Horror Games Need Combat

So Alien Isolation popped up on my Steam for a pre load and after doing some digging to get some information.  As far as I'm aware Alien Isolation is basically Amnesia but with Alien which is fine for a series like that, but in general there's this annoying trend for horror games to be all about running away from something.

Really it all started with Amnesia a few years ago.  Survival Horror was getting a bit stale and then suddenly this little indie title pops up for PC and everyone goes nuts.  Amnesia was different from a lot of horror games because ALL combat had been removed and the idea was that you were to run around solving puzzles while avoiding any confrontation.  In the event that you were found by the big monsters, you weren't able to do anything to it so your only option was to run.

Amnesia was a good game, I really enjoyed it but it started this annoying thing where now there are LOADS of horror games with 0 combat and it's all about running away.  I find this annoying because it's gone and removed the "survival" from survival horror and in a lot of cases there isn't much horror to be found either.

Combat is important to survival horror because it adds that extra layer of tension and uses game mechanics to create an extra level of fear.  If you go back and play something like Resident Evil now it's not scary because of it's laughable graphics and voice work but it's still fun to play and extremely tense because of how that game manages combat.  Ammunition and healing items are scarce and actually engaging in combat is a big decision that you have to make as a player because you have no idea when you might need those bullets or herbs for something nastier that may come later.

Fatal Frame took this idea another step further by not only making resources hard to find but by making combat extremely intense by basing damage on proximity and timing.  In that game you're using a camera so to get a good shot and do a decent chunk of damage you have to be in their grill except if you want to maximise your damage then you have to grab a shot of the ghost JUST before it hits you.  It's intense, scary and daunting even if you've beaten the game a few times before.

Games like Resident Evil 4 and Dead Space made this a non issue because in those games you ALWAYS have ammo and healing and you are ALWAYS sure that there will be more around the next corner which is why when a game like Amnesia came out it was such a breath of fresh air.  However I think that horror games are missing out on something by not having combat.  No more am I planning the best route through a given situation but I'm just saving and loading in order to find the best space to hide and progress to the next part of the game.

There were times in old horror games when I was legitimately worried that my trigger happiness or the fact that I had taken too much damage meant that I wouldn't be able to beat the game and that's a feeling I want back.  What made survival horror such a great genre way back when was the fact that it was scary AND challenging.  Now the challenge has been removed and it's all about running away and I feel the genre is worse off for it.