When it comes to escaping harsh realities, many would agree that video games have people covered. Not only can they provide hours of interactive entertainment that puts folks in control of the experience, but they also offer a little something that may sharply contrast with the feeling of powerlessness all souls experience at some point in their lives. That little something is the power fantasy, ranging from blasting hordes of baddies in Trepang2 (2023) to stealthily dispatching foes with supernatural efficiency in Dishonored (2012).
But what if the game in question is loath to grant you a license to liberally make short work of challenges? What if it puts your player character at a greater disadvantage with regard to how powerful they and their enemies are? In that case, the world of trouble you'd find yourself in would most likely be a house of horrors—literally and figuratively—in which to survive. Whether you're infiltrating an abandoned research facility as the plucky Regina in the Dino Crisis series or investigating a dilapidated amusement park as Mara Forest in Crow Country , the survival horror genre has no shortage of leads who share the player's eagerness to go through hell and back to achieve their goal of living to see another day—even if they lack the necessary firepower for easily sidestepping an early demise at the hands of daunting adversaries. However, just because they find themselves in uncharted territory where their deaths may go unnoticed in civili.
