Horror games and Team Green consoles make the best of (petrified) bedfellows. Be it Manhunt’s demented stalking, FEAR’s horrifying little girl, or the forthcoming Resident Evil 3 remake’s newly terrifying Nemesis, we run you through Xbox’s history with survival horror
DAVE MEIKLEHAM /CHRIS BURKE
We all love a good Xbox bump in the night. Horror games have been chilling and thrilling fans of Microsoft consoles for almost 20 years, with an enduring appeal like few other genres. After all, who doesn’t love being scared silly? Whether being creeped out by the wails of coffin-dodging cops in last year’s Resident Evil 2 remake or fretting over Silent Hill 2’s gnawing brand of psychological dread, the history of survival horror on Xbox is bloody terrifying. Join us as we look back on it… then immediately hold us.
Videogames have been tingling our collective spines for decades now. Long before the original Xbox launched in 2001, twisted, nerve-shredding games from the East helped define the survival horror genre, forever changing the medium in the process.
To trace the precise origins of gaming horror, you have to go back to the early ’80s. Over a decade before Resident Evil served up Jill sandwiches, a Japanese student crafted a frightening adventure that was indebted to a certain chest-bursting Xenomorph. Partially inspired by Ridley Scott’s masterful Alien, and taking cues from a stealth title called Manbiki Shoujo, Akira Takiguchi’s cheekily named Nostromo saw players trying to escape the gaze of an unseen extraterrestrial.
Released for the Commodore PET 2001 in 1981, it was years ahead of the undies-soiling curve. Nostromo somehow squeezed in elements of resource management long before it became such a well-worn mechanic; the spaceship’s survivor forced to collect key items to escape the vessel. Looking back, you can probably blame/praise Nostromo for Resi’s divisive item box system.
Evil incarnate
Skip ahead 15 years, and the most important moment in the genre’s history would occur with the release of a game that defined jump scares like no other… Resident Evil. Shinji Mikami’s masterpiece was originally conceived as a remake for Nintendo’s NES classic Sweet Home, before evolving into the Spencer Mansion spook-‘em-up it was always destined to be. Campy yet captivating, it helped coin the phrase ‘survival horror’, helped rocket the PlayStation into the sales-breaking stratosphere, before spawning a genre-defining juggernaut that endures to this day.
Twenty four years on, Capcom’s constantly morphing franchise continues to terrify, with Leon and Claire’s Raccoon City remake deservedly claiming OXM’s Game Of The Year in 2019. How our shattered nerves love Resident Evil 2. Capturing the collective imagination of a generation of players like few titles since, the original Resi
