10 Horror Video Game Tropes That Need To Stop

A tried and tested means to escalate the terror in any spooky situation is to turn out the lights. Especially in first-person outings where we already have a limited view of our surroundings, restricting what we can see gives the terrors more places to hide.

Throwing horror protagonists into darkened areas has become so standardised that we expect to have access to a flashlight or a lighter during at least one section of any modern game.

We can thank the likes of Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Outlast for this trope. Not only did the pitch-black areas serve to keep our fear levels at a constant fever pitch, but the darkness played a vital role in the gameplay by encouraging us to manage resources and, in the case of Amnesia, our sanity.

But some developers don’t make full use of darkness to instil fear and think that giving us a flashlight is enough to establish a foreboding atmosphere. Without this tension, searching around in the dark is exactly as fun as it sounds. Moreover, it would be refreshing for once if a horror game let us see the levels the artists have built.