Horror games- balancing fear, helplessness, and power

*Very minor spoilers in first paragraph*

I just finished Resident Evil 7- really enjoyed it, it felt like a true evolution of the older games. A much better direction to head down than what RE5 and 6 were doing. It got me thinking though- I felt truly scared and helpless at the beginning of the game, but that all wore off as I started getting weapons like the shotgun, grenade launcher, etc. Games stop being scary when you become more powerful than the things that are scary. There were still a few jump scares here and there near the end of the game, but nothing as memorable as the start of the game.

On the flip side you have a game like Outlast which never gives you any weapons at all, and that can get just as annoying and ruin the atmosphere- especially when you fail an area. Instead of hiding or being cautious, you'll just try to run up to the point where you reached last. And after a while you end up wishing you had something to fight with.

Has any horror game ever found a perfect balance when it comes to this issue? I haven't played them all, but I have played a decent amount. And I can't think of any that have really nailed that balance of fear, helplessness, and power through the entire game. Hopefully we're getting closer to that.

What horror games have done the best with balancing this?

I liked Re5, it was great. RE6 has it's moments as well.

System Shock 2 comes to mind. You become more powerful, but the odds are pretty much always stacked against you.

Unlike many games that rely on jump scares. you hear the enemies well in advance, which heightens tension. This couples with almost right angle level design cutting off player view, a good cocktail of scary wary.

Silent Hill 1 & 2 come to mind.

Silent Hill games usually did a good job of that, you run out of ammo easily and have to rely on ineffective melee weapons often, and overall I don't have many memories of feeling overpowered in a Silent Hill game.

I liked the Metro series, they are more survival horror but again I rarely felt overpowered especially in that realistic survival mode they had, forgot what it was called. Then you have some unique one offs, like for instance Alien Isolation where you can overall hold your own against androids, but you get quickly eviscerated by an Alien.....overall the level of tension in that game was superb throughout.

Huge Dead Space fan as well, especially 1-2, on the normal difficulty they can feel easy for horror game veterans, but on the higher difficulties I thought they were great overall. Overall I enjoyed RE7 but some things I felt were so-so, like the Game-of-Thrones type shock scares, which I am not a fan of those overall.....I'm more a fan of psychological type of horror. I have to play it again though at some point, I felt like my first playthrough was quite quick.

Alien Isolation did a great job, although you could easily manipulate the AI if you rushed through. And, the flamethrower was a bit powerful; but overall, it was a great game.

The Metro Ranger mode is what you're thinking of, where they turn off the HUD and you don't have an ammo counter. They also did a great job for a horror FPS.

The Stalker games were some of the best, though. Shadow of Chernobyl had some great scare moments, and Call of Pripyat truly shined with the misery mod. Trekking across the field in pitch black always kept you at high tension, and going underground was even worse since you were limited to seeing only a few feet in front of you with the flashlight. And, you always felt underpowered in those games.

amnesia

I think Dead Space had the perfect balance of mysterious, horror atmosphere with the ability to fight back. I have yet to find a horror game that I liked as much.

Edit: I think VR is the new evolution that horror games requires and I am surprised that how it is underused.

I don't disagree with anything you said here, but there is more to a good horror game than "is it scary" or "is it not scary". There's also emotional investment thanks to story. RE5 was crap, because it was an action game above all else. RE6 was uneven, because each campaign had a different tone (Leon's was the closest to being "horror").

Horror is a very delicate balance, because so many minor elements can either make or ruin it (not unlike comedy). The first Amnesia was great, because it did all of this. Great story and feeling of helplessness (Lovecraftian style). Silent Hill 1 was great for dread factor. SH2 wasn't necessarily as scary, but top marks for story and emotional investment.

-Byshop

Dead space is defenitely right up there when it comes to horror games, a lot of people say 2 is worse than 1 but damn the moment you have to go back into the ship of one, that long corridor, is probably one of the best horror experiences I've ever had in gaming.

Those babies were creepy to say the least as well. Many are hating on dead space 3 and that's kind of pity because ds3 was actually pretty good if you compare it with a lot of other games, you have to play in on hard though to come even remotely to the terror you experienced in ds1.

I found doom 3 actually quite good as well but i guess that one is too old to still even matter, and you could say the same about resident evil 4. Resident evil 4 is probably one of the best games ever made, but those graphics really became an eyesore, and it takes away from the experience.

I haven't played anything recently that could be a deemed a good horror game, but you can say that about a lot of games, I don't know if it's the cost to make current gen games, but there's a lot less content in general nowadays, if you don't count the shitload of indies and shovelware.

Not to big of fan in horror games in vr, maybe it's because I hit 40 recently. Too intense for me to be honest. I love skyrim and fallout in vr though, and they have pretty scary moments as well, but no way I'm playing something like alien isolation in vr.

Remothered does okay with this. It's just that the player character is so slow when she walks.

@drummerdave9099: was going to say outlast but I agree with what you said.

When I played after several deaths I would rush back up to the area I was last in with no fear.

Project Zero on the Wii kept the fear factor going. Because you only have a camera, you never feel "powerful", but you don't feel helpless either.

Resi1 is still the best for me.

The game had safe rooms for you, where you could take a breather and just relax.This allowed you to pace your adventure, giving you the feel like you were in control.

In the following games they just did not balance it that well, which made the other resis on PS1 feel much more stressful to play.

thats the most important thing in horror games for me: they should give you time to gather your thoughts and relax, by giving you safe zones on each area. Bit like Dying Light does. If everywhere is unsafe, then the game becomes too stressful.

System Shock 2 did it right.

Would disagree with you there. Even of the highest difficulty setting the player is overwhelmed with resources, fire-power and upgrades. Very rarely do you actually feel vulnerable. And the majority of the game resorts to simply bum rushing the player whenever possible, which becomes predicable.

On that note, Vampire The Masquerade's hotel, Stalker and Ravenholm were good in the sense that they happened to be horror themed sections than the games entirely. It made them more impactful without Dead Space and similar ilks repetition setting in.