The horror and survival-horror genre of video games have become quite popular in recent years, which I hypothesize is in no small part thanks to the growing popularity of “Let’s Play” videos on Youtube, generated a demand for watching grown men and women scream on camera. Development teams from sizeable studios to independent developers have jumped on the bandwagon to develop games of this genre which aim to produce as many jump scares and scary moments as possible of varying quality. Personally I have never been a big fan of the genre, not so much because I scare easy but because I find it extremely hard to be startled while playing them. However with big-name video game publisher ATLUS and development team Zombie Studios behind Daylight, I won’t deny my curiosity on how this would turn out.
Storyline
Daylight sees you take control of the female protagonist “Sarah”, who emerges from unconsciousness only to find herself trapped in an abandoned and dilapidated hospital with no memories. A cell phone on hand grants communication with an individual who implores her to explore the dark secrets of the institution – with many memos left around even the early stages of the game indicating that something sinister has happened. What happened? What will happen to Sarah? I will leave you to find that out for yourself.
As alluded to above, I personally didn’t find the game too scary at all even if this fact is fairly subjective. Unfortunately some form of ‘scariness factor’ could have been a redeeming feature of Daylight as the storyline otherwise came across as fairly weak and mostly left the player to their own devices without much in terms of direction. Because of this, the initial concepts are quite strong but most of the games experience comes down to what is written in a series of notes scattered around the hospital which highlights past events and patients with sizable periods of time without notable dialogue. Aside from this, you will be left watching a smartphone map as you try to uncover paths you haven’t gone down and potentially being startled for a few seconds by a scripted event.
Design / Music / Voice Acting
One of the reasons why the storyline might not be so direct is that the game is progressively generated, leaving gamers with different paths to go down each and every time they start the game. The design epitomises exactly what one should expect from a survival horror game with an emphasis on the effective use of lighting in dark, dank and poorly lit corridors with the occasional scare due to a supernatural phenomenon or item in the room. But that being said, while some leeway can be given since the environments are completely randomized, it does not reach the visual quality delivered by Red Barrel’s Outlast that was available for free on the PlayStation 4 a couple of months ago for PS Plus subscribers.
While background music would only hinder the realism one would expect from a survival-horror title, Daylight makes good use of environmental sound effects to bring across the element of ‘fear’ to the player. The voice acting while not a major contributing factor was also of a solid standard.
Gameplay
As with most survival horror games on the market, Daylight is played through a first-person view with only the main characters hands visible. Most of the time Sarah will be without weaponry, only equipped with a smartphone which doubles as a map, glowsticks to light her path and then the occasional flare with can be used to ward off any shadow people that threaten her. The goal is to collect a series of remnants and then a “sigil” to unlock the next area, and then rinse and repeat until the game is finished. The gameplay is fun for the first half an hour, but once that repetition sets in it becomes tedious very quickly.
Survival horror games are mean’t to offer an experience that keeps players on the edge of their seat, but when forced to repeat the same mundane task several times it becomes more challenging to maintain that level of thrill and excitement. Even when about to be attacked by a “shadow”, arguably the scariest moments of Daylight, it doesn’t come as much surprise. Instead the game happily boasts that Sarah is about to be attacked through the phone screen turning static and noticeable sounds. It diminishes many ways that the game could have possibly been challenging and scary, and especially as such a short game doesn’t really offer much to warrant a second playthrough even with a randomly generated labyrinth.
Personal Opinion on Daylight
Daylight presented solid visuals and a great approach towards using sound effects to contribute to a strong survival horror atmosphere. Unfortunately atmosphere doesn’t always cut it, and there was nothing particularly frightening or challenging about the game in my mind. Some interesting concepts such as the progressive generation of the hospital were welcome, but underwhelmed by repetitive gameplay despite Daylight‘s short length.
A PC review copy of Daylight was provided by ATLUS USA for the purpose of this article.
