How do we fix the horror genre?

More tension less jumpscares

Make it so the player scares themselves. The best horror games work off the fact that the player puts themselves on edge to survive, reaching the point where just the creaks and groans of the scenery are enough to make them start to panic. That's what makes horror games unique as well, because it becomes scary from the paranoia you inflict on yourself to survive the horror through gameplay. Everything else is gimmicks and shortcuts to achieve this end instead of just trying to make the horror gameplay actually good.

Nah fuck you. The whole
>oh you can't show the monster
>oh you can't get used to the monster
is the bullshit credo of creators who fail to make their horror be one that continues to be threatening even after you come to know it, so they rely on using nothing and bullshit to try to get out of doing it. Not only that, but players come to understand the lack of a threat just as much as they do any tangible one, except now it's even worse because you know nothing's actually gonna bother you.

That's why I absolutely fucking love Condemned, because the enemy you face for the majority of the game is incredibly simple and a tangible threat you easily know: it's just angry bums that come after you. Despite how simple they are, they continue to put the player on edge because they brutal and cunning, always capable of crawling out of the filth of the city to ambush you, so you're always on high alert to survive.

Basically, the constant implication of a threat only works when there's AN ACTUAL THREAT, and the people who can't make that work are just FUCK UPS

>perfect horror game is, paradoxically, one where there is no actual threat, but the constant implication of one
This

The bums stopped being scary after a while, though. I was in fact laughing at their labored grunting as I beat them up later on.

GOODMORNING STARSHINE

The bums are only scary early on at which point they start making them do jump scares at you. Plus, you start to get things like paper cutters to make taking them out a joke. The real scare of Condemned was the house section, dear lord the basement is terrifying.
>That moment when you get to the mirror.

The horror genre will forever be dead now that creators have found that it's more profitable to cater horror games towards children.

There has to be SOME threat, otherwise players will catch on and now you've just got a walking sim.

I bring you love. It brings love, kill it.

How do you catch on to there being no threat, though?

>Well, there's been nothing so far, so I guess there is nothing at all

No one would think like this, they would just assume the threat is introduced further in.

You'll get to a point where nothing has happened for an hour or two then let your guard down. The longer you keep it up the less you can keep your facade up.

Maybe ten years ago user but there are dozens of bargain-bin "horror" walking sims, people are desensitized to it.

>>Well, there's been nothing so far, so I guess there is nothing at all
After a few hours of gameplay, yeah.

No threat worked just fine for Scratches, though.

You're literally describing Gone Home.

Well I ardently disagree. Throughout the game, it was always tense walking through the hallways and keeping ears open for any hint of any bum rush that was about to happen. Often times it wasn't even the bums themselves, it was just that constant tension of worrying about when the next encounter was gonna come in, and listening for that with Condemned's A+ atmospheric sound design just further cranked things up another notch. This especially came into play as the bums shifted into more predatorial variants that further blended into or took advantage of the scenery, further adding to the feeling of the walls having eyes.

I'm someone who can't do horror well (I'm bad at Outlast and still haven't been able to work up the courage to Alien Isolation) can I gotta say I can't agree. It was scary at first, yeah, but they keep using the same bums out of nowhere after a point that it stops being effective on you and they start to pile on better and better weaponry.

The atmosphere is what they do well paired with the tension, not really the bums themselves.

Not even a few hours. I got this pixel game "Home" from a humble bundle or something a decade ago, and I remember thinking the start of it was rather promising, but it quickly became apparent that it was gonna be an encounterless walking sim. I'd say people can pick up after the first 20 minutes whether it's gonna be a walk in the park or not.