EP#206 Will Byles

Kevin Lane's Spill Your Guts

Imagine your favourite horror movie if instead of yelling at your screen “Don’t go in there!” or “Don’t drop the knife!”, you could actually have the choice to run out of the house or chop the killers head off while he’s lying on the ground pretending to be dead. Horror movies offer a lot in terms of an experience but one thing they don’t offer is choice. For that, we look to genre gaming.

The birth of survival horror in gaming broke out with the success of Capcom’s iconic “Resident Evil” in 1996. This was for many, the first video game that really embraced the influences of classic horror films while offering a gaming experience that was both edge of your seat suspense and exciting action. Not to mention its fair share of camp with memorable lines like “It’s a weapon. It’s really powerful. Especially against living things.” And “I’m sorry for my lack of manners, but I’m not used to escorting men.”

“Resident Evil” has of course gone on to become a horror gaming staple but it also helped create an entire genre of gaming where you make the choices that will keep your character alive until sunrise or… you know, get eaten or decapitated or filleted or impaled or exsanguinated. You get the idea.

And choice offers a level of immersion that is different to film. Gaming is participatory whereas film is more passive experience. In gaming you are affecting the outcome and in a good game, your decisions matter.

One of the most successful examples of survival horror gaming in recent memory is the 2015 PlayStation 4 game “Until Dawn”.

Written by genre legend Larry Fessenden and frequent collaborator Graham Reznick, set in a blizzardy mountain top ski resort, a group of friends (which includes Oscar winner Rami Malek and fan favourite Hayden Panettiere) must survive the night against a masked killer, something lurking in the woods and each other. It’s a wild ride full of twists and turns and particularly effective scares. The game was a surprise hit for Sony and game developer Supermassive Games and has gone on to become a horror gaming classic with people even having “Until Dawn” gatherings where everyone plays the game and decides as a group what choices to make.

The games director is Will Byles.

Will is the Studio Director for England based game developer Supermassive Games. With the success of “Until Dawn”, Will and his team at Supermassive went to work on developing their next big horror title “The Quarry”.

Fully embracing the classic tropes of the summer camp slasher, the game features an all-star genre cast including David Arquette, Ted Raimi, Grace Zabriskie, Lin Shaye and Lance Henriksen and the would-be victims are all played by likeable and engaging young actors. A love letter to many of your favourite woodsy slasher films and filled with truly surprising twists, “The Quarry” was one of the best games of 2022.

Will’s immense talent and passion for both games and film is felt all through “Until Dawn” and “The Quarry”. These games don’t give the illusion of choice (a cheap trick pulled by many genre games), your choices actually matter and drastically change your experience. Seeing your favourite character who you’ve fought hard to keep alive suffer a terrible fate because you chose to run instead of fight back can be devastating and there’s no respawning. They’re dead… like dead dead.

Will dives into how he developed a passion for developing and creating games, charting out the many different branches the story can follow and how to keep it all making sense and working with actors to create a performance using motion capture.

Take notes if you want to keep your characters alive but remember, if you do, you’re going to miss out some wonderfully horrific death scenes lovingly crafted by one of the masters of gaming horror, Will Byles.

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