Any recent fantasy horror games?

[Yora]

Somehow, I think all the games in recent years that you could call horror games to some degree, are science fiction. There's Amnesia, which is much like 19th century Lovecraft-horror, and maybe Thief, but those are all that come to my mind.

Are there any that I am missing?

[Mewtarthio]

It depends on what you mean by "recent," but if Thief counts, then so does Silent Hill 2.

[Tiki Snakes]

Silent Hill 2, Fantasy-Horror? Really? :smallconfused:

If 19th century Lovecraftian stuff is close enough, possibly Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth? Not sure I'd call that fantasy either, but it is closer to Amnesia than Silent Hill.

Uh... Dark Souls is pretty horrifying, probably counts as survival horror and is certainly fantasy. It's mostly a cynical excersize in difficulty for it's own sake, but it does look nice and has a very tense atmosphere sometimes.

[Yora]

Something with swords instead of guns.

Dark Souls maybe. It's dark, but when the whole game consists of beating more or less regular fantasy monsters with a sword until it is dead isn't much horror. In that regard even Dead Space has more to offer with gathering pieces of explaination what's going on and people going completely insane, and undead aliens in a world where such things shouldn't exist.

[Maxios]

Thief counts as a horror game :smallconfused:?

[Cogwheel]

Thief counts as a horror game :smallconfused:?

Thief does not. Levels within it do.

Shalebridge Cradle. All my terror.

[Tiki Snakes]

Something with swords instead of guns.

Dark Souls maybe. It's dark, but when the whole game consists of beating more or less regular fantasy monsters with a sword until it is dead isn't much horror. In that regard even Dead Space has more to offer with gathering pieces of explaination what's going on and people going completely insane, and undead aliens in a world where such things shouldn't exist.

Yeah, it's basically a standard 20 hourish (max) action game stretched out to a month of gameplay via difficulty, but it does have it's moments of horror.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

What about Deadspace? Or BioShock?

Edit: I see you mentioned it in passing in an earlier post. I guess it isn't considered one?

[Tiki Snakes]

What about Deadspace? Or BioShock?

Edit: I see you mentioned it in passing in an earlier post. I guess it isn't considered one?

They aren't considered Fantasy Genre, no.

"Something with Swords instead of Guns".

[TheWombatOfDoom]

They aren't considered Fantasy Genre, no.

"Something with Swords instead of Guns".

Gotcha. They're more science fiction-y-esque-ish. I always have mixed the two, but I see. Hmmmm, yeah can't think of any then. Not with swords at least.

[polity4life]

Would Drakengard fall into this category? It isn't full blown horror but nothing ever ends well in this game.

[endoperez]

I'm pretty sure there are visual novels around that fill the conditions. I don't know of any, finding translations might be a problem.

I don't know if they are the kind of games you're looking for.

[JoshL]

Yeah, not a lot of fantasy based horror games out there (which is definitely too bad). Of course, the tough thing is plenty of fantasy games have horror themed stages (ghosts, necromancers, monsters, etc) but aren't really horror games.

If I recall there were a few old Ravenloft PC games. It seems like that's something that could easily be tapped for something cool these days.

[Mewtarthio]

Yeah, not a lot of fantasy based horror games out there (which is definitely too bad). Of course, the tough thing is plenty of fantasy games have horror themed stages (ghosts, necromancers, monsters, etc) but aren't really horror games.

The problem is that horror gets a lot of its atmosphere from the sense of "wrongness" that comes from perverting ordinary situations. That's far from the only source of horror, but it's a very useful tool. If the player doesn't have a baseline to compare things to, then the player will have a harder time distinguishing which situations are horrific and which are just fantastical. That's why you get a lot of fantasy games with occasional horror stages but few fantasy games that are 100% horror: The rest of the game establishes a baseline, while the horror stage twists the setting.

tl;dr: Horror's more effective when it's closer to home.

[Yora]

I think most people have seen enough generic fantasy stuff to serve as a solid baseline. You could even just make it a horror game set in the 13th century.