ACROSS ALL MEDIA AND PLATFORMS, PS4 IS THE BEST PLACE TO EXPERIENCE THE HORROR GENRE.
Games do horror best and PS4’s library is scarily good
From monster movies to zombie novels, I was a huge fan of the horror genre growing up. The experience of being scared out of my wits was perhaps an odd thing for a child to seek out, but I still spent a huge slice of my young life doing just that. Like any adrenaline junkie, however, I always wanted more, and it was ultimately gaming that provided me with the best fix of frights.
I still love horror movies and books, but the scares in those are indirect; it’s all happening to someone else, the main character in the story. Horror games have main characters too, of course, but you are usually in control of them. And that’s the difference. It means that the monster, curse, or ghoul is directly attacking you, not someone else. If you’re exploring a haunted mansion and a zombie jumps out of a cupboard, it feels like it’s trying to bite you just as much as it is your character. A videogame zombie is a direct threat to your game progress, and that makes the stakes, and therefore the thrill of it all, so much more intense.
As a gaming horror fanatic, I pay close attention to where I’m going to get my next dose of scares from. I’ve been gaming across multiple generations and platforms for years now, and I honestly believe PlayStation 4 has the greatest horror library of all time. There’s a huge variety of terrifying titles available, from the cartoony Hello Neighbour to the sublime and photorealistic Resident Evil 2 Remake. But those are games you can experience elsewhere too.
EXCLUSIVE EVILS
What really sets PS4’s horror library apart are the exclusives; spine-chilling adventures that can only be experienced on this system. Until Dawn is a prime example: the story’s filled with horror clichés and tropes, but the game wears them proudly, never shying away from its B-movie mentality. Guiding a group of teens down a monster-infested mountain is honestly one of the most joyously macabre experiences I’ve ever had. In fact, I had to replay the game multiple times to see all the different character deaths just because I didn’t want to miss a single gruesome thing. Not that I’m, erm, weird or anything…
Bloodborne is another terrific exclusive. The gothic streets of Yharnam are filled with twisted abominations, and these Lovecraftian beasts were what initially drew me in to the game. But it was the lore that really snared me, the dark reasons for the state of the world. In Bloodborne, every alleyway and building has its own blood-soaked history and I needed to know absolutely everything.
And then there’s The Last Of Us Remastered. Not your typical postapocalyptic adventure, it’s a beautiful story of grief and parental love coloured by the brutality of the world around Joel and Ellie. There are other excellent zombie games out on PS4 (I really enjoyed Days Gone, for example), but I believe that The Last Of Us is the greatest post-apocalyptic story ever told. I still think about it daily, years after originally completing it.
And there are so many games I haven’t even touched on: The Evil Within 2, Inside, Alien: Isolation… too many to list! If you haven’t already, do yourself a favour and search for ‘horror’ in the PlayStation Store. You won’t be disappointed!