Jumpscares are an important part of the puzzle, but lazy devs treat them as the entire thing.
A properly executed one is there to make the build up and dread actually lead to something. No matter how well equipped you are or confident in the game, its an attack on you the player, meaning its always effective. Without the "jumpscare" portion, the sound of Pyramid Head scrapping in the background loses all fear because after the first go around you know its meaningless filler and cannot actually harm you.
The apex of the Genre still is and will always be Condemned 2's multiplayer, because it actually managed to incorporate both the "building dread" and the "jumpscare" portion into part of the actual gameplay instead of just player feelings. The constant dread means you don't move as fast as you should in fear of an ambush or getting spooked and you keep your flashlight off so they don't see you coming, lighting is so powerful that players can be jumpscares if they choose to by turning off their flashlights and waiting for you to come by (because you turned yours off to not be seen, you can't see them either), and the low TTK and sensitive controls means that someone who just got jumpscared won't be able to land the necessary hits to win a brawl.
It even manages a game mode to do the RE style, where you have a gun with a lot of ammo and health but your supplies are finite, while the enemies have instant respawns and low health to Bum Rush (name of the mode) you to try and chip you down. So its the growing fear of knowing every missed bullet or small damage will add up.
Jumpscares are an important part of the puzzle, but lazy devs treat them as the entire thing.
A properly executed one is there to make the build up and dread actually lead to something. No matter how well equipped you are or confident in the game, its an attack on you the player, meaning its always effective. Without the "jumpscare" portion, the sound of Pyramid Head scrapping in the background loses all fear because after the first go around you know its meaningless filler and cannot actually harm you.
The apex of the Genre still is and will always be Condemned 2's multiplayer, because it actually managed to incorporate both the "building dread" and the "jumpscare" portion into part of the actual gameplay instead of just player feelings. The constant dread means you don't move as fast as you should in fear of an ambush or getting spooked and you keep your flashlight off so they don't see you coming, lighting is so powerful that players can be jumpscares if they choose to by turning off their flashlights and waiting for you to come by (because you turned yours off to not be seen, you can't see them either), and the low TTK and sensitive controls means that someone who just got jumpscared won't be able to land the necessary hits to win a brawl.
It even manages a game mode to do the RE style, where you have a gun with a lot of ammo and health but your supplies are finite, while the enemies have instant respawns and low health to Bum Rush (name of the mode) you to try and chip you down. So its the growing fear of knowing every missed bullet or small damage will add up.