Konami is out of touch with what Silent Hill fans want

Last night, Konami delivered a presentation on the future of their classic horror franchise Silent Hill. This was quite exciting, because up until this point the future of Silent Hill had been “there isn’t one” — but I still went in to the whole thing with a certain degree of trepidation. Modern-day Konami hasn’t exactly filled me with confidence that they know what to do with their classic properties — and after watching the presentation as a whole, I’d say I was right to be concerned.

Speaking as a longstanding fan of Silent Hill — particularly the first four games — I can say with confidence that there were just two very simple things I wanted from Konami in order to resurrect the franchise. One: rerelease the first four games on modern platforms to make them more accessible to modern audiences and counteract the ridiculous prices that the original versions go for these days. And two: actually finish making whatever PT was supposed to be a teaser for.

That’s it. That’s all. I would have been ecstatic with that, and I suspect many other people would have been also. Instead we got… well, let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Silent Hill 2 remake

Silent Hill 2 is a legendary game. Quite rightly regarded as one of the greatest games of all time — not just one of the greatest horror games of all time — it’s the textbook example of what the series is all about. On its original release, it demonstrated that “horror games” didn’t have to be about buckets of blood, but rather could be more thoughtful affairs that made players actually contemplate things about themselves and about the narrative they were witnessing.

Elements of it arguably feel a little clunky by modern standards, particularly when it comes to controls — though it is worth noting that it was one of the first horror games to successfully make use of what it referred to as a “3D” control scheme using analogue sticks rather than relying on tank controls. It was also noteworthy for offering independent difficulty levels for action and puzzles, with the latter feature throwing up some incredibly fiendish riddles on its highest level.

I hesitate to declare anything “perfection”, but Silent Hill 2 was pretty close to perfection. It did not — does not — need a remake. It needs a rerelease for a new audience, preferably without fucking it up like they did the PS3 “HD” version. It certainly does not need a remake that shifts the unsettling, varied camera angles of the original to a boring old triple-A game over-the-shoulder camera “for greater immersion in the game world”.

And while new developer Bloober Team has some reasonably solid horror game chops, many of their games can quite reasonably be described as attempting to ape the Silent Hill formula without quite getting what made it truly special. It remains to be seen if they can do the franchise proper proud with this new remake.

On top of that, PS5 exclusive? No thank you. Not only is PS5 still out of reach for many people, the Sony exec who delivered possibly the least enthusiastic congratulatory message I’ve ever seen made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t give a toss about Silent Hill itself; this was a business transaction, nothing more, and one that Sony felt would be profitable.

At least it’s coming to PC as well (including via Steam — Konami isn’t that stupid), and the console exclusivity is only for a year.

Return to Silent Hill: the movie

The first Silent Hill movie is often forgotten amid the assumptions of “video game movies are always bad”, but the fact is, it was actually pretty good. It certainly nailed the atmosphere and aesthetic of Silent Hill, and while the overall plot wasn’t especially memorable — I can’t remember anything that happened in it, though I also haven’t seen it for about 15 years — I remember coming out of the theatre thinking “yeah, they did a decent job there”.

Return to Silent Hill brings back a lot of the same team who worked on the previous movie, and the trailers shown certainly suggested that it would offer something of a similar quality to the original. But here’s the thing: I’m not really convinced that Silent Hill fans want another movie. I suspect they’d rather have another game. And by that I mean another game in the traditional format. Speaking of which…

Silent Hill Townfall

The second Silent Hill game project to be announced revealed nothing about its gameplay, save for the fact that it was being developed by Annapurna Interactive and No Code. This — along with the way the trailer was presented — suggests to me that this is probably going to be some sort of FMV game in keeping with many of Annapurna and No Code’s previous titles.

Now, I’ll admit that this does have the potential to be good. FMV games have certainly come a long way since their humble and cheesy beginnings in the ’90s, and the overall atmosphere of Silent Hill potentially lends itself quite well to the mysterious “found footage” format of storytelling often used in this kind of game.

And yet, once again speaking as a fan of classic Silent Hill, this isn’t really what I want from the series. This doesn’t feel like a Silent Hill game; it feels like someone taking the opportunity to take a famous brand and slap it on their psychological horror thriller FMV game. Admittedly, at this point it’s far too early to make any conclusive judgements, since we’ve seen next to nothing about the game itself, but I can’t help but feel immediately skeptical.

Silent Hill Ascension

My heart sank the moment this was introduced with “chat messages” flowing up the screen. Thankfully, my initial fear that this was just going to be some sort of asymmetrical multiplayer “killer vs victims” game was quickly dashed — although I’m not sure I’m a particular fan of what it was replaced with.

From what I understand — and the explanation wasn’t entirely clear — Silent Hill Ascension is going to be some sort of “interactive live TV series”, where the narrative unfolds “live”, and at various points the audience will be able to direct things. Rather than this being an interactive experience that everyone gets to experience differently and individually, however, it appears that the intention for Silent Hill Ascension is for the narrative to just go in one direction according to the whims of the audience, and that there is no going back.

This is a potentially interesting idea, but it also means that if you’re not “there” for it when it first happens, you’ve basically missed out on the main point of the experience, which seems like an unwise way to approach things. On top of that, placing decisions in the collective hands of the audience rather than individuals means that there’s a strong chance a significant proportion of people will end up annoyed with the way things turn out, which, again, seems a tad unwise.

Some bearded white American dude explained this project as them being “excited to bring a fresh take on the brand” to audiences. Silent Hill fans don’t want a “fresh take on the brand”. They want Silent Hill. And I don’t think this is it.

Silent Hill f

Probably the most interesting of the announcements was Silent Hill f, a new project whose story has been written by Ryukishi07, creator of the Higurashi, Umineko and Ciconia series. The trailer was certainly enormously atmospheric and Ryukishi07 has most definitely proven his worth as a horror writer with his previous work.

Here’s the problem, though: this trailer had absolutely nothing to do with what we know and recognise Silent Hill to be. Silent Hill is — or was, rather — about small-town Americana and psychological horror through a distinctly Japanese lens, providing an altogether unique experience. While the fact the series was traditionally developed by Japanese people was an important part of its distinctiveness, it was never a series for which overt Japaneseness was especially important.

Silent Hill f, meanwhile, appears to be quite traditional Japanese horror, with a Japanese setting, Japanese music and Japanese-inspired monstrous figures. Out of all the projects in the works, this is perhaps the one I’m most personally intrigued by — but it doesn’t feel like Silent Hill at all. It feels like it should be a Project Zero/Fatal Frame game.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see what the ties to the series as a whole are — hopefully there will be some. But even if there aren’t, this should hopefully be one to watch purely due to Ryukishi07’s involvement.

Conclusions

I came away from the Silent Hill presentation frustrated. Konami clearly recognises that there is a near-insatiable hunger for Silent Hill to return, but they seemed curiously resistant to simply bringing it back in its original form. Even the Silent Hill 2 remake feels like it’s missing the point somewhat, with its over-the-shoulder camera and its European development team.

I also wasn’t filled with confidence by despite the world as a whole — including Konami themselves — referring to the iconic monster from Silent Hill 2 as “Pyramid Head” for the last 20 years, they insisted on calling it “Red Pyramid Thing” throughout. Granted, “Red Pyramid Thing” (or, more accurately, “レッドピラミッドシング”, reddo piramiddo shingu) is its official Japanese name, but eschewing the name by which this iconic creature has been known for the last 20 years feels remarkably out of touch. And that pretty much summed up how I felt about the entire presentation.

At least we can be thankful for one thing: in the “merchandise” section of the show, they didn’t attempt to push NFTs onto us…

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