I’m convinced horror games are the best medium for horror. I love reading horror fiction and watching horror movies too. I just feel like when playing a good horror game, the player is “in the drivers seat”. I’m open to hearing other opinions though!
Film or books or other passive mediums. IDK, video games just don’t build the same tension or hit the same. The lack of control in the other mediums makes a huge difference in feeling scary.
Video game horror never makes me feel unfomfortable or frightened. Jump scares don’t even make me jump (often because I end up not looking in the right direction at the time).
I think video games are good for terror. Subnautica for example, reaper leviathans are terrifying, but not horrifying. You encounter a reaper, and it’s a spike in adrenaline, but you don’t lay in bed that night staring at the ceiling about it.
Subnautica is a special outlier and shouldn’t be counted because it triggers thlassophobia :P
In all other games, I feel more like when you see the characters being dumbasses in a movie and go “I can survive longer than these numbnuts.” And you do.
I assert that terror is terror.
I agree I feel like games have to rely on jump scares toouch which always feels cheap