I've seen some people on the TWI's forums complaining about how Killing Floor has gone from being terrifying and brilliantly scary to silly and almost nonsensical. However, I'm posting to talk about fear and that, while the ambiance of Killing Floor hasn't stayed the same throughout its current life, it certainly has lost any terror that it originally had.
First, let's look at fear itself. To start off, if you have read the Harry Potter series, then you'll probably remember this quote from Dumbledore:
"It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more."
For some reason, this quote rang out loud to me, and fairly recently did I realize that this is because of how much sense it makes when it comes to actual fear: we fear what we don't know, aren't certain of, or otherwise don't understand (though I'm not sure if everybody else in the world learns this early, since I've never really thought about it before). This is most noticeable when we think about why we fear or are otherwise scared of things that range from the undiscovered animals in the dark deep blues of the sea we have yet to explore, to the abnormal walk of the mentally impaired: Because we don't know or aren't certain about them.
Questions race through our minds when it comes to topics like this; for example, one might see a person pacing in an abnormal fashion while in a local grocery store. Immediately, most people that bare to notice the abnormal pace have at least this question race through their mind: Why are they walking like that? And that is because they aren't certain of what actually happened to impair their walk. Of course, the person might have just stubbed their toe or had their leg fall asleep and are trying to walk it off, but unless he tell people, then nobody knows that, and whether they'd like to admit it or not, the person that sees this experiences at least a small amount of fear.
Summary: We fear what we don't know.
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Now, how does this translate to Killing Floor? Well, first off, Killing Floor is a "Survival Horror" game. Most (as in the ones that don't abuse jump scares to no end) creators of this type of games or other media know very well about fear, and both use and abuse it to make the experience scarier. How they pull this off is by putting those going through the experience in situations where they ask the most questions, which means that they become increasingly uncertain. Walking down a sunny road and spotting a random dog won't raise most questions other than "Whose dog is that?" and "Will that dog attack me?", but walking down a dark, blood-laced hallway and coming upon a dog missing a leg and barking at seemingly nothing will certainly raise some questions, as well as some neckhair.
Killing Floor is a unique case, similar to that of Left 4 Dead. "B-B-B-UT KILLING FLOOR AND LEFT 4 DEAD ARENT THAT SIMILAR!!! THEYRE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT GAMES!!!!!" That is true. However, their fear comes from very similar situations, for the most part. When you first start the game, and begin your first playthrough, you may be anywhere incredibly fearful to prepared but still a bit frightened, depending on how experienced you are with the genre and how much research you did on the game. However, since it's the first playthrough, fear is guaranteed at some point, and this is because you don't know much of how the game works (even IF you did research on the game). This fear doesn't last through many more playthroughs, because you're learning more about how the game works, and are using that knowledge to answer the initially raised questions. That little black crawling bugger isn't as scary when you learn that he only leaps very close to you, the giant, silly-sounding chainsaw wielding git doesn't fare very well to constantly being wacked with a samurai sword, and that giant ****** with mincers for arms isn't as scary when he's being pumped full of AA12 rounds. This also translates to how far through you're in, as you only start out with a peashooter, giving a very fair balance of uncertainty pertaining to whether or not you'll survive at any point (it isn't uncommon to be surrounded on wave 1 and immediately offed if you aren't a seasoned veteran or are going up to a tougher difficulty), especially notable during the Patriarch, who is still pretty hard to win against even if your team is experienced. Basically, Killing Floor has situations where you're able to answer the questions, moreso than, say, Amnesia: The Dark Descent.
The only way that Tripwire Interactive could possibly make the game scarier for older and vastly experienced players would be to release a new specimen that has an incredibly strange but still terrifying appearance as well as a completely random attack pattern, and not make any mention of it whatsoever. This would raise the most questions out of any other addition to the game, short of one of the developers being brutally murdered, with a note on his mutilated corpse reading "FLESH. POOOUUUUUUUUUNNNDDD."
"The game isn't as scary as it once was" is true in essence, but only from your point of view. Plus, walking through a low-gravity spaceship and turning to see this is just as scary, if not scarier, as walking through a brightly lit london and spotting a Gorefast for the first time would be.
In Conclusion: Yes, Killing Floor isn't as scary anymore for you, and yes, the vibe it gives off isn't as dark and gritty as it used to be. However, the scare factor is completely dependent on YOUR experience, and has very little to do with how old the game is, or how TWI tweaks the ambiance of the game by adding new events with strange-looking specimens.
First, let's look at fear itself. To start off, if you have read the Harry Potter series, then you'll probably remember this quote from Dumbledore:
"It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more."
For some reason, this quote rang out loud to me, and fairly recently did I realize that this is because of how much sense it makes when it comes to actual fear: we fear what we don't know, aren't certain of, or otherwise don't understand (though I'm not sure if everybody else in the world learns this early, since I've never really thought about it before). This is most noticeable when we think about why we fear or are otherwise scared of things that range from the undiscovered animals in the dark deep blues of the sea we have yet to explore, to the abnormal walk of the mentally impaired: Because we don't know or aren't certain about them.
Questions race through our minds when it comes to topics like this; for example, one might see a person pacing in an abnormal fashion while in a local grocery store. Immediately, most people that bare to notice the abnormal pace have at least this question race through their mind: Why are they walking like that? And that is because they aren't certain of what actually happened to impair their walk. Of course, the person might have just stubbed their toe or had their leg fall asleep and are trying to walk it off, but unless he tell people, then nobody knows that, and whether they'd like to admit it or not, the person that sees this experiences at least a small amount of fear.
Summary: We fear what we don't know.
-----------------------------------------------
Now, how does this translate to Killing Floor? Well, first off, Killing Floor is a "Survival Horror" game. Most (as in the ones that don't abuse jump scares to no end) creators of this type of games or other media know very well about fear, and both use and abuse it to make the experience scarier. How they pull this off is by putting those going through the experience in situations where they ask the most questions, which means that they become increasingly uncertain. Walking down a sunny road and spotting a random dog won't raise most questions other than "Whose dog is that?" and "Will that dog attack me?", but walking down a dark, blood-laced hallway and coming upon a dog missing a leg and barking at seemingly nothing will certainly raise some questions, as well as some neckhair.
Killing Floor is a unique case, similar to that of Left 4 Dead. "B-B-B-UT KILLING FLOOR AND LEFT 4 DEAD ARENT THAT SIMILAR!!! THEYRE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT GAMES!!!!!" That is true. However, their fear comes from very similar situations, for the most part. When you first start the game, and begin your first playthrough, you may be anywhere incredibly fearful to prepared but still a bit frightened, depending on how experienced you are with the genre and how much research you did on the game. However, since it's the first playthrough, fear is guaranteed at some point, and this is because you don't know much of how the game works (even IF you did research on the game). This fear doesn't last through many more playthroughs, because you're learning more about how the game works, and are using that knowledge to answer the initially raised questions. That little black crawling bugger isn't as scary when you learn that he only leaps very close to you, the giant, silly-sounding chainsaw wielding git doesn't fare very well to constantly being wacked with a samurai sword, and that giant ****** with mincers for arms isn't as scary when he's being pumped full of AA12 rounds. This also translates to how far through you're in, as you only start out with a peashooter, giving a very fair balance of uncertainty pertaining to whether or not you'll survive at any point (it isn't uncommon to be surrounded on wave 1 and immediately offed if you aren't a seasoned veteran or are going up to a tougher difficulty), especially notable during the Patriarch, who is still pretty hard to win against even if your team is experienced. Basically, Killing Floor has situations where you're able to answer the questions, moreso than, say, Amnesia: The Dark Descent.
The only way that Tripwire Interactive could possibly make the game scarier for older and vastly experienced players would be to release a new specimen that has an incredibly strange but still terrifying appearance as well as a completely random attack pattern, and not make any mention of it whatsoever. This would raise the most questions out of any other addition to the game, short of one of the developers being brutally murdered, with a note on his mutilated corpse reading "FLESH. POOOUUUUUUUUUNNNDDD."
"The game isn't as scary as it once was" is true in essence, but only from your point of view. Plus, walking through a low-gravity spaceship and turning to see this is just as scary, if not scarier, as walking through a brightly lit london and spotting a Gorefast for the first time would be.
In Conclusion: Yes, Killing Floor isn't as scary anymore for you, and yes, the vibe it gives off isn't as dark and gritty as it used to be. However, the scare factor is completely dependent on YOUR experience, and has very little to do with how old the game is, or how TWI tweaks the ambiance of the game by adding new events with strange-looking specimens.
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