'Amnesia: The Bunker' request; no more fear!

Ever since the game that kicked off Frictional Games' popular hold on the survival horror genre, a single mechanic has been holding their games back ever since. That being the fear mechanic.

What is fear?

The fear mechanic is used mostly in their Amnesia series. In simple terms, your character needs to stay in some sort of light source. If not, they are subjected to tunnel vision, greater enemy detection, and in more recent titles (Amnesia: Rebirth) causes death. This changes depending on what Amnesia game you play as Amnesia: The Dark Descent (same mechanic titled 'Sanity') also uses this to it's fullest extent. Like Rebirth, you need to keep close to a light source or your sanity slowly drains while in darkness.

Fun On Paper

While the fear/sanity mechanic sounds fun on paper, in practice it makes for some tedious gameplay. Especially during The Dark Descent, you are subjected to little matches and oil throughout a given level. Once you find and use all of them, you have to move to the next area to find more for your lamp. Again, this sounds fun as it definitely increases tension but on higher difficulties, if you don't know where you are going and where you are doing, it's a chore. This mostly stems from a person's first time playing the game as they are unfamiliar with the world and how the mechanics work. However, even if you are a skilled player, once you run out of matches you have to rely on past saves to save more oil and matches for when you need them.

Overstayed It's Welcome

The fact of the matter is, the mechanic simply overstayed it's welcome. I know that this is technically what the games are most known for but the fact still remains. Perhaps introducing this mechanic on a higher difficulty would be better. That way, for a new player to the series, they are more inclined to stay with the game. Either way, this mechanic should not have this much power over gameplay even if it's a staple of the series. It could be controlled or even scripted during specific segments of the game, not all the time.

Coupled with a tiring genre

Another point to mention is the genre this mechanic is attached to, that being survival horror. I'm not going to go into too much detail but the point is that survival horror games lack very little variety. The same mechanics still stand, run and hide from you enemies. Some times games will give you weapons but you still do the same resource management (Amnesia has matches and oil) and same scenarios every game. Spot enemy roaming, hide from enemy, enemy spots you, run or shoot enemy, repeat. This obviously changes depending on the specific game and situation but for Amnesia, this is all the game is. You cannot fight back, all you can do is run and hide. Do we really need a mechanic that punishes us from creeping around in the dark, hiding from the monsters?

Side Note: Amnesia The Bunker lets you have a pistol so you can shoot enemies. It also doesn't seem to use a fear/sanity mechanic. This should be a given for the series moving forward.