10 Indie Horror Games That Changed Everything
1. Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Frictional Games)
Amnesia: The Dark Descent really shook the survival horror genre when it first came out. The relative simplicity of its visuals lent to the terror of its atmosphere and the helplessness of its protagonist—grotty, gritty, disgusting and oppressive, which worked wonderfully well with its iconic tone.
The puzzle solving aspect of the game plays well—or terribly, depending on how you look at it—with the wandering threats and ever diminishing sanity of the player, a sanity meter affected by remaining in darkness, witnessing certain horrors, or looking at Amnesia's grotesque monsters for too long.
The sanity meter, the unarmed first person survival horror, the puzzle mechanics, and so on, would be powerful inspirations for many, and it would eventually inspire iconic horror games after it, such as survival horror Outlast, where fighting back is not an option—only running and hiding. As mentioned earlier, Slender was also inspired by Amnesia, as well as Layers of Fear.
Frictional Games also released its in-house game engine for fans to create custom levels.
The studio would go on to release other iconic horror titles, such as the critically acclaimed survival horror SOMA.