How Horror CoOp Games Like B4B & Phasmophobia Keep Things Scary

How Horror Co-Op Games Like B4B & Phasmophobia Keep Things Scary

Contents

Most survival horror video games generated horror by isolating the player, but some horror games can generate horror through co-op gameplay.

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How Horror CoOp Games Like B4B & Phasmophobia Keep Things Scary

Many iconic survival horror video games like Silent Hill 2, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and Outlast generate terror by isolating their player and forcing their character to endure nightmarish perils essentially by themselves. Newer horror games like Dread Hunger, however, are challenging this formula with co-operative game modes that test the teamwork, trust, resolve, and resilience of players, proving the truth of the old maxim: “Hell is other people.”

Every horror story, whether it’s a blockbuster movies or pulse-pounding video game, is a crucible that tests both their protagonists and the viewers who identify with said protagonists. The places, events, and threats of a horror story, be they gore-filled rooms, shadow-lurking monsters, or awful revelations, are meant to build tension and push main characters to the limits of both body and mind, culminating in a moment where they undergo dramatic personal transformations in order to survive/defeat the horror, or succumb to their flaws and suffer a final, terrible fate.

Because horror stories are meant to test the convictions and skills of their protagonists, many horror storytellers try to come up with a reason why the main character doesn’t just run away or call emergency services to deal with the horror in their place. Isolation is the most straightforward way to make sure the main characters of a horror story are forced to confront their nightmares, but there are also plenty of stories where groups of protagonists try to survive a horror scenario, only to steadily fall apart as they take casualties, succumb to in-fighting, or just make bad decisions in a blind panic. Many co-operative survival horror games released in recent years use these aforementioned tropes to create fear and suspense in their multiplayer modes, using both psychology and game mechanics to ‘isolate’ players from each other even when they’re together.

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Survival Horror Co-op Games Where Players Are Forced to Split Up

How Horror CoOp Games Like B4B & Phasmophobia Keep Things Scary

The Left 4 Dead series, besides pioneering survival co-op first-person shooters, also popularized the gameplay mechanic of several players working together while one other player takes control of a mutant “monster” with the ability to attract fresh zombie hordes, grapple players, knock them back, or pull them apart. It’s a common stereotype that the protagonists of horror films get into the most amount of trouble when they “split up,” so the abilities of “Special Infected” in Left 4 Dead (and the special “Ridden” in the spiritual successor game Back 4 Blood) were specifically designed to drag players away from each other and create moments of frightening isolation.

“Escape The Killer” style horror games such as Dead By Daylight boil this gameplay mechanic down to its bare essentials, featuring multiplayer matches where groups of players try to escape a map while a single player uses the abilities of their chosen “monster” to track down players, disrupt their teamwork, and drag the unluckiest of them off into the shadows.

Survival Horror Co-op Games That Push Players To Abandon Or Betray Each Other

How Horror CoOp Games Like B4B & Phasmophobia Keep Things Scary

There’s the horror of being along, being helpless, being pursued, and then there’s the personal horror felt when a person realizes they’re capable of great cruelty and cowardice under the right circumstances. A large number of co-op Survival Horror games invoke this kind of personal horror through gameplay where players are faced with a dilemma; do they risk the lives of their characters in order to save fellow players in trouble, or abandon them to a grisly (virtual) fate in order to survive longer or make sure their objectives are completed? In Dead By Daylight, for instance, any “Survivor” caught by the “Killer” is impaled on a meat hook and left to slowly die. Near the beginning of a multiplayer match, it makes sense for “Survivor” players in Dead by Daylight to rescue their hooked comrades, but towards the endgame, where generators have to be fixed and hatches have to be opened, abandoning hooked survivors to their fates can be a logical, if not noble, course of action.

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In other co-op survival horror games, the “abandonment” and “betrayal” of players is less a deliberate choice and more an unintended consequence of people triggering bad events or making poor decisions out of panic. In Phasmophobia, for example, the game actually listens to the words players vocalize over their microphones, amping up the the aggressive behavior of their hostile spirits whenever a player swears, shouts insults, or blurts out exclamations of fright. This game mechanic tests the self-control and problem-solving skills of Phasmophobia players, who have to catalog the traits and behaviors of the ghosts they investigate while also watching their tongues lest they rile up a ghost with a random exclamation of “Bloody Mary!”

Survival Horror Co-op Games Where An Imposter Hides Among The Players

In a horror story with multiple protagonists, writers sometimes like to create tension by adding characters who hinder, rather than contribute to, the teamwork of the group units. Sometimes this disruptive character is just incompetent, cowardly, or inclined to panic. Other times, this character is an imposter or traitor actively sabotaging the group from the inside and destroying their ability to trust each other. Multiplayer horror games with imposters draw on these specific horror tropes to create a climate of paranoia where the majority of players fear being backstabbed by an enemy pretending to be a friend, while the “Imposter” or “Imposters” have to worry about being caught if they make just a single misstep.

The multiplayer social deduction game Among Us is one of the more popular “Spot The Imposter” games out there, tossing players into the depths of paranoia as they desperately try to catch the “Imposter” picking them off one by one, frequently succumbing to mob mentalities and tossing innocent players out the airlock in the process. Other “Spot The Imposter” games build on this premise with more explicit horror themes and shout-outs to classic narratives of suspense; the sci-fi FPS Unfortunate Spacemen, for instance, features shape-shifting alien imposters in a blatant homage to The Thing, while Dread Hunger’s tale of starving sailors and secret magical cultists in the Arctic North is a shout-out to The Terror.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/horror-game-multiplayer-back-blood-dead-daylight-phasmophobia/

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