A brief overview, without much thought to the exceptions that exist and using screenshots from Shadows of the Damned to illustrate:
Male monsters in survival horror video games are big and vicious, covered in various attachments / appendages that hint at the terrible torture awaiting any player who dare cross their path. This is Shadows of the Damned’s quite masculine Electrodemon.
Female monsters in survival horror video games resemble down-on-their-luck strippers.
For the female monster to actually be threatening, she’ll likely need to destroy her female form so that the player ends up fighting something asexual.
Feel free to refute me with examples from other titles. (The Queen from “Aliens” springs to mind as something both recognisably female and also terrifyingly proficient at brutal murder, so there’s one.)
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Fear 3 – A first person combat horror shooter. I was hoping to see a lot more paranormal encounters of Alma Wade. This game highlighted her sons, Alma should have been the main story. Alma, they didn’t give you enough credit.
You know, I’d forgotten about the little girl trope in these kind of horror games (although by F3AR she was an adult).
Scary Japanese-esque females may be a whole separate issue. 🙂