Having looked at this thread the other night: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.82596#1130756

This, combined with a recent camping trip to the woods and re-watching of the X-files episode 'Darkness falls' got me thinking. Are there any good games set in forests? Horror games that exploit that fear of the unknown all around you in the darkness. Good exploring games. How about a FPS?

I just thought that its an often overlooked place for the setting of a game. Perhaps sections of games have them but they tend to be confined to rather open light filled areas.

A survival horror game that exploited some of the fear of the unknown that people can feel in a forest in day, let alone night, (so anything that isn't Escape from Bug Island) I think could work. On another scale, for the more gore inclined a recreation ,sandbox style, of the first Rambo movie could be quite good really.

So any thoughts on this, or do you know example of games where forest settings have worked/failed? Do you yourself have any good ideas regarding forest set games?

Of course, as this is one of my first topic posts, apologies in advance if the thread has come up before.

Well, RE did set a bunch of stuff in the forest.

Particularly the REmake with Lisa Trevor. I mean yeah they still had their cheap scares but there was genuine freak-out with an indestructible monster out to beat the shit out of you, and the more you shot at it, the stronger it got.

Okayyyyy so I'm a bit of a designer myself and I can field you an answer to why there aren't that many forest related areas of gameplay... hope this satisfies.

Most engines find a huge amount of difficulty in rendering trees. This is due to the high poly count involved in the modeling of those trees. Since modern engines try to render things that are (just) outside of the players view for seamless game play it will render all sides of the trees, and in a forest there are shear massive amounts of said trees. Without any walls or cliffs to block the field of view and stop the rendering process, almost all of the trees end up getting rendered at the same time. This is incredibly trying on the system, creating large amounts of lag in a forest setting. As such most developers avoid placing so many trees in such a small area. In time, I'm sure hardware and rendering techniques will catch up with the minds eye and you will see ridiculously scary looking forests heading your way quite quickly.

Working around this can easily be accomplished by using "player clipping" and having trees that are one dimensional textures, but this creates very linear game play which I'm assuming you're trying to avoid since you want the "terrifying openness" of a forest. Using low poly trees can also work, as done in World of Warcraft, but this creates a cartoony feel that personally diminishes the terrifying feeling for me.

Essentially, what I'm saying is it's purely a limitation on developer standpoints. So as software develops, the environments will too, but until then, be satisfied with ravenholm. ;)

snuffler:
EDIT: A bloody good read and a good post

Thanks for that reply snuffler. It really helped my understanding, both in a general sense, but also from a technical point of view. Thanks a lot :D

Think I will be paying attention to any posts you make in the future.

Mr.Pandah:
. I think the worst part of the game would be is if there are next to no monsters/baddies out to get you...Imagine that? You think there are, but in reality its just you and the woods. That would freak me out to no end.

I think that would be a brilliant idea Mr. Pandah. Perhaps add a mystery you have to discover and a few monsters at different points of the game, just to add some tension to the game that things may jump out at you, though more than 10 in the whole game would be too many for me. Keep it very minimal.

Perhaps a new idea of a silent hill type game? With a malignant forest instead of town?

xitel:
Didn't part of Siren take place in a forest?

Don't know, what type of game is it?

What about Far Cry? It was set partly in forest areas.

Each of the Siren Games had at least a small part set in a forest, as did Silent Hill 4 (unfortunately just above mediocre)

The Problem is, many games don't have a right "foresty" feel because the tree population is very light. Far Cry 1 + 2 did it right, and Oblivion was very ok, for example, but as i see it, there are rarely really thick, shadowy and vast forests in a Game.

It would be great to see more of that in Horror Games.

L4D has a bunch of sections in the forest. If you want it REALLY good though, turn on sv_cheats and type this in console: fog_override 1 ;fog_color 0 0 0;fog_maxdensity 0.90 ;fog_start 30 ;fog_end 100

Run through the forest on expert with that on!

Frybird:
Each of the Siren Games had at least a small part set in a forest, as did Silent Hill 4 (unfortunately just above mediocre)

The Problem is, many games don't have a right "foresty" feel because the tree population is very light. Far Cry 1 + 2 did it right, and Oblivion was very ok, for example, but as i see it, there are rarely really thick, shadowy and vast forests in a Game.

It would be great to see more of that in Horror Games.

Sounds like a Crytek-powered horror game in a forest would go down well, given the engines ability when it comes to woodland.

Silent Hill 4 has a level set in a forest and I found it very creepy. I'm guessing what makes or brakes such a level is the lighting and background noise.

ThaBenMan:
I think that's an excellent point - there is something of a lack of forest settings in horror games. I think more would be great (I don't know if you saw my post in that other horror thread, but I was thinking of kind of a similar thing).

I suppose you could consider parts of the Blood Harvest campaign in Left 4 Dead as being "forest".

]

But would you really consider it horror?
L4D really isn't meant to be a scary game, and it isn't. It's fainlt worrying at times on an expert run, when you're all out of medkits, low on health and bleeding, where the sound of a boomer or hunter in the distance signals your imminent demise, but it's not horror.

There would also be the problem of making the forest foreboding like the black forest in Germany instead of something out of Bambi. Hmm after looking over the Black forest in wikipedia, it could easily be transformed into a horror game, giant earthworms rule.

I'd like it so the entire forest was open, like the free roam sections in Alone in the Dark, but with only one enemy, like Haunting Ground, who could show up anywhere at any time to chase you. Add that to a foreboding atmosphere with fog and ambient sounds, and you're on the way to a good horror game.

xitel:
Didn't part of Siren take place in a forest?

Yes it did. Siren Blood Curse is also one of the best horror games as of late... or is it the only one? dom-dom-doooom

hypothetical fact:
There would also be the problem of making the forest foreboding like the black forest in Germany instead of something out of Bambi. Hmm after looking over the Black forest in wikipedia, it could easily be transformed into a horror game, giant earthworms rule.

You're completely right, the Black Forest is perfect. Not only does it have the perfect name, but the mountainous setting is great for panoramic views.

Imagine this: Your character's light plane crashes in the middle of the Black Forest. You climb out of the wreckage in the evening. You run through the rapidly growing darkness, towards a mountain. You manage to climb partway up the mountain just in time to reach a clearing in the last light of day, and see a massive, dark forest spread out in front of you, with no sign of civilization.
At that point, the game would become non-linear, and you would be able to explore the forest at day or night. You would have a few objectives, find food, shelter, etc. If you went out during the day, everything would be normal, forest creatures, etc. But you would also find strange remnants from the night before, twisted, unidentifiable bodies, strange marks on trees, on the ground. At night, it would be very dark and foggy, and there would be a lot more ambient noise than during the day. You might get attacked by...
and that's where my idea runs out, I can't think of things to get attacked by without making it into a cliche.

Surprisingly, no one has mentioned the 'Fatal Frame' series yet. Yes, most of the first one is set inside of the mansion, but later on, you are let out to roam the mansion grounds. I can't remember much of 'FF2', being that my head was glued more on the walkthrough than the game, but it was even more of a free-roam playground than the original.

Illesdan:
Surprisingly, no one has mentioned the 'Fatal Frame' series yet. Yes, most of the first one is set inside of the mansion, but later on, you are let out to roam the mansion grounds. I can't remember much of 'FF2', being that my head was glued more on the walkthrough than the game, but it was even more of a free-roam playground than the original.

Damn, I was just going to say this. NB. It's called 'Project Zero' in Europe.

Blair Witch Volume 1: Rustin Parr

Well, I've been living in a cave for a couple of years, but the gameplay videos of the about-to-be-released Alan Wake showed some forest horror action. Now that I'm out of my cave, and you guys have had like a whole year to play with Alan Wake (A.Wake, I just got it!), what are your thoughts?

Oh, Left 4 Dead Blood Harvest opening in the forest, on versus mode, spray some bullets up to the right at the rise you can see from the start, in that clump of trees. There's nearly always a Boomer hiding up there. They spawn just behind it and it looks like such a good hiding spot.

Hmm the Fatal Frame bits sound closest to what I have been thinking of (and the black forest bits, good idea!). Whats the actual game about and how does it play? I'm aware it exists and is a survival horror game, but thats about it.

To be honest, when it comes to things like this, I would find it a lot more scary if you had the expectation of something bad happening, rather than gribblies constantly ambushing you. Much like the first time I played a resi game (remake) I was so shocked at the spare scattering of ammo and just how easily you could die (played through on normal mode the first time, made me feel like a god of gaming and made resi 4, even on hardest difficulty, seem really easy) along with the idea of encountering those bloody dogs again, and I'm sure anyone who has played that section can back me up, that the 'idea' of something bad happening scared me a lot more than anything else.

Lighting, sound and the atmosphere would play a lot into this. The ultimate goal I would feel in a game like this, would be to make people fear going to certain places, or if a day/night system was implemented, make the player fear the setting of the sun.

I like the blood harvest campaign in L4D for the forrest sections; while the game is mostly a funshooter the forest can get scary when zombis just charge at you because you ran past them.

About the hardware issue: I played a bit of Lineage 2 (rp-freeshard) and it has an area called forrest of the dead. While an mmorpg is never scary (maybe im wrong on this, haven'd played many others) the setting is very well done and without lag or to much cartoon style to loose its seriousnes. With state of the art hardware and an engine like an mmorpg there could be a nice Forrest of Horror. I mean who neads perfect graphics when the animalistic fear gets your adrenalin up so you can hear your own heartbeat just to realise it was only a squirel in a tree and the real monster might be anywhere...probably right behind you ;)

Vietcong is the scariest game I have played which involves copious amounts of forest.

Unfortunately, traditional survival horror does not lend itself to forested environments.

Oblivion, with your monitor turned off? No background music either, all monster and ambient sounds set to max?

The idea of an open world forest at night does sound very good and menacing for a horror game (houses, cities and cold research labs are man-made and thus a bit too safe and familiar to arouse any serious anxieties) but they would have to make sure they get both of the following down right:

1. Navigating the dark would have to be done right. A flashlight sounds like the obvious way around that but many recent games that include the device have this weird obsession with making the battery life of the things about 30 seconds. A better system of encouraging the player to go without a times would be to allow the characters eyes to ajust to the dark (so they can just about see hazards in darkness but don't have a bright lighting marking where they are).

2. The forest of Doom would have to have 'safe zones' where the player can save progress/heal/try to call for help that easily 'look safer' than everywhere else. Not only would this help to keep the difficulty at a reasonable level but it would also keep the oppressive darkness and atmosphere from becoming too much (there's being scared/frightened in the enjoyable sense and then there's the disturbing moments that result in people waking up screaming in the night...not so good).

I agree with those points Iron Mal. Very good ones. Myself. I would make flash lights a rare commodity, but once you get then they last a while like in real life. The rest of the lighting is from moon light and thats it. For safe zones, perhaps cabins or settlements that are always lit (or maybe you have to get the generator going). Make players feel relieved but not entirely safe when they see some hint of civilisation.

On reflection I think it would be too scary, beyond even the most remote level of enjoyment.

Really? I find it hard to believe that, just because from experience, even in a really engrossing scary game you can always detach yourself at any point. Perhaps, like the origional resi games that weren't high on gore, it should get a 18 for 'mature themes'.

I can see it now. The company advises you do not play this game in the dark. I can also see people not finding this scary and decrying it heavily as over inflated nonsense. Most likely Yatzee, unfortunately.

Blood Harvest? It was one of the four levels in Left 4 Dead. It's main scenario was a forest, and I thought it was pretty damn scary.

What about a predator game, based on the first predator movie. Forest setting, and I imagine if the creators tried, they could make it scary.