10 Horror Video Game Tropes That Need To Stop
3. It's Behind You
It’s inevitable that we’re going to encounter a dead end at
some point while exploring a maze-like haunted house or any other creepy
environment. Whether we reach the end of an ominous corridor or are encouraged to
get up nice and close to a wall to interact with something, we’re left with
only one option: to turn around.
Moving the camera to look around is something we do all the time when playing a game, so all we expect to see when we rotate the camera back to where it was is exactly what was there before. But not when it comes to an increasing amount of sneaky horror games. The chances are that there’s now going to be something behind us.
Whereas turning around to see a boy of silence in BioShock: Infinite or whatever that book monster was in Layers Of Fear were genuinely terrifying moments, these cruel tricks have become so commonplace that we’ve become conditioned to expect something to happen whenever we need to look behind us in a spooky situation.
Like anything else when it comes to horror, it’s important not to overuse any tricks lest they lose their magic.