Some attribute the genre's second coming to the episodic horror game, The Walking Dead, in 2012. So, "today, there are games with human-interest stories, some that help you come to terms with concepts like death, life after death, and fighting your inner demons… It isn't just about shooting the undead anymore," says Shivani Thakkar, a horror game buff who was hooked on the genre after playing The Evil Within. At the same time, developers began to focus on making games more personal, moving beyond violence and gore. It took the reinvention of the survival-horror genre, and then the popularity of sub-genres, like zombies, point-and-click and psychological horror to bring back audiences in the late noughties.
Horror did not make it as a standalone genre. A genre-wise breakdown of sales by statistic portals, Statista, revealed that, in 2013, for instance, action and shooter games had 31.9% and 20% of the market share respectively. Experts and critics blamed poor storylines, but mostly graphics that failed to send a shiver down one's spine. Slowly, though, the genre lost out to first-person shooter games and action titles. It was followed by titles like Silent Hill (1999), American McGee's Alice (2000), Clive Barker's Undying (2001), and the now-cult game, BioShock (2007). The success of Resident Evil ensured a steady supply of 'survival horror' games for the next decade.
As of 2015, 61 million units of the video game series have been sold worldwide, and the franchise has spawned multiple sequels, comic books, and even a major Hollywood movie series (starring Mila Jovovich as Alice). Titles like Chiller (1986), Alone In The Dark (1992) and Phantasmagoria (1995) were worthy successors, but it was another mid '90s game - Resident Evil (1996) - that had gamers staying up all night, killing zombies by the thousands.
The first wave of interest in horror games began in the early '80s, with titles such as Haunted House (1981), The Evil Dead (1984) and Alien (1985). A few other horror games, however, paved the way for Doom.