Horror game
A video game designed to evoke fear, suspense, or dread through its story, atmosphere, threats, or gameplay.
Survival horror: A horror game genre centered on vulnerability, scarce resources, exploration, and survival against dangerous threats. Its limited supplies and fragile protagonists turn danger into a sustained survival problem.
Resident Evil: A video game franchise about outbreaks, biological weapons, and survival horror. Its early games established a lasting model of constrained movement, exploration, and scarce ammunition.
Action game: A video game genre focused on physical challenges such as combat, movement, and reflexes. Action games often reward mastery and aggression, while horror can make those capacities unreliable.
Multiplayer horror game: A horror game in which multiple players cooperate or compete within threatening scenarios. Shared danger can turn communication, betrayal, or unequal information into sources of fear.
Haunted House: A 1982 Atari 2600 adventure game in which a player explores a dark mansion to find pieces of an urn. Its sparse visuals and limited view made uncertainty a defining part of play.
Jump scare: A sudden audiovisual shock designed to startle an audience. A sharp interruption can create immediate fear, though it differs from slower suspense.
Silent Hill 2: A survival horror game in which James Sunderland searches a fogbound town for his deceased wife. Its personal guilt and symbolic monsters make psychological dread central to the experience.
Adventure game: A video game genre centered on exploration, puzzle-solving, and story progression. Adventure games may use eerie settings without making fear a central design goal.
Asymmetrical multiplayer: A multiplayer format in which opposing sides have different roles, abilities, or objectives. Unequal powers support horror scenarios built around a predator and vulnerable survivors.
Sweet Home: A 1989 Japanese role-playing game in which a film crew explores a haunted mansion. Its exploration, resource pressure, and supernatural threats influenced later survival horror design.