How Does Horror Work in Videogames?

My family’s dog Pokey used to get into these barking fits where he’d stare off into the distance, all teeth, yelling into the abyss. This always terrified me, because obviously there was a ghost in the house. It didn’t matter whether it was full daylight or deep into the night—I convinced myself that he knew something that I didn’t, that something was there. And it was going to hurt me. Allison Road is like that, except there definitely is something there. But the way it’s set up—going off the 13 minute gameplay trailer released early in its development—promises its players that they’re safe. That it’s all in their heads.

It’s not dark inside. There’s plenty of light, in fact—a table lamp huddling in the corner, decorative overhead lights throwing shadows in tangled patterns, fluorescent cabinet lighting washing out the counter below. Allison Road is not Amnesia: The Dark Descent. The setting is relatively disheveled—papers strewn about and dishes left in the sink—but there’s no real indication purely in the environment hinting towards any misdeed. It could be your house, or mine. But we know it’s a horror game; the creaks in the scuffed wooden floors and the music (or lack thereof) is the dog barking into nothingness. Something is wrong. But it’s never really clear what’s wrong, until it’s obvious.

A game like Allison Road works primarily because of perceived control. Horror films use lack of control—watching something scary happen rather than actively participating in it—to connect with viewers on a less intimate level. There’s a sort of camaraderie that draws viewers into horror films; watching a film allows viewers to distance themselves from what’s going on, and imagine what decisions they would have made in whatever situation arose in the film. Videogames remove that window. And a game like Allison Road takes things a step further, pushing past the fantasy elements that allow for some distance. Players are able to take control of a character that’s grounded in reality. That’s familiar. Allison Road creator Christian Kesler and his new studio, Far From Home, is going to great lengths to establish this reality—look at the bookshelves in the game, for instance. Each book appears to be individually crafted and explicitly detailed; there are books there one would expect to find in a family home, like the Divergent series or a family cookbook.

Perceived player control in Allison Road comes in when thinking about how the gameplay moves forward. Obviously, we don’t exactly know how that’ll work. The game isn’t out yet, and we’ve only got the gameplay footage to work from. Instead, consider gameplay in P.T., a Hideo Kojima game that heavily influenced Kesler’s work on Allison Road. The game feigns a lack of control by providing the player with no particular instructions. Players are able to roam around home as they please. Look at the radio, look away from the radio. Inspect a picture. There’s a sense that players are able beat the game with a series of correct movements or actions—to be the character in the horror film who makes it out alive. Or, at least, in my case, to be the character that hides in the closet until everything’s over.

But P.T. is a videogame. Allison Road is a videogame. Ultimately, the space has been deliberately designed. The control of the designer is flaunted through the game’s series of loops and locked doors. Despite being inaccessible, a room a player can’t enter can actually play a major role in the psychological nature of a videogame—especially horror. Maybe there are sounds seeping through the door frame, leaving a player desperate to know what’s behind. Locked doors pile on the insecurity of what’s unseen. It becomes an obsession. The same goes for P.T.’s endless series of loops; each time the player enters the door, something changes: the radio plays a sinister voice, the lights go red, or a new door is unlocked.