>>712451338
>Removing all combat would make it into what the Youtube era secondaries already think Silent Hill is, though.
Source: your arse.
SH's biggest innovation and appeal from the very get-go has been its tendency to encourage AVOIDING conflicts whenever possible, by utilizing the simple yet effective stealth elements (turning OFF flashlight, moving quietly) or just by legging it. This meshes great with the traditional survival horror scene as well, as replaying the same game numerous times and eventually speedrunning them for even better rewards kinda requires not engaging with the enemies.
The GenZ toddlers staring Twitch streams and whatnot literally have no fucking clue what Silent Hill even is. The same shit happened with games like Doom, Zelda, and even Resident Evil just a few years ago, with the shitty 2016 / Eternal, BotW and RE7-8 + demakes being many kiddos' first touch with these old "boomer games" that seldom saw coverage on their Piss4-5 systems any more.
Now Metal Gear Solid is in a similar tough spot, with few 10-20yos even knowing who Solid Snake is, which is a juicy chance for the Jewnami to milk:
they can remake and rebrand the IP into anything they want, and market it as the hottest shit ever, free of the shackles of the OG developers' and fans' visions and desires.
Turning SH into a "RE4 clone" was an universally hated decision 16 years ago.
Back then, the term "Souls-like" wasn't yet even invented, as the only game of the sort was the Demon's Souls, which itself was seen as a mere real-time 3D take on dungeon crawlers. These days, however, it's very easy to see the Souls-like influences in every other action horror title, with parrying, dodging and timed combos playing more and more important, more time consuming role in these games.
Just like how RPGs have devolved from actual ROLE-playing sims into "action-slop with numbers going up", the horror genre's quickly being homogenized into similar over-shoulder 3rd person hack&slash.