10 Horror Video Game Tropes That Need To Stop

There are fewer moments as never-shatteringly tense in recent horror games as waiting those few seconds to activate a save point in Alien: Isolation or holding your fire in the Resident Evil 2 remake to get a more accurate shot while a group of zombies shamble closer. These extra agonising moments elevate the suspense while adding a degree of realism to keep the action grounded.

Too many developers, however, have incorporated this choice without understanding what made it work: Gameplay balance.

Though waiting those extra moments to land that headshot can feel like an eternity, the zombies move just slow enough to give us time to aim whilst we need to wait just long enough that we still feel anxious in every encounter.

Going overboard with these prolonged animations has the unintended opposite effect.

Whether its games which force characters to move at a snail's pace down comically long corridors or those which turn every action into a long and laborious process like Ebb Software's Scorn, there's a limit before this trope because tedious at best, and borderline unplayable at worst.

Add being forced to restart sections from the start, and some already lengthy animations just became agonising.