I’ve got a bone to pick with Survival Horror. I just started the Evil Within 2, which I bought during Black Friday because I am consumerist trash, and I can already feel the oh so familiar desire to check out. If you haven’t realized by now, what you are watching is footage from my first couple hours of gameplay. Needless to say, light spoilers ahead. I know I’ve said before that the terms “Survival Horror” and “Action Horror” are too vague and I still believe that, but I also know they’re firmly couched in the Gaming Zeitgeist and I will do my best to respect that.

But I say that to say this: I’ve noticed some traits shared between the games I’ve played – games I feel safe assuming most would consider Survival Horror. These traits, in my opinion, are not good – they are on my shitlist and I fear they are what most who employ the term Survival Horror would consider defining characteristics of the genre. This would imply that I may not like Survival Horror as a whole. I’d like to think otherwise.

I can’t shake the feeling that many wouldn’t consider a game Survival Horror unless it’s protagonist is moderately under equipped and, daresay, slightly incompetent at doing 30% to 50% of their job in a horror setting. I KNOW, I KNOW. I’m being an asshole and I’ll dial it back a bit.

But in all seriousness, some of the design choices, feel like square movie horror, but also somewhat antithetical to game horror. So I’ll just get to it.

“You’re Too Slow”

Look at that. Just look at it. Why in the seven circles of hell, does anyone need to move this slow? I’ll tell you why. So that when the monsters see you, AND THEY WILL, they can give chase and always be just a step or two behind you. This is only exacerbated by the sneaking mechanics that makes you move like cold molasses (as opposed to regular molasses) and take even longer to get into a good spot for that 1 sec backstab window. Good movie horror for when you want to get a character eaten, but not so much for game horror where you’re trying not to get eaten, among other things.

“Learn To Shoot, Ya Morons”

I’m a little ambivalent about this next one as it involves a learning curve that’s unique to each game. Or in other words, it’s a forgone conclusion that it will naturally improve as the game changes and you adjust. Furthermore, at times it’s hard to tell whether you’re aim is bad or if the game is just fucking with you. When it comes to combat, I’m a simple man – I don’t want ease, I just want consistency. Give me a reasonable indicator of where my attacks will go and honor that. That’s my baseline.

“Extrapolation”

Now this is the crux of my annoyance. You know what made me stop playing the original Resident Evil a year or so ago? It wasn’t the 3 zombie corridor where I became a six second snack. It was the 3 minute walk from the save room to get there. I didn’t quit Bloodbourne because Wolfman Jack kept playing me the symphony of pain. It was the 4 minute trek there. You know what got my goat about The Last of Us? Sections started to feel bloated because all of the sneaking and hiding slowed progress to a crawl. I’m not sitting here fuming because the games are too difficult, I’m sitting here fuming because they get boring. It’s not challenge, it’s tedium.

Everyone seems hellbent on taking the most banal elements of the game experience and extrapolating them out in the hopes of injecting tension and terror into it. It’s meant to showcase and emphasize your vulnerability. But vulnerability is context sensitive and in a genre that’s supposed to demphasize combat, elements meant to add vulnerability under duress just become a drag on the experience during the vastly greater number of calm moments in between.

Furthermore, if you can extrapolate mobility, health and item systems, why not do the same for combat? I’m sure this isn’t a hot take: combat isn’t inherently empowering. As such, a more robust combat system isn’t necessarily antithetical to survival horror aesthetics. There’s nothing wrong with taking combat and playing it for all it’s worth: a grueling, involved experience that takes it’s toll on a person. Your character makes the most accurate shots, hits the hardest and is most observant when they are cool, calm and collected. But being ambushed or having to tussle with whatever brand of eldritch abomination this particular universe has scares the hell out of them. Why not embrace that delirium? The longer they have to fight, the more they are hurt or even as the random creaking in the walls gets to them, the more they lose it. Their aim isn’t so sharp anymore, they can’t keep track of their ammo and items, their swings are shallow and frantic, their surroundings are out of focus and they’re seeing things. Let it get bad enough and your character will have trouble reloading or running straight, much less fighting. At it’s worse, they will lose themselves – they could become a blubbering mess on the floor or they could become a crazed animal running and swinging at whatever is (or isn’t) in their path.

In such a case, your protagonist is neither unwilling nor incapable of fighting – they just aren’t prepared for how stressful it’s going to be to them.

I think I’ve whined enough, but my point is simply that Survival Horror still seems beholden at times to a 20 year old philosophy of contrived incompetence. Giving me inferior, malformed characters doesn’t add tension because those limits feel artificial. Threats should be, well, threatening on merit of what they are and not so much by merit of what the player isn’t.