If you can't fight, then you have the comfort of knowing that in order for the game to be possible to win, there will always be a safe place to hide or evade the enemy. At that point, it's not really horror, but more of a creepy-themed puzzle game.
If you can fight, and the game makes no effort in limiting your arsenal, then it's still not really horror. It's a creepy-themed action game. You practice the fighting system that the game uses, and beat the shit out of whatever is supposed to be scaring you.
In my opinion, the best option gives you a method of defending yourself or driving the enemy back temporarily, without being too ham-fisted about it. Let's say that you have a gun. One approach is to be insanely stingy with bullets, so that you have to pick and choose whether it's possible to escape the current threat without combat, with the reward being that you still have the bullets later on when you'll need them.
Another approach instead is to show the player that while they aren't defenseless, they still aren't nearly in the same class as whatever is hunting them down. You may have a healthy number of bullets, but they aren't going to be strong enough to pierce the monster's hide. However, if you line up a shot and shoot it somewhere like in the eyes, you might cause it enough pain to recoil for a split second and give you the opportunity to run away. Maybe give the player a silencer, so they can use the gun to shoot something at a distance. Let's say that the player uses a silenced sniper rifle and shoots a window a couple buildings away. While the monster goes to investigate the sound of the window shattering, you might have time to run towards where the monster was previously to do what you need to before it gets back.
The best way to approach something like this would be to make sure that the monster is intelligent to some degree. Otherwise, a sufficiently skilled player can just constantly shoot it in the eyes to "stunlock" it. Maybe shooting it in the eyes will work in early encounters, but if you stick around too long, it will realize that it merely needs to cover its eyes to render you defenseless. Later encounters would have it know right off the bat to do this, so you have to find alternate ways to distract is like I mentioned above while it's eyes are covered.
Long-story-short, a good horror game needs to balance not leaving you completely defenseless to avoid becoming a puzzle game, but not leaving you capably armed to avoid becoming an action game. An easy way to do this is to limit ammunition and weapons, while a more complicated way would be to make sure that your fully-stocked arsenal still isn't enough to make things a fair fight.
If you can fight, and the game makes no effort in limiting your arsenal, then it's still not really horror. It's a creepy-themed action game. You practice the fighting system that the game uses, and beat the shit out of whatever is supposed to be scaring you.
In my opinion, the best option gives you a method of defending yourself or driving the enemy back temporarily, without being too ham-fisted about it. Let's say that you have a gun. One approach is to be insanely stingy with bullets, so that you have to pick and choose whether it's possible to escape the current threat without combat, with the reward being that you still have the bullets later on when you'll need them.
Another approach instead is to show the player that while they aren't defenseless, they still aren't nearly in the same class as whatever is hunting them down. You may have a healthy number of bullets, but they aren't going to be strong enough to pierce the monster's hide. However, if you line up a shot and shoot it somewhere like in the eyes, you might cause it enough pain to recoil for a split second and give you the opportunity to run away. Maybe give the player a silencer, so they can use the gun to shoot something at a distance. Let's say that the player uses a silenced sniper rifle and shoots a window a couple buildings away. While the monster goes to investigate the sound of the window shattering, you might have time to run towards where the monster was previously to do what you need to before it gets back.
The best way to approach something like this would be to make sure that the monster is intelligent to some degree. Otherwise, a sufficiently skilled player can just constantly shoot it in the eyes to "stunlock" it. Maybe shooting it in the eyes will work in early encounters, but if you stick around too long, it will realize that it merely needs to cover its eyes to render you defenseless. Later encounters would have it know right off the bat to do this, so you have to find alternate ways to distract is like I mentioned above while it's eyes are covered.
Long-story-short, a good horror game needs to balance not leaving you completely defenseless to avoid becoming a puzzle game, but not leaving you capably armed to avoid becoming an action game. An easy way to do this is to limit ammunition and weapons, while a more complicated way would be to make sure that your fully-stocked arsenal still isn't enough to make things a fair fight.
