It appears that Shinji Mikami, best known as the creative mind behind the Resident Evil franchise (par the bad ones) intends to use the T-virus in order to reanimate the practically dead Survival Horror franchise, so to finish this awkwardly phrased simile, will we get a brain dead Zombie or an unstoppable Tyrant? my bet is on a Tyrant right now, but as it stands it's anybody's guess.
Now to get to the point of this blog, recently we were all treated to an eerie trailer (and a few pics) of Shinji Mikami's latest contribution to the Survival Horror genre "The Evil Within" for those of you not in the know, Shinji Mikami is touted as being the father of the survival horror genre for having headed development of the hugely successful and critically acclaimed Resident Evil franchise, he also stated a while back that this new game will be his attempt at revitalising the Survival Horror genre.
So, if any of you have been wondering why people are practically loosing it with excitement in the comments section over the recent news and trailer, now you know.
Resident Evil may have fallen on hard time as of late, many fans attribute this fact to the franchise straying too far from its Survival horror roots, a decision made by Capcom themselves who believe survival horror to be too niche of a market, a view shared sadly by many other pubs/devs, however no one can deny the huge impact Resident Evil had on the industry when it debuted on the PSX (Sony Playstation) all those years back.
The truth is however, there have been many Survival horror games that came about well before Resident evil, some of the most notable of which are, "Haunted House" "Clock Tower" and "Alone in the dark" Resident Evil however is the franchise that ultimately popularised the Survival Horror genre, solidifying it as the definitive Survival horror franchise... Well up until Capcom ballsed it up, but we all know how that goes.
The success of Resident Evil sparked a wave of new Survival horror IP's coming from other devs hoping to get a piece of the scary pie, this led to some pretty crappy titles getting rolled out but also brought us many of the best survival horror franchises to date, such as "Parasite Eve" "Silent Hill" "Siren" "Project Zero" (AKA Fatal Frame for the US) and of course "Dead Space".
Apart from post RE4 Resident Evil dressing up every now and then, and masquerading as a "Survival Horror" game while we all point and laugh until it just stopped trying, and the American dev team who are now in charge of Silent Hill coming to terms with the fact that what actually made a Japanese survival horror game "scary" was the "Japanese" (seriously, if you can make grown men crap their pants at the mere sight of a little girl then let them handle the scares) Dead Space, is the only mainstream franchise that could legitimately be called a Survival horror game, but again sadly EA seems ever intent on doing away with the survival horror aspect all together and sought to make the sequels into action games with some jump scares thrown in... Much to Visceral Games dismay I would imagine (sigh)
Now I'm a huge fan of Project Zero (that's Fatal Frame for our American friends) but it's not everyone's "cup 'o tea" and that's fine, but I think it's pretty safe to say that it's becoming increasingly difficult now to find a satisfying fix for our survival horror itch, that's where The Evil Within comes... Well, in.
The moment news began to circulate that Shinji friggin Mikami of all people, was developing a Survival Horror game and that he hopes it will revitalise the genre that he practically established, people began to see his new game as a beacon of hope, hope that the genre so many of us grew up with that ended up falling by the way side to more "popular" genres may be coming back with avengeance, and the fact that the father of the Survival Horror genre mite be the man to do it, well my friends that is big news.
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