Luckily for me, my college roommate and I had played through the Gears of War series just before, which in many ways had taught me several of the third-person shooter mechanics I would need while cutting off limbs and navigating the USG Ishimura. From personal experience, my first major horror game I tackled was the hauntingly gory Dead Space.
Similarly, gaining strong mechanical understanding of a horror game can be a key tool to overcoming scary games fears.
