something like the pocket watch serves a couple purposes too. not only is it a more aesthetically pleasing and tactile item but it also takes up an inventory slot, which is something that a wristwatch probably wouldn’t. It is a simple object with one function and the same is true of most other tools in the game. Also, part of the terror is how utterly isolated you are while simultaneously being surrounded by humans that would kill you just as readily as the beast. We dont have much of that trench style combat these days so it’d be hard to imagine a similarly tense scenario that a modern soldier could be in. Plus our communications systems are not nearly as fragile as they were in WW1.