Combat in Horror games

[Igor-Rowan]

One of the things a horror game must excel at is immersion, drawing in the player and rendering them powerless as they embark on whatever journey the game has in store, but there has been a long-running trend that might be hindering this process.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories gave me the idea, it played like most Silent Hill games up to that point, but you coundn't fight back in that game, at all, so you can only run and hide, much like most horror games these days. That seems great on paper, not fighting leaves the player powerless and horror games are supposed to make the player feel that way. However, I can't help but shake this feeling something is lost in this process.

I don't know how to explain, but not being able to fight gives me some form of comfort in knowing whatever threat comes by I don't have to face it, thus diminishing the horror. Not being able to fight seems more like a way to circumvent the problem rather than solving it, RE and other Silent Hill games the combat may not be the most mechanically perfect, but it enhances the horror knowing that you can fight and the game can force you to. And recently, Outlast II showed that frustration of that kind of trial-and-error can and will completely shatter the atmosphere the games was going for. Or maybe that's just me.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Not being able to fight back certainly gives you the sense of fear, but I'd say horror games with limited supplies works just as fine.

For example, in Alien Isolation, you can use flamethrowers to chase away the xenomorprh or guns to kill the creepy androids. However, having the limited amount of supplies with you being realistically fragile really gives you the sense of anxiety.

Another example would be Condemned: Criminal Origins. You constantly have to find degradable weapons to defend yourself, all with the limited stamina. And there are A LOT of bad guys who want you dead and pops out of everywhere.

The earlier resident evil games (before 4) also does a superb job of having this feature as well. The ammo are scarce, the inks which you used to save the game are limited as well. No to mention, the forced camera angles (they almost look live surveillance camera view, IMO) makes you never know what might come around the corner.

 

[go-10]

it depends really, a game like Silent Hill where you're just some random person wouldn't make much sense for you to have weapons or know how to use them however in a game like Resident Evil where you are a member of a special task force sent to investigate it makes perfect sense to be heavily armed and have vast knowledge of combat and proper combat training and/or experience.

so sometimes knowing that you have to fight adds to the horror and other times the idea of being chased without a way to defend yourself makes it scarier. For me personally a mixture of both (RE Nemesis) strikes the perfect balance. Being defenseless and running the entire game grows old quick at some point I get tired of running and just stop playing, games that gradually give you better weapons and by the end allow you to defend yourself are better because of a sense of progression where I can now overcome things that used to be near impossible at first.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Amnesia had me scared for about 20 minutes, until it had me frustrated. Fear was washed away completely.

Not being able to fight back certainly gives you the sense of fear, but I'd say horror games with limited supplies works just as fine.

For me personally, it actually ends up working better to unsettle me. I always found in early Resident Evil games - at least when I was younger and now on harder difficulties - that I really weighed up every shot, reload and heal. For all it did wrong, I think Resident Evil 5's realtime inventory added tension as well, as I fumbled my way through my inventory slots when I wanted to equip something that wasn't on a hotkey.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

To me a lack of combat in horror has always felt like a cheap and easy out. On the same branch as zombies. Easy to program, no need to waste time on more play testers.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I think there?s a place for both approaches: horror with combat and the lack thereof. No combat makes a horror title more of a Horror Puzzler, whereas more traditional combat leans more towards Survival Horror (because come on, NOT fighting back at all is the tangential opposite of ?do/use everything at your disposal to not die.?) Depends on what any gamer is feeling at the time.

Personally, while I can enjoy both, I prefer a combat option in my horror, and I think Condemned and Condemned 2: Bloodshot set the gold standard with their visceral, melee-intensive combat. You felt you could defend yourself, but survival was never guaranteed and never and easy given. They did scares really well and the environments were some of the most haunting of the last generation? *sigh*, I really hope we?ve not seen the last of the Condemned franchise; they did so many things right, I?m surprised they didn?t spurn 1 dozen copycats. Sega, layoff the goddamn godawful Sonic games and get back to lead pipes psychotic hobos!

 

[CaitSeith]

Yep. A horror game can have combat and still make the player feel powerless. Besides, if you remove combat from a game, you must substitute it with something good.

 

[pookie101]

Not being able to fight back certainly gives you the sense of fear, but I'd say horror games with limited supplies works just as fine.

For example, in Alien Isolation, you can use flamethrowers to chase away the xenomorprh or guns to kill the creepy androids. However, having the limited amount of supplies with you being realistically fragile really gives you the sense of anxiety.

Another example would be Condemned: Criminal Origins. You constantly have to find degradable weapons to defend yourself, all with the limited stamina. And there are A LOT of bad guys who want you dead and pops out of everywhere.

The earlier resident evil games (before 4) also does a superb job of having this feature as well. The ammo are scarce, the inks which you used to save the game are limited as well. No to mention, the forced camera angles (they almost look live surveillance camera view, IMO) makes you never know what might come around the corner.

alien isolation also had a section part way through where you got to fully unleash all the weapons you had been carrying and let go.. it was great release after all the hidey running away

 

[Saelune]

Shattered Memories wasnt that scary cause the "horror" parts were segmented off and really just shitty chases from ice monsters.

Being able to fight...and defeat enemies in horror games always diminishes the scariness for me. Only FEAR 1 felt scary without making you powerless, and thats cause of the dark and rather "empty" atmosphere.

 

[Nidor]

It is interesting to see the pros and cons of each style of horror game.

Horror without weapons, intended to build tension or atmosphere by making the player helpless, though sometimes frustratingly so (why cant i just brain them with a rock, they are only slightly stronger than human). Amnesia, Outlast. Can be countered if the protagonist can't be reasonably expected to be able to fight back. Among the Sleep, Little Nightmares.
Horror with weapons, but the enemies generally outclass them, I think these can be the better ones if done well, since you can defend yourself against some things, but still be helpless vs others. Penumbra, Alien Isolation, most Call of Cthulhu games, Subnautica is sorta this and the above.
Horror with no restrictions on weapons, can easily fall into no tension territory if overdone, can be balanced by some good atmosphere. Older Resident Evils do this with the limited resources/saves thing, Eternal Darkness does this pretty well with the lovecraftian plot, as well as not pulling any punches with killing off player characters when they come face to face with something they have no chance against, System shock series is sorta in this group with the almost isolation and the enemy behavior, as well as having to earn your respawn mechanic, though I'd say it becomes less so later in the games.
Jumpscares My least favorite, it isn't horror, just startles at best. Doesn't mean they can't be good, but I just don't care for them. FNAF, Slender, most of the SCP fangames.

 

[Chefsbrian]

The problem with completely unarmed horror, in my books, is that the enemies tend to be fairly stupid as a result. The player needs to be able to escape or hide or lose pursuit, which makes the enemies behave fairly passively, slowly, and rarely do they pose a threat anywhere other than point blank range. The monsters or cultists or whatever start to feel like incompetent idiots.

In horror permitting some degree of combat, the effectiveness, and the threat, of the monsters gets to go up as a result. Dead Space's Necromorphs were fairly smart, very deadly up close, and the regenerating varieties encountered across the games result in a really strong panic moment when the player suddenly loses the ability to kill the thing.

Combat also forces up the fear of basically hunting down these monsters. In a stealth game, you just make sure not to be seen, and eventually the murder creature wanders off. In a combat game, if there's a horrible murder creature in a room you need to get to, you've gotta get in there and find a way to kill it, because its probably not gonna leave. Forcing yourself to be an active participant in that way is pretty scary.

 

[Bad Jim]

In a combat game, if there's a horrible murder creature in a room you need to get to, you've gotta get in there and find a way to kill it, because its probably not gonna leave. Forcing yourself to be an active participant in that way is pretty scary.

When the level design forces you to fight, IMO it takes most of the fear factor out of it, because then you are just fighting, same as a million other games that don't put the word 'horror' on the box. And if you have to kill it, the devs have to make the fight reasonably winnable.

Whereas a fight that you could have avoided can be almost impossibly hard, or actually impossible (eg not enough ammo). I think it can be scarier if you have to kill the occasional monster because then you have to figure out how to pick your battles and risk biting off more than you can chew. And the monsters don't have to behave like the guards in Metal Gear Solid. But killing everything should not be an option.

 

[Emanuele Ciriachi]

When the level design forces you to fight, IMO it takes most of the fear factor out of it, because then you are just fighting, same as a million other games that don't put the word 'horror' on the box. And if you have to kill it, the devs have to make the fight reasonably winnable.

Whereas a fight that you could have avoided can be almost impossibly hard, or actually impossible (eg not enough ammo). I think it can be scarier if you have to kill the occasional monster because then you have to figure out how to pick your battles and risk biting off more than you can chew. And the monsters don't have to behave like the guards in Metal Gear Solid. But killing everything should not be an option.

I was going to post something akin to this, but you summed it up perfectly. This is why games like Dreadhalls are utterly terrifying, and Alien Isolation becomes a LOT less scary once you grab that flamer. They should have disabled it at the highest difficulties.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

It is interesting to see the pros and cons of each style of horror game.

Jumpscares My least favorite, it isn't horror, just startles at best. Doesn't mean they can't be good, but I just don't care for them. FNAF, Slender, most of the SCP fangames.

I don't really understand the idea that FNAF is all about scaring you with jump scares. The fear doesn't come from the jump scare, the jump scare is the punishment, the result you get when you fail, jumpscare=death. The actual fear is supposed to come from avoiding the jump scare and the general atmosphere the situation brings.

In a combat game, if there's a horrible murder creature in a room you need to get to, you've gotta get in there and find a way to kill it, because its probably not gonna leave. Forcing yourself to be an active participant in that way is pretty scary.

When the level design forces you to fight, IMO it takes most of the fear factor out of it, because then you are just fighting, same as a million other games that don't put the word 'horror' on the box. And if you have to kill it, the devs have to make the fight reasonably winnable.

Whereas a fight that you could have avoided can be almost impossibly hard, or actually impossible (eg not enough ammo). I think it can be scarier if you have to kill the occasional monster because then you have to figure out how to pick your battles and risk biting off more than you can chew. And the monsters don't have to behave like the guards in Metal Gear Solid. But killing everything should not be an option.

This is definitely something the first Resident Evil did well since you can technically kill everything you meet but if you don't burn the corpse then you can put yourself in an even worse situation with the zombie later becoming a Crimson Head that is much much worse. So it can often be a smarter move to just avoid the zombies entirely.

 

[FalloutJack]

I find that while some of these games where it's all run-and-hide are good, they're not realistic. In real life, your instincts are fight OR flight, as in you CAN fight. I know what would happen if I was in Outlast. Ninety-seven counts of murder in self-defense. Even a normal person who can't see themselves braining a bunch of lunatics would throw a punch or kick some cajones. That's life. Being unable to fight, yet you can run like hell away? That's not real. I mean, I'd never beat Chris Walker in a fight, but all the normal inmates are just as human as me. The opportunity to at least KO the threat, if humanly possible, should exist.

 

[CaitSeith]

snip

Are we actually complaining about games being unrealistic and misrepresenting a physiological theory as law of nature?

 

[springheeljack]

One of the few games that I have played that I felt legitimately scared me was The Suffering and that had a TON of combat in the game. I think one of the reasons I felt it was scary was the atmosphere, the setting, the music, and the creatures themselves that made it scary.

That reminds me of the first three levels of Dark Corners of the Earth when you are trying to escape Innsmouth. At first it is really thrilling and unnerving but by the end of it you have already died so many times that it just becomes a slog to get through and stops being scary in the slightest. It also makes you really happy when you finally get your hands on some guns so you can finally blow away the inbred assholes.

 

[FalloutJack]

Snip

Look, it's very simple. In a game like Outlast, you're a human with as much access to random things to make clubs out of as the inmates, at the very least. You're also sporting a night vision camera. In what way can you not ambush and beat down many of the opposition? Miles and Waylon don't have noodle-arms, not for being able to hoist their full body weight up over things and into ductwork so often. (Granted, Waylon's a computer tech guy and could be weaker than Miles, but not incapable of beating a man in the dark with full sight advantage.) I will point out that Outlast is a cool-if-disturbing game, just that some of those inmates would be beaten to death, especially if the main chatacter flips out and loses his shit.

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

I have agree. A freakout over bloodshed and impact of murder makes it a precious resource. It is a loud solution to a stealthy problem.

 

[wings012]

I don't know how to explain, but not being able to fight gives me some form of comfort in knowing whatever threat comes by I don't have to face it, thus diminishing the horror.

One can also argue the reverse. It is precisely because you cannot ever eliminate those threats that you are in a constant state of horror. And often you still have to face the threat in a number of games - in the form of evading or escaping it.

If you can eliminate your threats just like in other genres, then what defines your horror game besides the dressing?