As I sit here playing Crow Country, I marvel at how a game with decades-old PlayStation One aesthetics can captivate and excite me more than most modern titles. Now, before you get too excited, this isn’t going to be a piece about what Crow Country is about. Maybe I’ve save that for one of those 6-hour video essays. If I had to describe Crow Country, Okay, it’s a top-down polygonal horror game miracle that perfectly distills PS1 lo-fi crunchy magic and transports you back to a time when horror gaming was ostensibly born. But again, this isn’t about what Crow Country is; it’s about a an enduring question that screams ceaselessly at the forefront of my mind: why isn’t there more of this?
Now, before you yell at me and slap me across the face with itch.io, yes, I know itch.io. I know I can dive into scores of short, experimental, lo-fi PS1-inspired horror gems and never run out. I can even find plenty of “this” on Steam and consoles: Signalis, Alisa, Loathful, Bloodwash, Chasing Static—the list goes on and on. And who could forget Puppet Combo, the bringer of videogames inspired by ’80s VHS-era horror, slasher movies, and retro low-poly survival horror. So, yes, “this” exists, and “this” is bountiful. But why hasn’t any major, AAA developer attempted to make something similar?
Resident Evil seems to be the only franchise that has figured it out how to make big-budget horror work. Its remakes and sequels seem to be bringing in record profits for Capcom. But look take a gander at Alan Wake 2. For all the excitement we’ve seen for the sequel in the run-up to its release, it has yet to turn a profit. The Callisto Protocol, a game pioneered by former Dead Space creators, massively underperformed. It resulted over 30 employees being laid off as part of a larger “strategic change” for the fledgling company. And speaking of Dead Space, its recent remake, while incredible, just didn’t make it sales-wise for Electronic Arts. Since its release, EA has put the franchise on ice again after its poor sales performance, the studio’s resources now being put into other projects instead. I understand why we don’t see a significant push in the AAA space for big-budget horror. Development costs are ballooning. It’s a risk, and as much as I hate to admit this, horror is a bit of a niche genre. So why not take a chance on a different medium, on something that would pose less of a financial risk, to instead make a horror game that embraces the look and feel of a PlayStation One game?
The original PlayStation is where horror did more than come into its own; it was a renaissance for the genre. A golden age. Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, Clock Tower, Galerians, Overblood, Parasite Eve, D, Deception, Silent Hill, Fear Effect, Echo Night, Hellnight—the PlayStation was a treasure trove of horror games. Why not have a small team create a low-budget PS1-type game and give it a whirl? Could you imagine if Konami took a chance and developed a Silent Hill game that emulated the style of the 1999 original? I’ll tell you this: it would have been way cheaper, more profitable, and less reputation-damaging than the dreadful Silent Hill: Ascension interactive TV show.
And listen, you don’t even have to do it yourselves, big studios. Capcom, you can go ahead and pump out all the big-budget Resident Evil remakes and sequels you want. But you also own the rights to Clock Tower and Haunting Ground. Why not give them to a tested indie game developer? There are so many talented indie game developers in the horror gaming space. And Konami, you exactly aren’t shy about lending out your franchises. Just recently, WayForward created a stellar Contra game, and Castlevania has been popping up everywhere, with collaborations between games like Dead Cells, V-Rising, and most recently with Dead by Daylight. Is the idea of having the developers of Signalis, for example, so nutty? Signalis is easily one of the best horror games released in decades and is ‘required reading’ as far as I am concerned for every fan of the genre. It is up there with the greatest of all time like Silent Hill 2, Eternal Darkness, and Fatal Frame 2. Rose-Engine is an incredibly talented, passionate, two-person development team that understands horror. Signalis also sold incredibly well and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg to develop.
For as much as I love Crow Country for what it is, I love it even more for what it does. It reminds me that PS1-style horror still has a place in the industry. It reminds me that the style still resonates strongly among genre fans and we want more of it. It’s time for major developers to embrace the magic of PS1-style horror games. The demand is there, the nostalgia is strong, and the potential for success is significant. It’s a golden opportunity to bring back the golden age of horror gaming.
