Resident Evil 4 and Dredge nail the spooky inventory management genre

If you’re a video game developer that wants to make waves this spring, there’s one easy way to do it: Make a game where you have to organize some sort of inventory while also ignoring The Horrors.

Wait, you might say, that’s just…life? That’s what I do in my closet every single day!

This is a valid answer! You can’t deny it!

This format is used in some of the best games during the first quarter. There’s the Resident Evil 4 remake, which brings back the original game’s attaché case and its grid-based inventory management. There’s also the hit indie fishing-horror game Dredge, which has you trawling the ocean’s depths for unthinkable aquatic horrors, and finding space for them in your grid-based cargo hold. And then there’s the nightmarish survival game Sons of the ForestThis involves you placing your items on a sheet and hoping for the best.

This trend coincides perfectly with the well-known remake of Resident Evil 4This sub-genre is a real trend setter. Introduce the spatial reasoning TetrisAs a way to relieve the stress of the zombie-like parasite villagers, or the cosmic terror of looking for spooky fishing fish, this is an intoxicating and hilarious gameplay loop.

These two elements working together is what makes the magic happen. I enjoy each aspect, but the combination of organization and chaos is what keeps me coming back. Perhaps this is how to live a better organized life.