Horror is entirely subjective and while there may be elements of traditional horror tropes that most people find frightening, there are degrees to which certain subgenres will impact some more than others. This is no different in horror games, where the particular subgenre or perspective that a game is played from may have a significant impact on what fans think is scary. Resident Evil 7 may have been much scarier in VR than on an ordinary console, for example, but an indie game like Granny versus a AAA game like Silent Hill may have distinctions in fear from art direction and gameplay alone.

Granny, or even games in the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise, is commonly popular for its reliance on jump scares. That’s surely what garners attention at first for some of these kinds of games, but their ability to generate terror is still commendable when considering how small their budgets may be. Many indie horror games nowadays are facsimiles of a popular AAA game that they were inspired by, with P.T. being the catalyst for countless walking-sim horror experiences since. But where games like Granny and FNaF exceed expectations is in how goal-oriented gameplay tasks players with facing their fears.

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FNaF and Granny May Not Be Illustrious, But They Are Immersive

It would be easy to chalk Granny up to being jump-scare bait with little horror at all embedded in its gameplay, especially if fans aren’t perturbed by the titular antagonist’s low-poly design. But even if fans do find the menacing figure chasing them to be terrifying on its own, what makes Granny even more dreadful is that there is an elaborate goal players are trying to work toward in the meantime.

Resident Evil hasn’t always adhered to horror in every installment—and some fans might argue that the franchise never truly became scary until Resident Evil 7—but the idea behind why Granny can be nerve-wracking is the same in Resident Evil 2’s remake when Mr. X appears and suddenly upends the player’s plans for how to navigate the RPD. Introducing some sort of goal the player needs to work at while also evading an insurmountable foe can prove to be incredibly scary, even if Mr. X and Granny can both be temporarily immobilized. The fact that there are only a number of days in which players can attempt to escape the house after locating necessary items is more daunting than any jump scare that could occur.

Horror Games Walk a Fine Line Between Lacking Gameplay and Overusing Gameplay

FNaF has had a few different alterations to its gameplay, but its core gameplay is rooted in being helplessly sat in a chair, observing monitors, and looking left and right at doors that an animatronic could come through at any moment. Players can close these doors and switch on a set of lights in order to defend themselves, but they will not make it through the entire night of their security shift if they waste all the system’s power by doing so. Then, knowing a jump scare is coming is not the only trigger players have to worry about since they need to concentrate on self-preservation over the course of several nights.

Prolonged dread is even more terrifying in this way, even if some fans consider games such as these to lack enough gameplay. The immersion created through goal-oriented gameplay is much more haunting than any singular jump scare, and the lack of mechanics can often be a boon for this style of game. However, games like Outlast have been criticized for only sticking to their cat-and-mouse formula—at least before The Outlast Trials—while too many mechanics or combative options in games can dilute any horror a game could’ve had in the first place.

Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach is available now on Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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