches for the information in the form of notes or audio recordings, as well as a much more elaborated plot.

Such elements of the past parts as huge monsters, big guns or heavy metal in the background are also present, but at the right moments the game has learned to really scare the player – for example, due to the inability of simultaneously using a flashlight and shooting.

Alien versus Predator

Another “heavyweight” of the sci-fi horror genre that came out in the last millennium was the result of two franchises of the most popular horror films of the 90s – “Alien” and “Predator” – merging together. The idea was brewing for a long time, and the result was a video game for the PlayStation and PC, which spawned two sequels and a reboot in 2010.

A characteristic feature of each AvS is the ability to play as three completely different characters: Alien, Predator and Marine, each of which has its own gameplay characteristics. Thus, inside one Alien vs Predator there are actually 3 games – stealth action for the Alien, almost arcade action for the Predator, and survivale horror for the Marine. The gameplay as a trooper is a real example of sci-fi horror with all its elements – dark corridors, depressing atmosphere, suddenly appearing enemies and a general feeling of helplessness in the face of unknown monsters. The high-quality storyline that combines the three branches of the game into one whole is also worth noting.

Stasis

This video game differs in many ways from the others on the list above – it is not a first-person action game, but rather a point-and-click adventure, reminding of Fallout 1-2 rather than Doom. According to the plot, the main character, John Marachek, wakes up aboard the spaceship “Groomlake” from a state of hibernation in strange circumstances – the ship is completely deserted, while sinking into the gas clouds of Neptune. The player will have to explore all corners in order to understand the tragedy that happened here and find Marachek’s relatives, who disappeared along with the rest of the crew.

Here, monsters from dark corners do not jump on the player, the game scares you in a different way: a viscous, depressing atmosphere of fear of the unknown and the feeling that something terrible has happened on the ship, and it is about to repeat itself.

The game was developed by one person with the money of a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, but despite the lack of action and relatively small size, it is an excellent horror with a high-quality addictive storyline.

Alien: Isolation

Released in 2014, Alien: Isolation will surely appeal to fans of Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien, as it inherits much of the spirit of the original film. The plot revolves around Amanda Ripley, daughter of the legendary Helen Ripley, who arrives at Sevastopol, an inactive space station, in order to find the black box of the missing ship Nostromo, on which her mother was last seen. An Alien is found instead of the box, which will hunt Amanda throughout the game.

The peculiarity lies in the invincibility of the Alien, which cannot be killed by a weapon, therefore the gameplay entirely focuses on stealth and avoiding the Xenomorph by all means, including ventilation shafts, a homemade motion detector and others. Such gameplay evokes the appropriate atmosphere of despair in the face of an unkillable enemy prowling nearby, and provides the genre of space horror to the game.

Dispatcher

It is worth mentioning the Dispatcher, a Russian horror game, which also takes place in space, on a ship of people in distress. Unfortunately, it falls short of its Western “colleagues” – the game has a lot of bugs (despite the fact that it has already been released from alpha and beta testing), there is practically no plot and the graphics isn’t on a highest level.

This is not surprising, because Dispatcher is an indie project, and not even the main one for the CivilSavages developer studio, but it still has its advantages. Perhaps the main one is a rather versatile multiplayer, in which you can alternately play first as survivors fleeing from zombies, and then in the role of the monsters themselves, chasing the people around the ship.

Therefore, Dispatcher does not claim to be the best horror of all time, but it can provide a good time in the company of friends, when you can be afraid of the monsters on the screen together.

Prey

The most recent game on the list, Prey (not to be confused with the 2006 title of the same name) blew up the gaming community on May 5, 2017, giving gamers a fresh take on traditional sci-fi horror.

The action takes place at Talos 1 station, where experiments are being carried out to introduce the abilities of the alien Typhon race (such as telepathy or mimicry) into the human brain. The main character is the direct result of such an experiment – Morgan Yu, a man with Typhon’s abilities. Just as you would expect from such a genre, monsters get out of control, arrange a bloody mess on the ship, and the main character must deal with all this.

But this is where the whole “ordinariness” of the game ends – then an absolutely unique gameplay begins. Prey can be called a “mistrust simulator” – thanks to Typhon’s ability to mimicry – imitate objects and people – anything from a chair and a coffee mug to the surviving members of the crew can suddenly turn out to be the enemy. Thanks to experiments, Morgan can also acquire such powers during the plot, but despite this, the game remains fairly difficult. Monsters can kill you in one or two hits, ammo is never full, and so on. Therefore, the game provides many ways to solve the same problems, which makes it extremely interactive and suitable for repeated playthroughs.

Prey is the clear flagman of the space horror genre and is definitely worth checking out if you haven’t already!

Popular articles

поиск по сайту