I’m convinced horror games are the best medium for horror. I love reading horror fiction and watching horror movies too. I just feel like when playing a good horror game, the player is “in the drivers seat”. I’m open to hearing other opinions though!
I think video games are good for terror. Subnautica for example, reaper leviathans are terrifying, but not horrifying. You encounter a reaper, and it’s a spike in adrenaline, but you don’t lay in bed that night staring at the ceiling about it.
Subnautica is a special outlier and shouldn’t be counted because it triggers thlassophobia :P
In all other games, I feel more like when you see the characters being dumbasses in a movie and go “I can survive longer than these numbnuts.” And you do.
I assert that terror is terror.