With the horror genre living its second youth since it opted for the first-person view to increase the feeling of fear, there is a good percentage of people who continue to prefer the classic vein of survival horror, since Capcom hit the pitch in 1996 with Resident Evil. He was, without a doubt, the perfect heir to Alone in the Dark, being its most recognizable evolution. Resident Evil 8 has it’s great gameplay too.
If you are one of those who have reneged on Resident Evil 7: Biohazard for its camera and you are more in the style of Resident Evil 2, but you have played all the main installments of this Capcom saga, we propose the best Resident Evil alternatives available today following that style with the camera from the shoulder that made Resident Evil 4 fashionable, but also with the classic style of Code: Veronica, to name one of the last faithful to the formula of the icon of 1996. Following are the alternatives to Resident Evil..
Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare
- Released in 2001 for PlayStation, Dreamcast, Windows, Game Boy Color, and PS2
- Available on GOG for $5.99 and on Steam for $6.99
We start precisely with the father of the genre , but ignoring his trilogy by not having aged too well on a technical level (if that doesn’t matter to you, you have the classics from 1992, 1993 and 1994 for $5.99 at GOG). Failing that, we opted for his “return” in 2001, the more than worthy Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare.
Two characters to choose between Edward Carnby and Aline Cedrac, the first more focused on action and the second for puzzles, cinematic shots and a visual style in the vein of the first Resident Evil, resulted in the last good Alone in the Dark after the plummet that marked his other lap with Alone in the Dark in 2008 and the final highlight of the mediocre Illumination of 2015.
Obscure
- Released in 2004 for PS2, Xbox, and Windows
- Available on Steam for $6.99
With a nightmare story that took place in a high school and with characters that were reminiscent of that youthful phenomenon of The Faculty from a few years earlier, Hydravision Entertainment proposed with Obscure one of the greatest fears in any horror game worth its salt: face each other monsters in the dark.
It is not that in the game it did not give the sunlight, but the flashlight was our most precious “weapon” to weaken and later finish, with baseball bats, pistols or whatever, those strange creatures that emerged from the Leafmore institute. His grace for adults was having five characters to choose from, being able to play it cooperatively with another person. Its sequel ( Obscure II | $9.99 on Steam) was inferior, also due to losing the surprise effect. We ran out of Obscure 3 , instead receiving a spin-off ( Final Exam ) that was no longer a survival horror.
Cold fear
- Released in 2005 for PS2, Xbox, and Windows
- Available on Steam for $4.99
Debuting the same year as Resident Evil 4 was a terrible slab to overcome for Cold Fear, even sharing with Capcom’s work that camera over the shoulder to emphasize the action. However, the proposal of the Darkworks studio, curiously the same after Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, was not negligible, getting a lot of juice from its setting inside a Russian ship.
The surface of this Russian whale hunter made it difficult to eliminate the zombies that populated it, due to the sudden movement of this ship and the Arctic storm that had to be faced with older people. A game that, for the rest, did not contribute anything new, but that was intense in its seven hours of life.
Dead space
- Released in 2008 for PS3, Xbox 360, and Windows
- Available on Origin and Xbox for $19.99 | Free with EA Play
Visceral Games’ best work was undoubtedly Dead Space. This adventure that got us fully into the USG Ishimura ship, being a most shocking and immersive horror game, with clear reminiscences of the mythical Final Horizon by Paul WS Anderson. A game that put us in the shoes of the engineer Isaak Clarke, who had to face nightmare necromorphs with an arsenal of the most varied, to the point of being able to cut off all their limbs with plasma.
It had more surprises inside, of course, such as not having a pause as such when accessing the inventory or not always knowing where the monsters could appear to us. The saga continued on a good note in Dead Space 2, lowering the bar a bit in Dead Space 3. But the trilogy is fully recommended and is also backward compatible on Xbox One and Xbox Series X | S. And it keeps quite well, be careful.
Alan Wake
- It came out in 2010 for Xbox 360 and then Windows in 2012
- Available on Steam for $12.49 | Free with Xbox Game Pass
After dazzling bullet time in the first Max Payne, the Finnish studio Remedy Entertainment took a narrative turn in 2010 with Alan Wake, a video game that flirted with the series, taking Twin Peaks one of his most recognizable works as a reference. A writer on the brink of madness after the disappearance of his wife in a town with a dark mystery to unravel …
Here the light played a similar role as in Obscure, having to weaken the enemies with the flashlight to finish them off later with firearms. To highlight its gloomy setting, the quality of its soundtrack with priceless scenes and how the plot develops based on the writer’s own book. In addition, his nightmare was continued with the spin-off Alan Wake: American’s Nightmare.
The Evil Within
- It came out in 2014 for PS4, Xbox One, Windows, PS3, and Xbox 360
- Available for $16.90 on PS4 | Free with Xbox Game Pass
The Evil Within is suffered and enjoyed almost in equal measure. The very Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil) led this project that fascinated us with his proposal with a shocking story that grabs us from the first minute and dangers cascoporro where it will be difficult for Sebastian Castellanos not die a jug of times until you reach the end. Of course, the game improves a lot in the second round.
We are, probably, before one of the best heirs of the Capcom saga and with the greatest personality of all those on this list. Here, of course, there are no zombies, but they are tormented. And the figure of the enigmatic Ruvik, together with the imposing “The Guardian”, are two claims to the sea of attractions to let yourself be carried away by this nightmare made video game where there will be no lack of traps of all kinds or having to set the monsters on fire to avoid annoyances… Its sequel ( The Evil Within II ) offered a very engaging open world.
Daymare: 1998
- It came out in 2019 for Steam and already in 2020 for PS4 and Xbox One
- Available for $24.95 on PS4 in physical format
In charge of the creators of Resident Evil 2 Reborn, unofficial remake of the Capcom classic, we have part of that material taken advantage of with Daymare: 1998, the first commercial game from the Italians Invader Studios. This is a survival horror with a camera from the shoulder that mixes action with puzzles, resulting in a very humble production, not without flaws and aspects to be polished.
While it does not have the charisma of the game it is inspired by, it is an alternative that tries to contribute its own original grain of sand, like that active reload with the chargers, having to pick them up after the ground. All ammunition counts, since it is not easy to hit the shots. And there are puzzles, like the Greek one, that will force us to take notes in a paper notebook so as not to screw it up.
Fear the dark unknown
- It came out in 2019 for Steam and is expected for PS4 and Xbox One this 2021
- Available for $24.95 on Steam
Another humble production, in this case by the Spanish DreamLight Games, we have it in this Fear the Dark Unknown. Here we bet on cinematic shots, two survivors (James Sullivan and his daughter Chloe) who offer two different experiences and a great emphasis on exploration as well as puzzles and battles against their monsters. And also, with a very long duration.
However, as it happened with Daymare: 1998, it had its failures, which ended up weighing down the overall experience, although it is nothing that we cannot forgive if we are fans of the genre. Now, there is Definitive Edition on the way that will be accompanied by visual and performance improvements, apart from introducing changes in the playable mechanics or polishing the AI of the enemies… Cool.
Song of Horror
- It came out in 2020 for Steam and is expected for PS4 and Xbox One this 2021
- Available for $29.99 on Steam
Coincidentally, another Spanish production. Song of Horror surprised by its proposal, by not sticking to a single type of terror, but pecking at different styles, subtly paying homage to several classics from the nineties, but contributing its own personality in the form of The Presence, an entity that reacts to our way of playing so that there are never two equal games and thus be restless…
The Madrid Protocol Games offered it in an episodic format, being complete since mid-2020. Each chapter is quite an experience of the most intense, but that follows a plot that is developing with different characters that are joining the cause… as long as they don’t kill us, as there is permanent death (optional, yes). Consoles should be coming soon.
The Medium
- Released in 2021 for Xbox Series and Windows 10
- Available for $49.99 on Steam | Free with Xbox Game Pass
Without the complexity of other games in terms of difficulty, the recent The Medium from the Bloober Team studio has meant a leap in quality for this Polish team, standing out for the development of the plot and the duality of the planes, surprising how capable it is. to show two very different realities at the same time depending on what kind of situations. There are no weapons and the puzzles are easy to solve (although you can get stuck in the numerical panel of the final section ), but it does not matter seeing how much this trip with the medium Marianne is enjoyed.
Note, in turn, that Bloober Team ( Layers of Fear ) abandoned the first-person view of their previous horror games to offer cinematic shots like the great works of the mid-nineties. If you take it as a lighter Resident Evil, you won’t be disappointed. And in his soundtrack is Akira Yamaoka.
Silent Hills
Obviously, if we talk about alternatives to Resident Evil, its best rival has always been Konami’s Silent Hill saga, despite the fact that here we are facing a type of terror that plays more with the psychological theme due to its setting. A shame the song of the future Silent Hills ( PT ), since currently the only two that are still available have to be searched digitally. And the collection was not good:
- Silent Hill HD Collection for 29.99 euros on Xbox 360 [ backward compatible ]
- Silent Hill 4: The Room for $9.99 at GOG
If we look further back, there are two classics that are currently missing, such as Dino Crisis and Dino Crisis 2, currently no longer available from PS3 within the PSOne Classics label (not even going to the PlayStation Store from the console). In the PlayStation Store in Mexico you can still find both the first from 1999 for $5.99 and the sequel for $5.99, curiously.
And what about the future following the classic pattern? We recently talked about Alisa, a haunting puppet world reminiscent of 1996’s Resident Evil and Jan Svankmajer’s darkest Alice, while Them and Us (top video) is a survival horror that has been on Steam Early Access since late 2018. and that it has garnered “very positive” reviews in this state of development. Its final version is closer, as TendoGames has commented.
As for other video games available, but of clearly inferior quality compared to the rest of the titles discussed, we have Vaccine, which stands out only for the tension of 30 minutes to find a cure in a randomly generated world; and Dawn of Fear, a game with good intentions and not inconsiderable graphics, but that collapses in everything related to control..