The World of Scary Video Games

As for film and literature, the horror genre has been very popular in the video game. The World of Scary Video Games provides a comprehensive overview of the videoludic horror, dealing with the games labelled as survival horror as well as the mainstream and independent works associated with the genre. It examines the ways in which video games have elicited horror, terror and fear since Haunted House (1981).

Bernard Perron combines an historical account with a theoretical approach in order to offer a broad history of the genre, outline its formal singularities and explore its principal issues. It studies the most important games and game series, from Haunted House (1981) to Alone in the Dark (1992- ), Resident Evil (1996-present), Silent Hill (1999-present), Fatal Frame (2001-present), Dead Space (2008-2013), Amnesia- the Dark Descent (2010), and The Evil Within (2014). Accessibly written, The World of Scary Video Games helps the reader to trace the history of an important genre of the video game.

About the Author

Bernard Perron is an Associate Professor of Art History and Film Studies Department of the University of Montreal, Canada. He is the editor of Horror Video Games: Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play (2009) and co-editor of The Video Game Theory Reader (2003) and The Video Game Theory Reader 2 (2009). His research focuses on the video game, interactive cinema, horror, narration, and play in narrative cinema.