I'm glad I will NEVER AGAIN buy day one or Pre order any video games.
ALL studios have no shame to launch UNFINISHED Games.

Of course, in the case of this game, consoles versions are pretty optimized (They don't want to have the same problems as ... say.. Cyberpunk 2077 on consoles, hum ???!!!) but the PC version ...!!
I guess studios , nowadays don't have any satisfaction to work in this business... Awful !

Check here for an honest review.... unbelievable (in a BAD way....) ! :-(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsZo3RvEKGg&ab_channel=WorthABuy

Yes, it is supposed to be a throwback and reminiscent of RE/Silent Hill.

RE 2, and 3 Remakes, show how to do that properly, and much better, without the crappy fixed viewpoints.
it was always the worst aspect of those old games, and repeating after RE2 Remake comes out is a real disappointment.
Made them rely too damn much on cheap jump scares, and unrealistic shooting of zombies off screen was awful.

while I wouldn't say it absolutely ruins this game, before playing it, it's is not required, and definitely makes this a far worse game than it should be.

I would have loved that. Maybe in the next game we are lucky.

I get the impression Bloober is a budget dev and this was a way for them to save money on development costs. You might not like it, most people don't seem to care, but it is what it is, unfortunately.

I agree free cameras are better, but I like how the fixed camera in this game adds to the tension. That's just me, though.

I disagree that fixed cameras add to the tension, It's not so much a battle between fixed camera, and free, as between character view point (3rd, or 1st person), versus a less immersive isometric viewpoint.

RE2 Remake showed that survival Horror tension doesn't rely on having a fixed isometric camera, it relies on good game design, and it has nothing to do with available budgets either, these assets, and UE4 would have worked just as well for a 3d person viewpoint.

I simply believe RE2 Remake is a better game than the original, because the characters are better to control, and more immersive.
Likewise, I believe this would be a better game with a 3rd person camera, just like RE2 Remake showed it wasn't the camera viewpoint that made RE2 a good game, it was having both a good story, and good game design

In most cases this type of fixed camera view just makes the gameplay more difficult to control especially when the devs use something like a right angled turn in a chase sequence that placed the camera in front of the player.

If you have to die, just to know what's ahead of you. the devs are doing it wrong, it makes games far less immersive.
Plus fixed camera's make controlling the character far more unintuitive, where your instinctive reactions can't be relied on as much as you would in 1st, or 3rd person view, whether camera's freely controlled, or not or not.

The cheap ass right angled turn caused death, when you are running towards the camera, made me quit the game in disgust.
I haven't played it since. That wasn't tense, just damn annoying.

Fixed cam is great. Every other game has adjustable cams, why make it like everything else? I agree it adds to the tension. Love the throwback! Most of you sounds like a bunch of entitled crybabies.

Because it's control system is a total piece of shit.

As soon as the main monster starts chasing you the controls of the character become virtually impossible on PC, with K&M.

Not only do you have to guess what direction you're going, when running towards the camera, when after dying several times you finally get that right, the camera suddenly switches to another position, and your controls switch out from under your fingers.

What was D suddenly becomes W, just because the damn camera switched positions,This then becomes a veritable sequence of right angled turns, and unpredictable camera jumps changing the controls directions without warning, and if I make a single mistake, and you're back to square one.,

Square one is quitting the game for good, and playing something designed to use K&M.

This isn't new, it's what makes RE1 to 3, an awful experience with K&M, and what has made me quit playing all of those games as well.
Even RE4 suffers from poorly ported controls designed for controller, and making zero adjustments for PC gamers that don't use a controller. RE2 Remake was the first RE game done right on PC, and even RE1 Remastered showed the fixed camera controls could be done better for K&M if an effort was made.

It says something when, I'm a fan of the RE1 to 3 classic zombie stories (but not 4+ parasite stories, even though fixed camera was dropped), yet only ever watched others playing the classic games due to awful K&M controls, and the fixed camera that forced them, until RE2/3 Remakes showed a 3rd person view could do the stories justice, without losing the survival horror feels.

It's not rocket science, either switch the camera, or the controls, but don't switch both at the same damn time.
It leads to people like me, giving up on the game, because console controls don't work on K&M, without any adjustments.

Fix the damn control system Bloober Team, so that when camera moves my keys stay the same during the stupid, and Bullshit chase sequence,and whatever you do don't send me back to the start of the chase, when I inevitably get tripped up by your absolutely ridiculous controls jumping around, crossed with this asinine camera fixation also jumping around..

I'm sorry that you experienced such bad problems with the chasing sequences, I didn't (also a keyboard/mouse player).

The keys behave just the same as in any other game that features such sequences. S moves towards the camera, W moves away from it, D always moves the char to the right side of the camera, S to the left. When the camera angle changes, so do the controls. That's a standard in many games (not in all, in some games, W is always forward, even when the camera rotates)

In ONE sequence the char would first run into the first wall for a second or two when the sequence starts, but that's it. That was also the only sequence I had problems with but only at a later point, when I was trying to move the cart to the wrong direction (not because of the controls, but because I was thinking of something else).

I could have done without these action sequences and more focus on interaction and inventory, but these sequences were not done any worse than in other games.

My point wasn't that this does such chases worse than other games, the point is it's fundamentally bad in every one of them, unless during the chase the camera follows the player, whether from the front, side, or the best method following the character, essentially going into a third person mode just for the chase.

You can see this even during RE2 Remakes alligator chase, where camera is fixed to the front, it works well enough, because it stays in that position for the duration of the chase

In 3rd, or 1st person, we don't see any 90 jumps of camera angle, because players, or devs generally control that camera and keep it focussed in the direction the character is facing and WASD always point in the direction the player is going, because we are always viewing the action, from behind the character, or through there eyes.

I've never completed a game where both camera, and direction make these arbitrary changes in direction, and also (as if to add insult to injury), a failure resets the action to the very start of the chase.

That's the real cause of my rage quitting such games, because I can struggle through, if save points preserve some progress, but If the dev team goes down the sadistic, all or nothing route, I choose nothing, and find a better game to play.

I was enjoying the game until that chase, despite the flawed fixed camera choice, but that chase killed my interest, when after many fails on that first turn, I'd finally got round 4, or 5 corners, then died again, and yet still got dumped back to the start of the chase.
I wasn't about to waste my time trying again, and again. I'd had my fill of it by that point.

Well, you said it doesn't work and it's confusing, but it simply isn't. Ok, YOU have a problem with it, but it has been used in so many games already, that there is one simple conclusion why that was done: It works for the general public.

I may come from a different audience, I played many graphic adventures, also their first steps into the 3d world (try Gabriel Knight 3 or Grimd Fandango if you want to know about bad controls in otherwise great games). Therefore I am quite used to this kind of locomotion. Also many games for kids like the Lego games behave like this and ... it works and is enjoyable. But I also play action adventure/platformer games, so I can say, the running sequences in Medium are easy peasy, I was quite happy that they would not interrupt the rest of the game. There are much harder ones in Lego Star Wars.

In a narrative game fixed camera angles are a good tool to make the viewer actually see what the narrator wants him to see, I find this a lot better than what was done in Layers of Fear. Of course effects like a corridor extending in front of you or shock effects when turning the camera can't be done without interrupting the game flow but then again it also does that in most 1st person games.

I can understand and accept that you don't like it, but sayig it is "bad" or "broken" or "ruins the game" is just plain wrong.