5 of Our Most Anticipated Horror Video Games for 2016
Cody Thrasher
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The horror video game genre has been very well represented in recent years, which has been a breath of fresh air for horror enthusiasts who like to game a little. Outlast was originally released in late 2013 for PC before being one of the first horror releases for PlayStation 4 in early 2014. It was one of the early surprises for the console and a sign of great things to come for the future of horror video games. It was also later released for Xbox One.
Several other recently-released horror games that received positive reviews from critics include The Evil Within, Until Dawn, and Soma. My wife and I recently started playing Until Dawn, and it’s incredibly well done! Supermassive Games received a lot of praise, and it was one of the surprise success stories of 2015.
Luckily for fans of horror video games, the future is looking just as bright as the last year or two has been. There are several titles scheduled for a 2016 release, and here are five to keep a close eye on as the year progresses. Titles like Doom, Resident Evil Zero HD Remaster, and Overkill’s The Walking Dead aren’t included. Some people classify these titles as horror, but they don’t make the cut in this list.
Outlast 2
The original Outlast was mentioned above, and after a great deal of positive feedback from gamers and media alike, Red Barrels Studio is back at it with the sequel. The teaser video was released last October, and it featured an upside-down cross burning in an open field. It didn’t really give anything away, but it was certainly creepy enough to get people excited.
More of the game was shown at PAX East this past week, and a few things were revealed along the way. The footage shown was set in a farmyard/cornfield type of environment, but it’s been confirmed that’s just one of the settings featured in Outlast 2. The game will be a first-person survival horror similar in nature to the first one, but it will feature a new cast of characters and obviously new environments.
The developers have said they intend to make the game 20%-30% percent longer than the first, which is a welcome bit of news! Outlast 2 is scheduled for a fall 2016 release, and it will be available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. It’s a single-player only game, and it looks great from what has been shown so far. If you haven’t played Outlast and the Whistleblower DLC, do yourself a favor and make that happen. Then you’ll be even more ready for Outlast 2 later this year.
Allison Road
Fans of the famed Silent Hill series will surely be interested in Allison Road. It’s a first-person survival horror game similar to the Outlast series. The plot includes an unnamed protagonist who wakes up in a British townhouse with a major headache. He seemingly suffers from a bit of amnesia as well. As he starts walking through the house to find medicine, water, etc., he starts to realize his family has apparently been the victim of a crime.
Over the course of five nights, the player will try to figure out where his family members are and what has happened to them. He’ll also have to uncover secrets about the house and deal with a number of supernatural entities. At the end of the teaser trailer shown in 2015, a ghoulish figure attacks him as the video fades to black.
Like in most survival horror games, the player will continue to find out more clues as the game progresses, and while some doors may be locked at first, they’ll become unlocked as clues are found and the story unfolds. In Allison Road it appears the player will be able to equip various weapons, which is different from the Outlast series. This game is scheduled to release in late 2016 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Friday the 13th: The Game
Most of the hype in regards to the horror video game genre is centered around Friday the 13th: The Game. It’s been many years since Jason Voohrees has been unleashed in video game form, but the long wait will come to an end later this year. The Kickstarter for this game reached its initial goal in less than a month, and some of the stretch goals have been reached as well.
Dread Central has been following this game since it was announced, and the site released a couple videos earlier this week showing some recent game play. For those who haven’t seen any information on this game, it’s multiplayer only right now. The player will either play as Jason, whose goal is to kill all the counselors, or the counselors, who have the goal of exiting Camp Crystal Lake before being killed. The counselors will have to work together and achieve certain goals before being able to leave.
There is currently no single-player campaign, but it has been mentioned as a possibility moving forward as a pretty lofty stretch goal. I don’t usually play multiplayer games, but I’m going to be making an exception for this one. It looks great so far, and it has the potential to be tons of fun. My hope is for it to do really well after release, so a single-player experience can be implemented at some point in the future.
Last Year
Last Year was announced way back in 2014 on Kickstarter, and it’s currently slated for a fall 2016 release on Steam. There is no console version at this time, but hopefully a PS4 and/or Xbox One version will come in time. That will depend on how well the game is received by media and the gaming community, but it definitely has loads of potential.
Last Year is a 5 vs. 1 multiplayer survival game that’s fairly similar in principle to Friday the 13th: The Game. Instead of Camp Crystal Lake, however, there will be four classic movie-inspired locations to pick from. Those locations are The Summer Camp, The High School, The Suburbs, and The Mall. There will be five different students and three different killers featured in the game, and each will have unique personalities and abilities.
If the player chooses one of the students, the goal will be working with the other students to escape the chosen location or become the hunter instead of the hunted. Each student will have a role to play if working together, or the player can choose to take the risk and go at it alone. If the player chooses the killer, the goal is to kill all of the students before they escape.
Until Dawn: Rush of Blood
The first two games on this list focus on the single-player experience, while the next two are heavily focused on multiplayer game play. Until Dawn: Rush of Blood is one of the first games announced for PlayStation VR. That’s right; players will get to experience horror in all its virtual reality glory. And the same developers that released the blockbuster hit Until Dawn last year are behind this game as well. However, it’s not DLC for Until Dawn or a sequel.
Rush of Blood will take the player on a terrifying roller-coaster ride of thrills and scares. It’s a fast-paced arcade-style shooter in which the player will have to shoot a number of different threats along the way. These threats include The Psycho of Until Dawn fame along with ghosts and other terrifying characters.
Until Dawn: Rush of Blood doesn’t have an exact release date yet, but it’s scheduled for late 2016. Gamers who want to play it will obviously have to throw down some money for PlayStation VR ($399.99) first and foremost. For those fortunate enough to enter the virtual reality world on PS4, they’ll have a pretty intriguing horror game at least! This game will have to be good to outperform its predecessor, but what has been shown so far looks pretty cool.
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