Recently I’ve played dead space and some other survival horror games like Alien Isolation, and just about every single time you see someone in there, they’re somehow invincible. Like, the fuck, that fat idiot inside that VIP Area there has somehow managed to lock himself in that room for what, weeks? Months? And somehow never did any of the necromorphs even notice him? And that crazy scientist guy? He can just run around in the ship? And what about alien? The medic dude, like, there’s a vent right in the room next to him. And he has a broken leg, so the alien can even smell his blood. Also, what about the marshal? Well, thats kinda fair game, he has an effective weapon after all.
Being kinda serious for a second here, I think this is a byproduct of chasing ever higher production values in service of “realism”. The more they try to spackle over all the cracks, the more the ones they can’t/don’t become obvious to the player. Just like movies, videogames often require a bit of temporary suspension of disbelief.
I’m not gonna write a whole essay about chasing some perfect, mythical balance here, but it’s a design aspect that I feel a lot of developers just don’t consider at all. Maintaining a high level of illusion is extremely difficult and not even always all that worth it. Sometimes it’s just nice to admit you don’t know why that enemy dropped a glowing hamburger that restored 25% health, but those are the rules you’re playing by and you don’t have to question it.