Art of Gaming: can Resident Evil, Slender and Dead by Daylight help us overcome our fears?

The first in a 10-part series looks at why we enjoy fear.

What are the essential elements of a horror game? What hardwired human fears do they tap into and why do we want to put ourselves through nerve-shredding situations?

VG247 has teamed up with European culture channel ARTE to exclusively debut new episodes of Art of Gaming, a 10-part series looking at the most important games of the past few years.

Hosted by French gaming blogger Trinity and German journalist Melek Balgün, each episode sees the pair play classic games and discuss their impact on entertainment, the player and games culture at large.

In this first episode Melek chats with Benjamin Rostalski as they attempt to survive the horrors of Resident Evil, Slender and Dead by Daylight. They discuss how horror games are influenced by horror movies, and hear from horror movie composer Stefan Will about using sound to create uncomfortable scenes. They also speak with neurology and psychiatry specialist professor Borwin Bandelow about the impact of fear on the mind and how and why players enjoy experiencing fear.

More episodes of Art of Gaming will debut on VG247 every Friday throughout June and July.

ARTE, the European culture channel, has been subtitling its programmes since the launch of ARTE in English in November 2015.

The project is co-funded by the European Union and aims to bring Europeans together through a shared love of culture. Find out more about ARTE in English here.