Puzzles are part of the "core" of the survival horror genre though. It's not an outside element they arbitrarily decided to put in "just cause"..
I do question this though. But, from the view of the overall trend, really. The question becomes: WHY is it part of the core, or at least considered to be? When you really think about it, it just doesnt have a logical function, either to the gameplay OR the narrative in most cases.
As a comparison, think of the idea of, I dunno, floating coins and such in a platformer. In one of those, they serve a very natural/organic purpose that works WITH the core design concept of jumping. They can be placed in various spots to encourage the player to attempt more difficult jumping sections, or as rewards for dealing with, I dunno, a series of falling platforms. They can be reasons to deal with enemies that may be guarding them, and overall serve to give that dopamine-ish sense of reward for completing tasks. And on top of that, unless done ENTIRELY wrong, they never break the pacing, because you never seperate from the jumping to deal with them.
In survival horror though, the core concept is... er... surviving and horror. The horror element is the one I'm most familiar with, and the puzzle elements (in most cases, not all) are often what really kills the experience for me, as they very heavily dilute the immersion factor and are usually also very seperated from the horror and survival gameplay elements.
Like, going through a game in the vein of RE: maybe there's a screwy lock on a random door where you need to insert, I dunno, three pig heads and turn them the right way. And the question is... WHY? In a platformer, putting shiny whatsits in totally random places makes sense... freaking Mario isnt exactly meant to be a realistic or immersive experience. It's meant to be wild, flashy, and somewhat surreal, with level design placed above all else. But most survival horror isnt about any of those things. Gritty realism and immersion, even when dealing with cosmic abominations... that's what makes the scares work.
The pig-head lock though, often just... doesnt fit. WHY is it there? What kind of doofus would bother building such a contraption? Even further, what kind of doofus would bother doing that and then hide the blasted heads around in spots that just scream "SEARCH ME"? I mean, that's "Ganon putting boss keys in big chests guarded by idiots" levels of stupid. They COULD just put, you know... a proper, professional lock on it, and keep the actual key with them. Or even use digital locks, requiring a code for more secure areas (of course, I've seen lots of games screw THAT up too). I mean, in RE 7, it was at least a somewhat normal house (barring the Mold of course) but these screwball gizmos were all over the place. As in most such games, there's not exactly a whole lot of in-universe explanation, or even mild exposition about them, and they fail to tie into the story or the game's core horror-focused mechanics. RE 7 if I recall correctly sorta made a bit of an attempt at explaining it kinda, but... honestly, seemed really contrived, didnt make it less silly.
And there just seems like there could be better ways to do it, if the puzzles MUST be there. RE 7 for instance: Instead of weird mechanical locks that make no sense, why not have the "locks" be the Mold itself? And the "keys" could instead be perhaps some sort of chemical concoction you need to craft that can dissolve that specific breed of mold. AND, a freaky gross setup involving that adds to the horror element rather than seeming out of place (I mean, the house is DRENCHED in the stuff; the idea absolutely fits without breaking theme). There'd be a lot of ways to creatively implement this while not only fitting the setting but also fitting the story and lore. Instead... pig heads in a door, or whatever.
Aside from that, at this point I've just played waaaayyyyyyy too many horror games that never saw the need to do any of that... and they worked and flowed just so darned well without it (and had MUCH better pacing). With the immersion never breaking, due to not reaching a point where I go "wait, why in the world is that even there? How does that make any sense whatsoever?"
There are of course exceptions to all of this though, but... they seem few and far between. At the very least there are so many horror games out there that it's easy for me to just avoid the ones that do too much of this sort of thing. If others like them, that's fine, but... yeah I usually avoid these sorts.
Sorry, that was all very rambly, but horror game design concepts are just fascinating to me, is the thing. I'd love to try and make one myself at some point, but... yeah I probably wouldnt be very good at that. It'd probably just be a really silly mess.
