The former two games are survival horror masquerading as a shooter, whereas L4D is a straight-up co-op shooter with horror elements. I think the reason is because L4D was built with something completely different as its base compared to RE and Dead Space.ĭead Space along with the modern RE games are descended from the classic survival horror game, L4D on the other hand has more in common with Counter-Strike. L4D is completely built around co-op and yet still manages to be an intense experience. I can tell you that when other people are freaking out behind you, it actually can make a game scarier.īut let’s look at probably the only really successful co-op horror experience: Left 4 Dead. The closest thing I’ve ever had to a co-op survival horror experience is having people watch me play Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Personally I think having another human player over voice chat is more immersion-breaking, but that’s just my own experience. The excuse Visceral Games gave was that it “broke the immersion.” It’s a game that advertises co-op front-and-center but only allows you to do it online (or presumably through system link, I don’t know). What baffles me further though is how Dead Space 3 doesn’t allow split screen. I guess they’re doing it for the same reason Gears of War is co-op, which itself is basically the same reason Contra is co-op - to make a fun co-op shooter more than a horror game. By the time they started throwing co-op in, Resident Evil had already become an action game franchise, and that point is where Dead Space got started. That sense of isolation that bred fear was a core component of old survival horror games like Silent Hill and classic Resident Evil.
This trend probably has something to do with how the survival horror genre has moved so far away from its roots.
Just having another human player there affects the immersion and tension that’s central to how a horror game works - that’s obvious. I don’t understand the rationale behind it and I’m still trying to figure out if a scary co-op game is even really possible. Why do they keep trying to make these horror games focused on co-op? When Dead Space 3 revealed its co-op back at E3 it felt as if they were intentionally following Resident Evil.
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