A fresh perspective

Camera usage and behaviour is incredibly important in game design. It can make or break a game, and a good camera should always support the type of game. For example, lets look at some three horror games with different perspective. First, the classic Silent Hill 2

Silent Hill 2. (2001). Konami.

Silent Hill 2 is a PlayStation 2 game, later ported to everything, that utilises a third-person camera with multiple angles. As a result, the game feels claustrophobic and unnerving. The simple act of removing camera control from the player makes the player(and therefore the character) feel helpless and vulnerable.. Which is perfect for this type of horror game. The camera also points at an angle down over the player. This is quite an oppressive angle, and further drives home the feeling of claustrophobia. All of this makes the game feel as it should. It draws the player in and makes them feel exactly what the designers intended.

Another really good horror game is the first-person survival horror game Alien: Isolation

Alien: Isolation (2014). Creative Assembly

This game is played on-board a space station that contains you, a bunch of paranoid people with guns, androids and a single Xenomorph. This perspective (with the help of some killer animations) provides one of the most direct ways to force a player to relate to their character. However, in horror, it can also be one of the scariest.

First-person cameras are great for horror for a number of reasons. Firstly, immersion is essential in horror games, and this camera immerses the player the most (probably). This makes encounters with monsters pants-wetting, as they are right in your eyes. Combat is usually restricted in these games. Either you can't kill the monsters and you have to hide from them, or you can't kill anything and have to hide from everything. This game is in the former, which brings me to my second point. First-person combat is cool. It's easy to use and familiar. Add to that the tight, enclosed environments in first-person (with those killer animations I mentioned) and it's easy to set the right atmosphere.

The last game I want to mention is Dead Space.

Dead Space (2008). Visceral Games.

This game is in a more traditional thrid-person camera perspective, with the player able to look around and control the camera, and the camera being at a fixed location behind the character. This is also present in third-person shooters like Gears Of War and the Max Payne series.

In horror, this angle suits the combat heavy nature of this game. Your character is armed at all times, and there are a lot of monsters to get through. The horror, unlike the previous examples, doesn't come from the atmosphere or the concept, but instead from cosmic horrors popping out at you and trying to eat your face while it's still attached., Which means the camera gets to do less work and just serve as the characters rotation and for aiming your gun. In short, the choice of perspective can really support the particulars of the genre of game, as well as it's own world, and rules. Perspective design is a part of experience design, and is an extremely powerful tool to consider when designing games.

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