I agree that the zoomed out perspective prevents frustration deaths from dangers coming off-screen and personally don't see any downsides to keeping it zoomed out the entire time, but yeah the devs intended for the game to be played with the default zoomed in view exclusively and only included the option to zoom out because play testers complained about stuff coming from off-screen.
We meant for zooming out to be a way to take a look ahead when you felt like you needed to, but not play that way the whole time.
Reason being we liked the action more intimate and up close, but felt that players may need to look ahead sometimes or want to "peak" so to speak. We carefully designed the game with audio warnings and with timing that it is very possible to react in time to anything tossed at you with the zoomed in cam.
The reason, very honestly, that we didn't want to initially leave it so that players could play in zoomed out mode all the time was that weird things became apparent. Such as enemies standing around inactive and potential performance problems on older machines we hoped would still play the game. We also didn't think it would really be something people actually cared that much about.
The ProJared vid where he wanted it was really the tipping point, we were already debating it before and after the game's release (keeping a close eye on how everyone played it). We figured, well hell... if people are having fun and don't mind those things I personally thought would be issues potentially then why not let people play that way?
Taron and I think about and often about minute details, because we really do want to provide particularly crafted experiences. At the same time we want players to be able to play the way they feel they should be able to play (with in the game's context) with fully customizable control options and feature set for their personal enjoyment and comfort.
I prefer to play the game zoomed in, BUT I can see why people really enjoy the other option. Especially on large TVs/Monitors, etc. It also does tend to make things a tiny bit less stressful!
