This is another instance of me getting an idea for something that I'm not particularly interested (much less motivated) to work on, but I thought the idea itself was cool enough to share. And hey, who knows what the future may hold, so why not write it down.
The basic idea I had in mind was that this would be a horror game that forgoes the common trope of there being a supernatural or sci-fi element to create monsters and drive the scares. No, the game would be designed to feel like a mostly plausible scenario. You're just some random civilian with minimal knowledge of firearms and no combat training, and for some reason or another, there is a bunch of armed soldiers in the building trying to kill you. Yeah, I haven't really thought too much on what the context of this would be... I don't know if they're hunting you specifically or just anyone in the area. I also don't know if these would be troops sent by the government or some private entity. So for now I'll just call them the "Goon Squad".
Anyway, the structure I had in mind was that it would be laid out somewhat like a classic Resident Evil game, where you'd have to traverse back and fourth through an interconnected structure solving puzzles and trying to survive. And the gameplay would be a first person shooter with very light milsim elements. And I do mean light, like mainly stuff related to bullets being wasted if you reload to early, having to hold still and wait for a second while you bandage yourself, that sort of thing. Just enough to make you feel sufficiently de-powered. Furthermore, I think the thing about this concept that intrigues me the most is that the people you're fighting aren't just mindless zombies. The Goon Squad would (hopefully) be fairly intelligent and act like a coordinated group of soldiers. Meaning they'd scan areas looking for movement and they'd radio in backup if you're spotted. More importantly, if you get in a fight with them and the bullets start flying, people are gonna know. If you fire off a shot and kill a soldier, everyone in your quarter of the building is going to react to the sound of gunshots and promptly run towards your position. So if you're forced to get in a gunfight, you will likely have to either try and hide somewhere, get the heck outta dodge, or maybe try and find a vantage point where you can pick off anyone who comes in. Although if you do that last thing too much, then when new members of the Goon Squad are sent in, they'll start throwing flashbangs into a room before investigating.
I should also mention that aesthetically, we'd still be going for a distinctly "horror" atmosphere. Not using sci-fi monsters or ghosts or whatever doesn't prevent us from using some creepy lighting and chilling sound designs. Also, I do like the idea of giving the Goon Squad that "illuminated gas mask" look, sort of like the HECU have in Half-Life, and the Helgast troops in the Killzone series. I can definitely get down with the idea of giving them uniforms that have a subtle alien look to them, just as long as they clearly behave like human soldiers.
I suppose the one major issue I see with this idea is just that it would be too difficult, and I can see two possible ways to remedy that-
- You make actually encountering a soldier a rare occurrence for a large chunk of the game. So the soldiers would usually just be in a group of 2 or 3, and there'd only ever be like 4 or 5 groups in the building at any given time.
- Widen the map up significantly so you can give soldiers a wide birth. You would have to stealth through areas in a manner closer to something like Far Cry.
Now maybe a game like this does exist and I'm just not aware of it, but I don't think I've ever seen a game come close to this. I mean already, the idea of a game structured like Resident Evil but with exclusively human enemies is not something I've ever heard of, let alone one where the AI is designed to respond in a way actual soldiers would. The only game I've heard of that seems to even be in the ball park conceptually is... This War of Mine, maybe...? That's a 2D survival game. But from what I understand, that's mainly meant to be a commentary on what being in a warzone does to civilians and their families... and with the premise I just outlined, you definitely could go in that direction thematically, but that's not really what made me think this was such a cool concept. I mostly just like the idea of creating horror simply by being outnumbered and outgunned, all while using enemies that aren't something we'd typically call "creepy".
Anyway, this is just something that's been bouncing around in my head recently and I needed to get it on paper. Despite not actually playing that many survival horror games, I do find the genre infinitely fascinating and think there's a lot of ideas that people simply haven't explored. And this is once concept that I'd absolutely love to see.
