Videogames and Horror: From Amnesia to Zombies, Run!

By Dawn Stobbart

Videogames are full of horrors – and of horror, a facet of the media that has been largely overlooked by the academic community in terms of lengthy studies in the fast-growing field of videogame scholarship. This book engages with the research of prominent scholars across the humanities to explore the presence, role and function of horror in videogames, and in doing so it demonstrates how videogames enter discussion on horror and offer a unique, radical space that horror is particularly suited to fill. The topics covered include the construction of stories in videogames, the role of the monster and, of course, how death is treated as a learning tool and as a facet of horror.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781786834386

Dawn Stobbart

Dawn Stobbart is Associate Lecturer in English Literature and Creative Writing at Lancaster University

Book preview

Videogames

AND HORROR

HORROR STUDIES

Series Editor

Xavier Aldana Reyes, Manchester Metropolitan University

Editorial Board

Stacey Abbott, Roehampton University Harry M. Benshoff, University of North Texas Linnie Blake, Manchester Metropolitan University Fred Botting, Kingston University Steven Bruhm, Western University Steffen Hantke, Sogang University Joan Hawkins, Indiana University Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet, University of Lausanne Bernice M. Murphy, Trinity College Dublin Johnny Walker, Northumbria University

Preface

Horror Studies is the first book series exclusively dedicated to the study of the genre in its various manifestations – from fiction to cinema and television, magazines to comics, and extending to other forms of narrative texts such as video games and music. Horror Studies aims to raise the profile of Horror and to further its academic institutionalisation by providing a publishing home for cutting-edge research. As an exciting new venture within the established Cultural Studies and Literary Criticism programme, Horror Studies will expand the field in innovative and student-friendly ways.

Videogames

AND HORROR

FROM AMNESIA TO ZOMBIES, RUN!

DAWN STOBBART

© Dawn Stobbart, 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, University Registry,

King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3NS.

www.uwp.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-78683-436-2

eISBN 978-1-78683-438-6

The rights of Dawn Stobbart to be identified as author of this work have been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Cover image: marcogarrincha/shutterstock

Contents

Acknowledgements

Illustrations

Foreword

1. Introduction: A Light in the Darkness – Videogames and Horror

Definitions

Immersion and Interactivity

Components of Horror

A Brief History of Horror in Games

Videogame and Horror Scholarship

2. Dissecting the Videogame: Genres in the Medium

Introducing Genre in Videogames

Survival Horror

Lovecraftian Horror

Splatter Horror

Slasher Gaming

Science Fiction Horror

3. Transgressing Boundaries: Adaptation, Intertextuality and Transmedia

Adaptation

Spec Ops: The Line and Intertextuality

Alice is No Longer in Wonderland: Blurring the Line Between Fiction and Real Life

The Multimedia Alien Franchise

Outside Influences on Gaming Narratives

4. Play Me a Story: Storytelling in Horror Videogames

Horror and Narrative Theory

Setting and Landscape in Videogame Storytelling

Environmental Storytelling

Choice

The End of the Story

5. Who Am I? Identity and Perspective

Catharsis Beyond Aristotle

Four Factors on Emotional Play

Perspectives

Third-person Perspective

Second-person Perspective

First-person Perspective

Reactive Storytelling in Zombies, Run!

6. The Undead Invade: Monsters in Videogames

The Videogame Monster

(In)sane Intelligence

The Zombie in Gaming

Less Common Gaming Monsters

Iconic Monsters

Ambiguous Monstrosity

7. Death and the End: The Final Chapter?

Is Death Really the End?

Death and Religion

Permadeath and its Evolution

Narrative Endings in Videogames

Subverting the Traditional Narrative Structure

Playing the Dead and Dealing Death

The Final Word

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Filmography

Gameography

Acknowledgements

IGREW UP PLAYING videogames with my dad. We started out with an XZ Spectrum where I learned to program in BASIC, creating ‘games’ such as Spirograph and playing Jumping Jack (which to my small, chubby fingers was not easy), and from there we moved on to a shiny Commodore 64, with a cassette deck we attached so we could load games. Some of the happiest moments of my childhood were spent playing computer games (especially Trivial Pursuit , remember Liechtenstein Mother?), talking about them with my dad and basking in the warm glow of the screen as we shared a hobby. Long summer evenings were spent playing the Super Nintendo: taking turns and marvelling at the amazing graphics that were, to be fair, a step up from the computer we had begun with. Here I can see the beginning of my love for videogames – a love that has lasted through many technological advances, which I have (just about) managed to keep up with and through all the trials and tribulations a life brings with it – cheers Dad, I am so glad I chose you.

When I was not playing games, I was reading. Sometimes I had three or four books on rotation and my wonderful secondary school teacher Mrs Lishman was a godsend in nurturing this love of the written word: pushing me to be a better reader, a better writer and to understand the words I was reading for more than there might be on the page; without her I would not have even got through high-school English. After school, life got in the way and it took many years for me to return to learning. I am so lucky to have been chosen for an English programme where Dr Stephen Longstaffe was one of the lecturers for my undergraduate degree; his support and passion for literature helped me realize that I wanted to work with English for the rest of my life. Thank you, Steve – you are an inspiration to me.

It is no surprise, then, that my two passions have intermingled along the way. Playing videogames and seeing that the stories in them are as strong and nuanced as those in the books I was reading brought me to my Masters thesis and to my PhD, where Professor Kamilla Elliott took my passion and helped me hone it into something I could articulate. I would like to thank her for her continuous and unwavering support, for her patience, motivation and commitment throughout my PhD and beyond. When I faltered, she was steadfast in my ability. I could not have imagined a better advisor and mentor than you, Kamilla.

Through all of this, I have had at my side the most amazing person, who has supported me financially and emotionally, and put up with my frustrated complaints when I have felt that I am asking too much of myself. Jane, I do not know what I did to deserve you and the love you give me every day, even when playing Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3, one after the other! You have helped me over every obstacle; you have shown unerring confidence in me and your patience with the grumpy gamer you have chosen to share your life with is something I still cannot understand. Thank you so much. There will never be enough time to repay you for everything you do for me, but I will surely try!

To my children, Lyssa, Nevyn and Anya, who have accommodated me being at a computer for so much of my day, being slightly preoccupied, and for putting up with my slightly eccentric life, you are at the heart of it all. You are a light in my world, and even in the darkest moments you shine for me. My thanks too go to Dianne, one of my best and oldest friends – how you have put up with my complaining and anxious telephone calls about all this is beyond me!

I would also like to thank my colleagues at Lancaster (and beyond). Alan Gregory Fox, Chloe Buckley, Enrique Ajuria Ibarra, Catherine Spooner, Sally Bushell and Rachel Gregory Fox in particular. You all accepted me as a peer, seeing in me something I wasn’t sure was there. You have all widened my mind and my academic ability more than I thought was possible – thank you so much.

My unending thanks go to Dr Ewan Kirkland, who has helped me selflessly with this project, guiding and providing advice that has been invaluable. Thank you so much, Ewan, I owe you one. Equally, to Stephen Curtis, who met a PhD student and saw a kindred spirit. Your advice, proofreading, friendship and academic guidance has been instrumental for my continuing progression. You and Sionadh are some of the best people I know and, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

Finally, a special thank you to Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes and Sarah Lewis at the University of Wales Press for trusting in my ability to write this book, when even I was unsure. For me, this really is a dream come true; 16-year-old Dawn would not believe that one day she would write a proper book on something she loves so much.

Illustrations

Figure 1: Victims of white phosphorus in Spec Ops: The Line.

Figure 2: Spec Ops: The Line loading screen.

Figure 3: Resident Evil 7 dinner table scene.

Foreword

– Playing games is good.

– Mm.

Your heart goes faster.

– You smile.

– Yeah. Yeah.

Or, um scream.

Oh! I have always liked to make the player jump.

Frightened.

You get scared, you jump.

– Afterwards, you feel good.

– Yeah.

You glow.

Why? Oh, um Because of the adrenaline rush.

– Yes.

– Yeah.

But mostly because you are still alive.

You have faced your greatest fears in a safe environment.

It is a release of fear.

It liberates you.

(Black Mirror, Season 3, Episode 2)¹

Horror is everywhere: on television, in film, in novels, advertisements and in videogames, the presence of sounds, images and situations that inspire fear and terror in an individual have become an integral part of contemporary society. So too have videogames. Their presence is felt across media: film and television reference gaming, as the above excerpt exemplifies, and the boundaries between the different media are blurred by this transmedia relationship.

Horror in its many forms is a staple of videogame design and play. Whether this is because of a link between ‘the appeal of horror and the popularity of videogames to a common interest in archetypes’ or because horror ‘is the most recognisable and relatable genre to incorporate into a game’, games frequently make use of the conventions of horror.² Even games that are not described as such contain elements of the horror genre. Jump scares, a common trope of horror, can be found in both horror and non-horror games, games that range from Batman: Arkham Asylum³ to The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask,⁴ for example (the Batman games are thematically very dark, but there is a particular moment when Batman hallucinates the bodies of his parents talking to him about their murder and Scarecrow jumps out of their body bags, causing a jump scare, and making the game cross genres from being a thriller action game into horror). Moreover, images that ‘aim to generate fear, shock or disgust’,⁵ whilst being a defining aspect of horror, are also part of many games that might not initially be thought of as being part of the genre, such as those found in the 2012 game Spec Ops: The Line.⁶

Gamers, then, frequently interact with tropes of the horror genre, across a wide range of games and videogame genres, blurring the distinctions between them, just as narrative content does in other media. This book is born out of these interactions, playing games that invoke reactions in me, as a player, that I could recognize as horrific, but that occur in games that are not generally thought of as part of this genre. Where does the boundary between horror and other genres occur and is there a point at which a game transitions from being action to being horror? These are questions that I have considered whilst playing games for several years, but, most importantly, why do I keep coming back to games that I know will both disgust and scare me? In this book, I bring more than thirty years’ experience and involvement with the medium as a gamer, which pre-dates my academic interest in videogame narrative. I have been involved with them from their infancy as text-based games. I have been a first-hand witness of the change from stories in videogames being used to justify ludic structures with little or no regard for narrative, to designers creating games that rely wholly on narrative for their construction, justification and ludic success. My co-evolution as a gamer, therefore, brings added dimensions to my scholarship, which is based on practice-led research, as well as academic study.

Each of the chapters of this book focuses on a specific aspect of horror and gaming. All of the chapters consider videogames as textual artefacts in the same way that other media do and I attempt to situate videogames as part of this structure, using specific examples to support my claims. Some of the examples I have chosen are not overtly horror-based; I argue for their inclusion in the genre through their horrific content. Chapter 1 begins the analysis, offering a broad view of horror and terror and the different branches of the genre, before situating the videogame within its cultural milieu and charting the history of horror in games to show the historical context from which this work emerges. Chapter 2 considers the relationship between videogames and other media and looks at the way that videogames enter into the transmedia relationships that occur in other media, especially through the expansion of franchises and series into videogame forms, such as the Alien franchise, which positions the game Alien: Isolation as both a sequel and an adaptation of the original film. This chapter also considers the indirect adaptation and how this enters into videogame studies, using Spec Ops: The Line to highlight this. Chapter 3 looks at the complex nature of videogame genres, foregrounding the juxtaposition of play and content and then exploring some of the specific subgenres available to the player through specific case studies. Chapter 4 covers the subject of storytelling and looks at the way narrative is constructed in videogames. It also uses narrative theory to consider the role of horror in the medium. Chapter 5 considers identity and perspective, looking at how the player engages with videogames in a more personal perspective than is observed in other media. Examples outside the traditional structure are amongst this contemplation, with the app-based audio ‘game’ Zombies, Run! being used, alongside others, to highlight the interactive and immersive nature of gaming. Chapter 6 looks at the role of the monster, a staple of videogames only surpassed by the subject of chapter 7, death. Both of these chapters are central to the understanding of gaming and both are complicated by their presence in horror gaming. As the medium continues to mature and technology allows for greater storytelling, ethical considerations and heightened skills, these subjects become more complex than their origins would intimate. Chapters 6 and 7 explore the complexities of presenting death and the monster in games, where their presence saturates the medium.

Whilst this book is a discussion of videogames and horror, it will adopt a very interdisciplinary and intermedial approach to the field, reflecting my own background in narrative studies, as well as my status as a gamer. Horror is a truly cross-media field and videogames utilize methods of production of horror in other media; therefore, it would be reductive to ignore other media in the pursuit of videogame scholarship. The same applies to criticism of horror; whilst there is a growing collection of scholarly work on videogames, it would be counterproductive to dismiss non-game scholarship that is relevant and useful. Each of the chapters in this volume expands on a specific aspect of gaming, focusing on the horror genre, encompassing other media and genres where necessary, situating the medium and its content within the wider discussions of both.

1

Introduction

A Light in the Darkness – Videogames and Horror

IN THE INTRODUCTION to Horror: A Literary History , Xavier Aldana Reyes tells his readers that ‘in some respects, defining horror is easy enough’. ¹ This is indeed true and yet the opening task of this work is to engage with a series of definitions to show the wide range of terms that are connoted with horror. The term itself, in Aldana Reyes’s words, is ‘normally used in fiction to refer to texts or narratives that aim to generate fear, shock or disgust … alongside associated emotional states such as dread or suspense’. ² This is the case; however, this definition is broad enough to encompass non-horror narratives, such as thriller fiction, for example, which uses similar techniques to induce suspense in a reader. Therefore, the first undertaking is to bring a stronger definition of horror to this work, beginning with an identification of the different branches of horror.

Definitions

The first distinction that this work will draw is that between two related concepts: terror and horror. In his book The Philosophy of Horror, for example, Noël Carroll identifies a difference between horror and terror, citing horror’s primary distinction as ‘the presence of monsters [which] gives us a neat way of distinguishing it from terror’.³ This difference is important to define for it can be subtle and is important in recognizing how videogames use horror. In any discussion of the inception of the two terms as being distinct from each other, the eighteenth-century writer Edmund Burke is usually taken as a ‘starting point for discussions of terror and horror’.⁴ In his work A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful,⁵ Burke attempted to identify sublime objects and situations, making almost interchangeable use of the terms terror and horror, along with the related concepts of fear and dread. Following this, the novelist Ann Radcliffe became one of the first to express a difference between the two terms in her essay ‘On the Supernatural in Poetry’, where she states that ‘terror and horror are so far opposite that the first expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life; the other contracts, freezes, and nearly annihilates them’.⁶ In this seminal piece Radcliffe notes that the greatest difference between the two concepts lies in the ‘uncertainty and obscurity, that accompany the first’.⁷ This concept was further elucidated in The Gothic Flame in 1957, where Devendra P. Varma states that the ‘the difference between Terror and Horror is the difference between awful apprehension and sickening realization: between the smell of death and stumbling against a corpse’.⁸ According to Varma, terror ‘creates an intangible atmosphere of spiritual psychic dread, a certain superstitious shudder at the other world’, whereas horror, building on Radcliffe’s view, brings ‘an exact portrayal of the physically horrible and revolting, against a far more terrible background of spiritual gloom and despair’.⁹ A more modern definition of the relationship between the two can be found in Stephen King’s 1981 work, Danse Macabre, in which he describes three distinct concepts in horror fiction, which he arranges hierarchically as follows: ‘terror on top, horror below it, and lowest of all, the gag reflex of revulsion’.¹⁰ King admits to using all three of these concepts in his fiction, saying that he ‘will try to terrorise the reader’; failing that ‘will try to horrify’; and finally, if that does not work, he will ‘go for the gross-out’.¹¹ To elucidate his distinction between terror and horror, King discusses the W. W. Jacobs short story The Monkey’s Paw. In this story he relates that terror ‘is the unpleasant speculation called to mind when the knocking on the door begins … nothing is there but the wind … but what, the mind wonders, might have been there’, articulating the fear shared by reader and characters alike, that the son has returned in a monstrous form.¹² In a similar vein Noël Carroll distinguishes terror from horror through ‘the presence of monsters’,¹³ a statement that forms the basis of his Philosophy of Horror. In the sense intended here a monster is more than simply an entity that commits horrific acts; rather, it is one that ‘is an extraordinary creature in our ordinary world’.¹⁴ Terror, in all of these examples, is a mental reaction to some potential threat, whereas horror is the visceral, physical and revolting realization of that threat.

Whilst the relationship between horror and terror is well known, it is prudent to remind the reader of both the connections between these terms and also what their distinctions are. In a medium such as the videogame, where the player moves actively through a landscape or setting, how these two concepts are constructed is necessarily foregrounded and used in different ways to create the horror experience. Therefore this work will define terror as the internal, psychological, feeling that there is something to fear around the next corner, in the darkness, or behind the closed door. Horror, by contrast, is the realization of that fear: seeing the monster emerge from the gloom as it chases you or finding that the vague shape in the darkness is a corpse: the anticipation of death is exchanged for its actual representation, and the thought of gore, blood and bodily waste becomes manifest.

The difference between terror and horror is not always easy to identify in videogames, where terror, rather than horror, can be the driving force. Amnesia: The Dark Descent, for example, uses terror to create an atmosphere in which the player develops a feeling of dread.¹⁵ This is part of the game’s ambience and construction, occurring almost from the beginning of the game and certainly before any encounter with the primary enemies, the Gatherers. Diegetic noise and music is used to discomfit the player, with the sounds of the Gatherers being heard long before they are seen. The protagonist, Daniel, has a fear of darkness which manifests as a loss of sanity whilst being in the dark and results in the game environment becoming increasingly disturbing, surreal and dangerous. The game makes use of a ‘terror meter’, a loud, high-pitched noise which alerts the player when a Gatherer has noticed Daniel and continues until it loses track of him. This is important within the context of the game as there are no combat options available to the player, other than to hide from the Gatherers: the need to hide and the noise invoke a sense of discomfort in the player. These elements produce a game that has gained a reputation for being able to scare the player without any combat or action taking place; at the time of its release it was said by players to be the scariest game of all time, with terror lying at the heart of its success.

DOOM, a science fiction-based horror game, also invokes this duality of terror and horror.¹⁶ As with Amnesia, the ambient noise of the game includes the sound of monsters that are as yet unmet. The dark corners of the labyrinthine setting provide ample places for them to hide, bringing about a tension – a terror – that turns to horror when the player is suddenly confronted with the source of the noises. In the case of videogames, therefore, the relationship between terror and horror is heightened through gameplay. As DOOM and Amnesia highlight, games rely on the use of both terror and horror as tools that aid in immersing the player in a game, its world and the story that is being told. Among the techniques used to produce immersion is narrative perspective, defined as the features that determine the way a story is told and includes the perspective of the reader/viewer/listener/player.¹⁷ The role of the narrator in representing the story to an audience is a crucial aspect of both traditional storytelling and narrative ideology and is central to the argument that videogame technologies have caused narratological structures to evolve beyond those of other media.¹⁸ The immersion and the physically interactive nature of videogames means that the narrative perspective of the player can substantially differ from that of other media. This is the case even in those games whose perspective resembles print or audio-visual media, and in comparison with immersive theatre, cinema and art installations, whose relationship to videogames is closer than traditional media. Narrative perspective includes the ability of videogames to allow the player to identify with a protagonist and includes the gender, sexuality, race, nationality, age, occupation, (dis) ability and even humanity of the protagonist and those with whom the player engages in the course of a game. This is a factor that aids in both immersion as a character, but also allows critical and social commentary to emerge from play. In horror, as will become clear throughout this work, this immersion and identification allows the player to engage with themes that might be considered taboo (paedophilia, for example) as well as those that are frightening, visceral and repulsive, all from the physically safe vantage point of interacting with a fictional situation on a screen.

Immersion and Interactivity

Further definitions are also required to denote the differences between the terms immersion and interactivity. As can be seen already, these are two key terms that will be used throughout this work and as such their meaning should be made clear. In a general sense, interactivity usually describes an active relationship between two (or more) things: for example, a conversation is a form of interactivity, as is a child’s engagement with a favourite toy. In videogames, play frequently means interactivity: the player’s actions are directly responsible for progression in a game and its accompanying narrative. ‘More specifically’, as Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman write in Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, ‘playing a game means making choices within a game system designed to support actions and outcomes in meaningful ways’.¹⁹ In choosing which path to take to the end of a level or making a narrative choice, the player interacts with the game system and in turn the game system uses these choices to make changes to the game and the narrative trajectory. This is a general system for videogames as a whole, rather than being unique to the horror genre; however, it is important to establish even these general aspects of videogame play and design to determine how these work in the context of horror videogames.

Immersion, in this book, is a term that is used to describe a deep absorption or involvement in an activity, ‘a process or condition whereby the viewer becomes totally enveloped within and transformed by the virtual environment’.²⁰ It should be noted that videogames rely on the generation of emotional states to produce videogames in which the player becomes immersed. This is something that happens across media and indeed ‘explicitly underpins genres such as comedy, tragedy, and horror, and it anchors the spectator to the screen’.²¹ For example, film uses ‘emotional contagion’ to spread feelings from one person to another, in a process designed by filmmakers and therefore outside the viewer’s conscious control.²² This concept is familiar to game players and critics. Richard Rouse III has long noted that ‘games are good at eliciting certain emotions’ and that ‘many of th[e] key game emotions are also ones ideally suited to the horror genre’,²³ first writing on the topic in 2001 in ‘Games on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: Emotional Content in Computer Games’.²⁴ He observes that the three emotions of tension, fear and satisfaction are particularly suited to the horror game, as there is ‘actually something at stake for the player’; accordingly, ‘when someone asks you directly for help [in a game] and you are able to solve their problem while saving them from certain death, a very real sense of accomplishment follows’.²⁵ In common with the physical interaction of playing, emotional engagement brings about an immersion in the game whereby emotional contagion can cause the player to mirror the feelings of the character being controlled, such as fear, terror and horror, as well as giving a sense of accomplishment when achieving game milestones such as defeating an enemy, solving a puzzle or surviving an encounter with a horrific monster.

Including in his exploration the emotional engagement a player has with the contents of a horror narrative, Noël Carroll, in The Philosophy of Horror, considers whether the suspension of disbelief is sufficient to allow the emotional reaction that occurs when engaging with a text. Carroll, throughout his book, focuses on the concept of ‘art horror’:

the type of horror … associated with reading something like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein … seeing something like the … stage version of Dracula, movies such