by Steven Reeves

Created on: May 02, 2010

Survival Horror is a video game genre influenced by horror movies and books.  It evolved from the action genre.  Most people believe that Resident Evil is the first Survival Horror game.  While it's true that the first game the term was applied to is Resident Evil, it has roots much earlier than that.

Alone In The Dark had many elements of Survival Horror and is now considered to be part of the Survival Horror genre.  Alone In The Dark was released in 1992, about four years before Resident Evil.  It has many of the elements now associate with the genre, such as needing to ration ammo and the use of puzzles to progress through the game.  It is more supernatural based, and set the tone for later games such as Silent Hill.  The idea behind Alone In The Dark is to descend through a mansion in an attempt to escape as well as discover the source of all the supernatural activity.  This also set the precedent for many Survival Horror games that followed: Figure out what is going on and escape from where you are.

Sweet Home, a Capcom game released in 1989 in Japan only, is now considered to also be part of the Survival Horror genre.  It was based on an eponymous Japanese horror film.  Sweet Home is also based in a mansion haunted by the supernatural, where 5 people are attempting to escape.  Much like Alone In The Dark, Sweet Home requires the solving of puzzles to win.  Should one of the five party members die, the game becomes much harder to win, but not impossible.  This certainly adds a sense of tension and anxiety to the game, another core element of Survival Horror.  While Sweet Home wasn't so much an action game as an RPG, it is still considered to be important in the development of the genre, due to the influence it had on future games.

As stated above, Resident Evil is the first game to actually be considered Survival Horror.  It was very strongly influenced by Sweet Home, and even took place in a mansion as well.  It was also developed at Capcom.  Unlike the previous games mentioned, Resident Evil was not based on the supernatural.  Rather, the zombies in the game were created by a man made virus.  The goal is to, again, figure out what's going on with the zombies and escape from the mansion.  Resident Evil features limited supplies and needed strict rationing of ammunition.  Resident Evil remains one of the most popular Survival Horror games, and one of

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