So first of all this is indeed a very long wall of text but I want to break down a few things and these are just my thoughts about horror games, you know how Resident evil (for a while), Silent Hill, Dead space, The last of us and more recently Evil Within favoured 3rd person perspective?

3rd Person all while can get you some times isn't really that scary, I have heard countless people talk about this and I am inclined to agree, atmosphere helps yes and jump-scares are actually somewhat cheap which I can admit but if you really think about it since when does scaring someone have to be based around some made-up character the stories are nice which I'll admit and it's also what makes the games more enjoyable to play in the first place, I will say though how the hell do you want to make the player relate to the main character? I am pretty sure you can tell that most normal people don't carry around weapons killing bad guys or at least not at first.

Now, now I know you can argue that Resident evil's original angled camera perspective was scary and that is only true to players who A. Have not played/watched someone the game therefore don't know what happens or what pops out B. Don't know what to expect and C. Pretend to if they are a streamer to get more views, Resident evil 1's Remake actually sort of did something with the crimson heads but it didn't really change much else besides graphics which obviously aren't required but nice to have I actually would not mind seeing if they do remake Resident evil 2 if they at least make it so the zombie spawns are sometimes random/diverge from the original, could be a game mode in of itself.

Now here is my opinion on the player carrying a gun, I am pretty sure Joonas (If you don't know who that is, that's Regalis from these very forums who worked on SCP-087-B, SCP: Containment Breach and Barotrauma) has said this in the past but he does not believe that giving the player a weapon adds to the horror and rather makes the player feel safe and all-while I can agree on this to an extent, I wouldn't say make the enemies invulnerable but maybe a good example of an enemy who isn't fazed by players shooting at them is to make them more berserk the more they get shot at IE increasing movement speed, increasing enemy damage if not able to instantly kill the player, just really do not give the player something that is going to 100% effective from start to finish of the game make them really work for it and make them think.

First person is definitely the better option and all-while I praise resident evil 7 for changing to this, I actually do think it can do a lot better, in conclusion I have always found that for the player to truly experience a horror which scares them, they should always see it from their own perspective and experience it for themselves.

If you stuck through for this long congratulations and thank you for listening to what seems like a rant I really just wanted to open up a discussion about this though because I feel passionate enough to do so, but keep in mind I do not hate these games mentioned just because I do find some flaws in their horror aspects and I would also like to mention I am not a professional game reviewer even though I have played so many games over the years so feel free to call me out on whatever which you want.

Also this based on my "When did the player, stop being the player?" theory which I have been working on.

Great read!