...So I watched the first 12 minutes of gameplay footage from the Gamescom demo, and while the graphics and atmosphere looks incredible I feel like they're dropping the ball with the overuse of psychological effects. It's literally all over the place and I can't help but feel that it's going to be annoying in the long term unless they manage to find the right balance. From the looks of this demo though, I'm worried that they've misunderstood what psychological horror is truly about. Having stuff like "constant whispering voices" coming from inside Alan's mind (which feels like it's been taken straight out of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice) is something that has to be used VERY lightly in order to be an effective horror experience.
If gameplay is constantly overshadowed by whispering voices, hallucinations, trippy effects and stuff like that, the overuse of such things will make the overall experience seem like ”style over substance”. A good comparison would be the 2018 horror film Mandy starring Nicolas Cage, which likewise had an overuse of trippy stylistic effects. I don't know about you guys, but throwing random effects, gibberish and **** into your face is neither "genius" nor "art" in my opinion. And that's coming from a person like myself who enjoys films like David Lynch's Mulholland Drive - films where the random stylistic stuff isn't actually random or stylistic but serve the story in a profound way.
Moderation is the key to a successful psychological horror experience. There's a reason why the Silent Hill games are still considered to be unmatched in the genre to this very day, and that's because they don't shove the horror right into your face like it's some damn puke fest of PTSD. One can only hope that Remedy has found a way to balance the stylistic effects with grounded gameplay, but I have to see much more before I can truly judge the game.