Although it’s an expensive, arduous process, developers are experimenting with live-action footage to intensify terror.
It is a video game horror renaissance.
Blumhouse Productions, the movie studio behind “Paranormal Activity” and “The Purge,” has started a gaming label. Independent developers are drawing inspiration from the original PlayStation and Nintendo 64 eras for low-fidelity shock value. And major studios are remaking classic titles in the Resident Evil and Silent Hill franchises.
To stand out in an increasingly crowded space, some developers are leaning even more closely to their film inspirations by blending live-action footage with virtual worlds.
Actors who convincingly portray their fear in digital performances can help intensify the feeling for players. Last year’s Alan Wake 2 enhanced its sense of terror with the frequent use of live-action sequences — in cut scenes and jump scares — to blur the line between what is real and what is not.
Current projects that are incorporating live-action footage include Tenebris Somnia, an 8-bit survival horror game in the style of the Nintendo Entertainment System, as well as The Lake House, downloadable content for Alan Wake 2 that releases this week and stars Agent Kiran Estevez, the character portrayed by Janina Gavankar (“True Blood”).
But incorporating film footage into a video game is intricate, and the small studios behind those projects are reckoning with the many challenges.
“Live-action hasn’t been that common for a long time because of how complicated it is to film,” said Andrés Borghi, a filmmaker and a developer of Tenebris Somnia. He mentioned the mid-1990s games Phantasmagoria and Command & Conquer: Red Alert as some pioneering examples of intertwining live-action into the story.
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