Hello, I'm a bit new to the forums. I've recently started to buckle down and focus on one project and decided that being part of a dev community may prove helpful all around.

Without going into to much detail, the game I'm making takes place entirely underground, the overall atmosphere is horror-ish. It's 3D and is going to play more like a survival sandbox game.There will be modifiable terrain and the ability to build structures and technical systems (piping/electric). Right now I'm trying to decide what POV would be the least awkward and most pleasing to play in this kind of game.

Top-down perspectives like Factorio seem to make creating technical systems easy and pleasing, but this perceptive also makes it very hard for the player to create any type of ascetically pleasing structure, and normally anything the player builds eventually ends up looking like a mess. Not to mention that looking down at the game world can distance the player, nullifying the horror aspect.

A First-person perceptive would preserve the horror aspect of the game and improve the ability to build structures. It would also mean the world would be more intractable because the player wouldn't be as restricted by the camera and could get into smaller areas, but it would also come with its own challenges. The game itself would need more polishing on my side to be more attractive up close, but more than anything I'm afraid It'll end up looking/playing too much like minecraft.

I've been considering something like this: http://www.pandum.net/home/img/sc1.png - "Pandum" By Stoony

Sort of a side-down 3d perspective. (I'm sure their is a name for it but im not sure). However I'm also thinking that an over the shoulder approach might be ideal. It worked really well for dead space and I'm interested to see If it would lend itself well for a game like mine.

At this point I'm looking for some fresh perspectives on the topic. Am I making any assumptions i shouldn't be? are their options I haven't considered?

EDIT: I have found out that the camera angle is called "parallel projection"

>> takes place entirely underground,

3pv cams and tunnels tend to not play well together. tunnels leave little room for any kind of decent chasecam view. unless they are very large tunnels.

2d is one option.

3d with both 1pv and 3pv cams is probably the best option.

I miss selective quote. Third person underground can work fine, as long as you have a static camera angle. The Diablo games, for example, are all third person, and have a great deal of underground areas. I wouldn't do a third person diablo style camera if I wanted the player to feel claustrophobic, as you end up not drawing the ceiling. And a dynamic rotating third person camera in tight corridors is just annoying, as it has to constantly not penetrate the walls around it, so as you pivot the camera, it's going to zoom in/out different levels. It's not impossible, the early Tomb Raiders did it, it's just more work.

Siren's camera angle was quite unique.

It's 3rd person by default but if you're near puzzles or key items, the camera angle changes to "fixed camera", so that these objects become more obvious.

The "fixed camera" will not happen if you're being chased by an enemy.
So a player who clumsily gets spotted or constantly in combat might not be able to notice the items and puzzles.