6 Reasons Why Horror Is Gaming's Most Important Genre
3. Legitimacy
Horror is a longstanding genre and one with an odd history, at times garnering respect and at others being dismissed. The same can be said for gaming, especially in its early days when it was regularly dismissed as at best a pleasant distraction from more important things and at worst as infantile brain-rotting.
By adopting horror elements in the development of some of gaming's early narratives, with the likes of Alone in the Dark, gaming could begin to steer itself towards the sort of stories considered to be 'genuine' art.
It is interesting that genre which is frequently dismissed in its cinematic and literary forms is the one that played such a large role in legitimising gaming as an artistic medium. Consider Silent Hill 2, Bioshock, and The Last of Us - they frequently crop up in discussions of gaming stories and best of lists and all three are at heart stories in the horror genre.
Whereas horror can be criticised elsewhere for dwelling on darkness to the exclusion of topics more befitting serious culture, gaming horror allowed the plausible introduction of weighty themes and therefore could help make the medium harder to ignore.