8 Video Games That Redefined The Horror Genre

Dark Souls has to have a place on any list of horror games. Moving away from Resident Evil's zombies, the Souls games bring elements of fantasy to the horror genre, and do it so well that it produced two sequels, a spin-off game and hundreds of similar games by other developers.

There was a time, not long after Dark Souls reached its peak popularity after its release in 2011, when every other new game on the market had been inspired by Dark Souls in some way. This kind of reveration does not come easily.

Much of the scariness in Dark Souls comes from the surroundings, the music, and the strange NPCs who give warnings and dream of better times. The combination of these give every new area a creepy feeling, keeping the player on edge at all times. The lore of Dark Souls is also incredibly deep, and the dark atmosphere that this provides elevates the game to being the ultimate dark fantasy experience.

However, Dark Souls gained most of its popularity through its gameplay. A very difficult, and incredibly unforgiving game, Dark Souls only allows you to save the game when you reach one of the bonfires that are sparsely located throughout the world of Lordran. However, saving at one of these also causes nearly every enemy to respawn as well.

This meant that, depending on your last bonfire, every fight could set you back hours of progress, which is a scary thought for any gamer.