The internet has an obscure obsession with the horror genre, and this is even more apparent when it comes to horror games. Late 90s and early 2000s kids grew up in a specific type of horror game era that has shaped the way that game designers see horror. 

Notable games were the “Five Nights At Freddy’s”franchise or even the “Slender Man” games which painted a blueprint for games that came out after them. Horror in the 2010s had a specific vibe and feel to them. 

As a nerd who grew up watching gamer YouTubers, these horror game franchises are nostalgic to me. Especially “Five Nights At Freddy’s” (FNAF), which was made with the genuine want to create a good game by an indie creator whose community has expanded globally. FNAF expanded this culture of fan games, and fan theories, and has bonded people together in unique ways. 

However, many companies have seen the success of games like FNAF and have tried to subtly copy its mark on horror game history and by doing so completely degrade the soul behind the games in the first place. 

Some of these games include Poppy Playtime, Hello Neighbor, and Bendy and the Ink Machine. Although there have been many other high-quality games that have been released within the last few years, like Little Nightmares 2. I mention these specifically as they are sloppy attempts at recreating the craze behind FNAF. 

These games all had drama surrounding them regarding their production, like Hello Neighbor’s slow and inadequate release of the game after almost ten demos, and their desperate attempts to have MatPat do a game theory video on them. 

What these games do is center their production around being a cash-grab, they in fact have very talented workers on their teams that put their souls into the games they help create, but the companies’ owners plan their resources to gather the attention of fans and especially fan theorists. All these games have a plot that surrounds hiding small clues between games so that fan theorists will watch their content and create videos based on the games. 

These attempts at creating a cash-grab is why many people feel as if the horror genre is being degraded. Creators are scared to branch out from the same kind of horror games, and solely stick to what they’ve seen work before. This severely limits the levels of creativity in the genre, and just make games seem boring and indigestible.

“Poppy Playtime” is one of these games that make me personally feel the surface-level content throughout chapters one and two. The game only has one or two truly unsettling moments, like the Huggy Wuggy chase scene.

Outside of the games I mentioned, survival horror games like “Visage” or “Evil Inside” include very similar settings and vibes. 

“Survival horror games have always boasted amazing world-building and terrifying new monsters. Hence, seeing it limited to this scary house with the jumpscares concept is a bit weird,” said reviewer Ahmed Mansoor. 

It’s very easy to see that the current state of horror games and therefore the horror game community is very rough. There seems to be a lack of creativity and wandering outside of the same old ideas. Hopefully there will be a breakthrough and a new era of horror games within the next few years.