6 Reasons Why Horror Is Gaming's Most Important Genre

Horror elements have long been part of gaming's stock and trade, from the original DOOM's hellscape, all the way to upcoming next generation titles like Resident Evil 8.

And yet, this long-standing horror tradition in gaming is no mere accident; no random development. Rather, there are a number of reasons why horror has become such an important part of gaming's history.

As questions concerning gaming's place as a legitimate artistic medium are liable not to be going away any time soon, it is worthwhile dwelling on the legacy of one of gaming's earliest genres. Doing so reveals not only that horror has been a part of the medium's history, but rather that it has been an integral part of its development, pushing gaming to new frontiers across every generation.

We haven't even started the next generation and yet horror has reared its head, with the aforementioned Resident Evil title and arguably Demon Souls (which certainly blends fantasy with some horror elements), featuring prominently in the push to get the next gen underway.

With all that in mind, what better time than as Halloween approaches to muse on the importance of horror in gaming?

This one is quite obvious on the face of it, but the implications were more far-reaching than might be expected.

As gaming developed, so too did the graphic content of titles, with horror games usually finding themselves at the forefront of visceral gore and other ostensibly unsavoury elements. The result was simple: whether or not critics of gaming felt this graphic content was puerile or not, still it was conceded that such titles were not for children.

But if they weren't for kids, who were they for? Horror was one of the key players in this gradual shift of thinking, pushing the boundaries (sometimes of taste) and making space for the idea of mature games for mature audiences.

Though more obvious than how horror contributed to gaming's legitimacy (a point for later), mature content and particularly horror content helped create a space in the market for purely adult experiences, broadening the horizons of gaming in terms of themes and subject matter.

This shift also incurred the sort of technical innovations (again, we will get to that) that could render this mature content more realistically, and therefore more effectively.