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Movie Review: Silent Hill: Revelation (2012)
Title: Silent Hill: Revelation
Release Date: October 26, 2012
Driector: Michael J Bassett
Run Time: 94 Minutes
Quick Hits: Set several years after the original Silent Hill (2006), we find that Sharron (now known as Heather) escaped the clutches of Silent Hill and is living with her father. She is forced to face the terrors of Silent Hill once more to try and save her father from The Order whom only want to be freed from the clutches of Alessa.
Review: Set on the eve of Heather's (aka Sharron) eighteenth birthday, we open in a nightmarish carnival setting in which she is being chased by men in gas masks and many other creepy things that we would expect from the realm of Silent Hill (which I will be referring to from here on out by SH). Lo and behold that is exactly what this is as Heather wakes from her dream being comforted by her father, Harry, who is then attacked by another SH monster in the same way that Freddy, Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, would do using a dream within a dream scenario; Heather actually wakes up this time and everything seems to be fine. It is revealed to us that Heather and her father have been on the run because Harry had killed a man in "self-defense." While at school Heather "falls" back into the SH "reality" without actually returning to SH, as she starts to see the walls rust away along with seeing young children in classrooms teasing a single girl saying "burn the witch," along with another monster coming towards her. She snaps out of it as a fellow student, Vince, bumps into her. Feeling as though she is being followed, Heather calls her father to come meet her at the mall; as he attempts to leave the house he is attacked and kidnapped by an unknown group. Aided by Vince, Heather travels back to SH to try and save her father. While in SH Heather learns of her origins, being the good portion of Alessa, and the scheme that The Order has developed to free themselves from the hell that they are in. In the end she thwarts their plan by joining back with Alessa and a little help from everybody's favorite SH monster, Pyramid Head, dispelling the fog that had consumed SH. The movie closes with Heather and Vince catching a ride with a trucker away from SH as a police convoy transporting prisoners drives into town as the fog and ash begin to rain down once again.
If you like the SH game franchise and have seen the first movie then you pretty much know the main players and the back story leading up to this point. As a sequel to the first movie this one kind of falls on its face. The way that Rose, Heather's adoptive mother, is able to get Heather out of SH (if you haven't seen the first movie they are stuck there at the end and not able to leave, sorry for the spoiler) is kind of a cop-out in my opinion and is feels like it was thrown into the script just to clear up confusion haphazardly; "I just happened to find a talisman that can only get one of us out of here so I gave it to her," come on now that is kind of weak. Speaking of weak, that pretty much sums up the whole of the story for me. At no point are we really given anything new to pull our attention and say "wow" to like in the first SH movie. Other than the weak story I can say that the transitions that were used to move from reality to "SH reality" were very well done, they weren't forced and were very subtle. Whether it was just walking through a doorway or using a cutaway so that a seemingly normal person could be SH-ified. However this is the only uplifting point of the film that I can point out. The movie was made during the "re-introduction," if you will, of 3-D movies during the summer/fall season of 2012 and thus is has several 3-D shots that I feel distract and detract from the movie. I am sure that the effect looks good in 3-D, but in 2-D they just look god awful. If you want closure on the story of Silent Hill I would suggest watching it, other than that I would can only give you the advice that Harry gave to Heather at the beginning of the movie: "I want you to promise me, no matter what happens, you will never go there."
Overall Rating: 1/5
Foggy village - Entry to Silent Hill? 🌫️🏘️🛣️❄️🌬️ Neblige Dorf - Eingang zu Silent Hill? 1/392s f/1.7 ISO 40 . . 📷 #samsungs8 . . . #silenthill #fog #village #austria #frosty #way #instagood #insta #instagramanet #instalike #instagram #photooftheday #photo #photographer #photography #amazing #awesome #beautiful #nature #naturephotography #travelphotography #travel #funtravel #follow #comment #like #look #life (hier: Wiener Neustadt, Austria) https://www.instagram.com/p/CI8CiNABBPv/?igshid=1lpwqv41jollj
sh2 x late night with the devil ❤️🔥
SH3 x immaculate 🩸
silent hill 4 x the butterfly effect 🦋
You’re too late, Henry
“𝔇𝔬 ℑ 𝔩𝔬𝔬𝔨 𝔩𝔦𝔨𝔢 𝔶𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔟𝔬𝔶𝔣𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔫𝔡?”
the most frightening thing about jacob singer’s nightmare is that he isn’t dreaming.
forgot 2 post here but i drew henry 4 valentines!!!
I love his redesign
INTERVIEW WITH SAM BARLOW AND TOMM HULETT ON SILENT HILL SHATTERED MEMORIES
As part of my Shattered Memories video, I decided to try and reach out to Designer Sam Barlow and Producer Tomm Hulett to ask them some questions. And I was delighted that they said yes! I couldn't fit everything into my video, but what they shared was too interesting not to post somewhere in its entirety! HERE IT GOES:
What was it like building the profiling system and what kind of resources did you tap into? I read that professionals helped and even analysed some of the team members! What psychological test was most surprising and interesting to you?
SAM: It was a deep dive into psychometrics! Yeah we spoke with academics who had done work into eye tracking. We put the team through a battery of personality tests to have some data to work off of. I worked with a therapist who insisted I attend sessions as a patient and genuinely, in order to make things credible. The most fun (surprising!?) anecdote is that we were working off the 5 factor personality model, which is the popular one. The fifth factor of the 5 is psychopathy. But we ended up dropping that factor because we found that everyone naturally behaves a bit like a psychopath when playing a game! So it kinda skewed the data.
TOMM: My related answer - As soon as I read the pitch with the psych profiling and how it would change the game world, I instantly (if slightly presumptuously) demanded to Produce the game. This was the type of outside-the-box thinking that I felt suited Silent Hill as a brand, but could also drive it forward with new innovations that would surprise players. Management granted my request, and I made it my personal mission to protect this feature from outside meddling, and to evangelize it across Konami.
In regards to elements of the game (character appearances, dialogue etc.) being tailored to the player’s profile, were there any other features you would have liked to implement that would also change depending on the profile? Also any other things you would have liked to have affected the profile? I saw mentions of Mii data and the Weather Channel for example!
SAM: I think always it was a question of how deep we could go -- the more specific we got, the more money it would have cost! So there were compromises in terms of the number of variations. We'd go in asking for as much as we could think of and then end up compromising and picking the key ones. Could always have used more hairstyles, outfits, or set dressing! It was particularly tight on things like monster animations -- those had to be generic, but fit against any additional animation bones, say an udder -- rather than be unique to each form. The way they moved could have been a real nice differentiator.
Yeah, we really wanted to do some stuff where we pulled in the player's Mii data, or tapped into the local weather/time for their console. But all of those things ended up being things that would have possibly upset the Nintendo guidelines, so we kinda skipped over those. We wanted to find as many ways we could make the player feel seen, and add to the feeling that the Harry they were making was tied to them.
I read that when speaking to some of the developers of the original game, you sought to understand some of their goals with the first title in order to aim for those same targets in SM. What were those goals? Was there anything the developers would have liked to do for the first game (but couldn’t for whatever reason) which were then included in SM?
SAM: Hmmm, I'm not sure we spoke directly to anyone for SH:SM. I know we had access to some people at Konami on Origins, but it was slightly difficult -- a lot of the files/documentation didn't exist anymore, so it wasn't always straightforward to tap into intentions -- as well, SH:1 was kinda of a miracle and product of a very particular moment in time so I think a lot of how the original turned out was organic. We certainly wanted to make something that would feel -- in a fresh way -- like the original felt; rather than rehashing it in a way that would feel like diminishing returns. We wanted to take some of the themes of the first game, and also some of the ideas thrown out by 2 and 3, and take them to a place that was a little bit more lived in. Like there was a vibe I got when going into the K. Gordon house in SH1 that felt so real and domestic and it had a real presence... walking into a domestic living area, that atmosphere of it being abandoned, the proximity of the horror to the domesticity, the uncanny feel. We wanted to tap into that. And to remind people that it was snowing in Silent Hill 1!
Sam, was there anything you took from SM that applied to or evolved in your future games? I think I first noticed your mark the second the VHS intro started playing with a menu in the style of a typical TV interface, the use of technology as an immersive viewpoint in your other titles has been something I’ve always loved!
SAM: Yeah, clearly I have a real interface-within-an-interface thing going on! You could argue that the principal's office puzzle is basically Her Story 0.1! I definitely enjoyed the use of the frame narrative and the idea we had that 'the player is not the protagonist' -- the idea that you create tension between the main character and the player, and explore that for dramatic effect. We deliberately kept shifting POV (3rd to 1st person) and introduced time jumps to create a disconnect with Harry. Also a lot of the way the profile system worked -- vector math and fuzzy logic underpinning choices, rather than binary trees -- has been something I've used in every game since. Under the surface the way that Her Story or Immortality knows about its scenes and connects things, and plays music, etc. is all using a similar setup.
Not a question, but I adored how going into the options/quit game menu would also display that TV interface style, like Cheryl’s view was that outer layer in the narrative that gets peeled back at the end. Reminds me of the use of the screen reflection in Telling Lies in a way!
SAM: Yeah, again, I think this is clearly my thing! Creating layers *between* the player and the narrative in a way that can actually help with a kind of immersion.
I read in a few interviews that it was an important point that every player could finish the game, with some adjustments kicking in if players were struggling. Where do you think your philosophy of prioritising players getting to experience the full story over the possibility of them getting ‘stuck’ at a difficult obstacle in the game came from? Did that stem from personal frustration you have with other games? Do you think this philosophy contended with the existing SH fanbase who were used to the perhaps more unforgiving nature of survival horror conventions?
SAM: I think if you're going to give the player something 'different', you also need to balance that out with a kind of generosity. You can't ask them to meet you halfway and then keep punishing them. It's also very much a truth that the more you make players repeat things, the more you make them stuck, the more they see the illusion -- they start to see the clockwork, the seams of the experience. So it was very important to me that we help players move smoothly through this experience to properly deliver our emotional payload.
Yeah, I think there's definitely a minority who look for a very specific game template and equate difficulty/obfuscation (and the resulting padded game time!) with the kind of survival horror experience. I don't think Shattered Memories was a game for them, in that sense. For me it's all in service of engaging the player. Sometimes challenge can do that. But the classic survival horror template definitely can also take that too far.
I read that Cold Heart turned into SM as Konami had greenlit a SH1 remake, although SM was a reimagining instead. As a result, there seemed to be a little disconnect between the marketing and what the game actually was. What were some of these differences?
SAM: I guess if there was a disconnect ultimately it was that there were probably high up bosses who thought this was a very traditional remake (just with Wii controls?) rather than a reimagining. That was something that I'm not sure was ever run all the way up the chain! But I think generally marketing got that aspect -- we would reference Battlestar Galactica and they liked that comparison. Really the big disconnect was that we'd made a game from the (new) Wii audience and most of the marketing went into positioning it as a 'gamer's game on the Wii.' That was a real missed opportunity to be honest.
What were some of the challenging aspects of making a reimagining with existing characters as opposed to brand new characters? Were there some advantages even?
SAM: I think it was all upside for us. It's great to have something to start with that you can then springboard off of. And a lot of the intent of SH:SM was that we would create a weird Deja Vu for people who *had* played the original -- a sense of things being recognizable but also very different. That was a whole extra level of vibes and emotional responses that we could tap into. This was much more fun than, say, Silent Hill: Origins where it was all downside... there it felt like we were making fan fiction, having to embellish and add small details to an existing story that had no real spare room or need for those embellishments!
Now that there have been many years to reflect, were there any ideas that you wished made it into the game? Or anything you think would have been better to have been changed or removed?
TOMM: Late-ish in development after getting a lot of feedback and considering how consumers might react, I pitched Climax on adding an element of threat and tension to the "normal" world. Nothing like overt combat or enemies, but just something so the player wouldn't feel entirely safe. This didn't go in obviously, but I sometimes wonder how it may have changed initial reactions from players.
(still third question I hit enter accidentally) Also I wish the western releases of the game didn't have a bug making one ending harder to get than intended. That's the main regret.
I think the only other SH game to have pushed the series out of its comfort zone as much as you did with SM is PT. Do you think players/critics these days are more accepting of change in their favorite franchises than they were when SM released? How did you feel when you first saw PT? Was there some specific joy in seeing the series you worked on go into a new direction like SM did?
TOMM: PT was the first (only?) SH game I got to experience after leaving Konami and I certainly think it owes something to SHSM. I'm very proud that our game was essentially a "walking simulator" before that term existed, and how favorably it compares to the notable games of that type, when we were charting our course without a map as it were. On the right day, I do think critics now are more accepting of changes and I think we owe the indie scene for that a bit. Many critics even EXPECT new titles to change up familiar elements, rather than sticking in the same molds. That said, fans are still fans. When they hear about a strange new mechanic in a series they love, I hope they remember first-person Resident Evil, Yakuza RPG, and maybe SHSM, and give it a fair chance.
SAM: Maybe? We're definitely living through an age of renewed nostalgia and backwards thinking. So many reboots and remakes! So maybe now is the wrong time to push franchises in fresh directions. Which is a shame. But outside that, I think the audience is definitely open to new experiences and the definitions of genres have expanded. P.T. was great -- I loved how it was delivered, the impact on players. To be honest, in all likelihood how things turned out was probably best? I can't imagine the full Silent Hill reboot ending up having the same impact that P.T. (and it's being lost to time!) was able to generate? I definitely appreciated the ways in which P.T. recalled some of the non euclidian domestic stuff we did in our later 'nowhere' sequence, and just that sense of immersion in a domestic space.
What do you think the legacy for SM was? Any lasting effects you feel were left on the series or community, maybe even the horror genre as a whole?
TOMM: (kind of answered a bit above but we'll try). I hope SHSM takes some of the credit for expanding what a "horror" game can be. It was pretty strict beforehand, you had your RE-style actiony games, and your SH-style atmosphere games that that's how the genre was judged. Horror games these days have such a huge range now and it's wonderful. Weird text-driven meta things, or PS1 throwbacks like Signalis. It's great. Horror only works when it surprises you, so I'm glad it all doesn't fit into 2 rigid definitions anymore.
SAM: Clearly a lot of what we did in SH:SM ended up becoming quite standard -- the flight rather than fight gameplay; the sense of open, immersive spaces with no loading; the 'walking simulator' aspects of our storytelling, etc. I couldn't say whether any of that was directly because of SH:SM, or just in the water anyway! I have heard some developers call out SH:SM, so it does sometimes feel like we had an outsized reaction from particular press, or particular groups of developers -- rather than the world at large.
Sam, this is more out of my own curiosity than anything… but I read that you saw similarities in the chase sequences and an experience you had as a child. Apparently you were in Tanzania being chased by baboons around a swimming pool?! I need to know more!!
SAM: Yeah, when we were devving the first vertical slice, I was obsessed with the swimming pool area. The size of it, the dimensions, how the enemies out to flow around it. At the same time I was pushing the animators and artists to have the enemies on all fours, and hairy! This was a challenge as it made the camera very hard to program so it could see the enemy chasing you; and hair was a challenge on that level of tech. But I kept pushing. And everyone was like, 'why is Sam so set on these ideas??' Then one day I remembered and realized it all went back to this time when I lived in Tanzania and as a 5 year old was chased around a swimming pool by a pack of baboons. My memory is the adults just watched and laughed. It was very traumatic! I was trying to recreate that trauma for the players, but after that mini closure, I relented and let the enemies stand on two feet...
What were the best/most fun parts of development for you?
TOMM: The most fun part of development for me was sharing this weird new game with so many people. Climax developed it so that the first 20-30 minutes of the game were our "Vertical Slice" which would be used to sell the game internally. So I would present this to a room full of Konami folks and make a different person answer each opening therapy question, or make key choices along the way, and I had it all choreographed so I knew when to look at a scary image, when to call a random phone number, etc. This same section of game was then used as our demo at E3 and Gamescom, and watching all those new players giggle at "Have you cheated on a partner?" or realize their neighbor was having a different path through the demo than they did... it's just great seeing an idea come together so perfectly. Climax hit it out of the park and I was glad to be a part of it.
Anything else you’d like to share? I love hearing fun little stories or memories about game development so feel free to let loose!
TOMM: My most frustrating presentation was showing the game in its alpha state to the head of Marketing. I was showing him the Memento you get from the dart board in the bar, and how you could turn it around to view it using the Wii Remote. He got really fixated on the dart board and tried convincing me we should spend the rest of development making darts playable. People lose all kinds of time in GTA playing darts and stuff. He was relentless. I kept trying to explain the player's mindset in a horror game is different than in GTA but he kept pushing. Needless to say we did not make darts playable.
SAM: Ooh, I don't know... um.... how about that the clinic where Kaufmann works was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water building? I gave the artists a bunch of photos of this classic piece of architecture for how I wanted the lighthouse clinic to look. It was only when someone then pointed it out to me that I learned the other name for this famous building? "The Kaufmann house". Mind blown.
Apart from the playable darts, were there any other odd ideas put forward outside of the team during development? Or any other instances where you had to protect the vision for SM?
SAM: I guess we were always on the backfoot in terms of not having traditional combat (or wiimote waving crowbar action) so that was one we had to keep running defense on. Mostly we were so busy executing on all the ideas we did have that we didn't really have too much time to entertain additional ideas, so we just kept moving! Stuff like ensuring that every element of the environment was readable/made sense in the narrative/imagery, etc. was something that was a real and constant effort -- the kind of detail and involvement of the narrative team across the art that just wasn't something you normally did.
A HUGE thank you to them both for participating in the interview!! You can find them on twitter:
Tomm: https://twitter.com/Hypnocrite
Sam: https://twitter.com/mrsambarlow
#silenthill #interview
INTERVIEW WITH SHIGENOBU MATSUYAMA - PRODUCER ON SILENT HILL THE ARCADE
I had the pleasure of interviewing Matsuyama-san, one of the producers on Silent Hill the Arcade! Here's what he had to say :)
Q - How did the idea for Silent Hill The Arcade come to be?
A - During the arcade boom of the 1990s and the 2000s, a desire was born to combine the unique worldview of the Silent Hill series - which was already a very strong IP console game-wise – with the haunted houses one might find in an amusement part. We wanted something that could provide an easy and pleasurable experience to an extremely varied range of customers… as in, the casual users. This is the idea that brought Silent Hill Arcade (SHA in short) to life. However, since our goal was to create a new kind of experience that could not be replicated anywhere else, we designed a game that could make the most effective use of the 5.1ch surround sound system, which was something that arcade games hadn’t adopted until that point, with a type of cabinet that could be somewhat isolated from the rest of the arcade via the use of curtains.
Q - Roughly how long did development for the game take?
A - At the time, the development cycle of an arcade game was so short it would be unimaginable today. The shortest one was around six months, the longest about one year and a half. I think SHA took us around one year and two months.
Q - What parts of development were most enjoyable for you?
A – Usually, arcade games are tested a certain number of times, both during development and just before launch in each and every country where their release has been scheduled (which, for SHA, meant Japan, the US, the UK, Italy, Spain, France, Hong Kong and Singapore). In order to keep the development budget for SHA as low as possible, however, I personally traveled alone to the US for the market testing, assembled the cabinet all by myself, repaired it when it was out of order, and stood next to it for days on end, pen and paper in my hand, ready to collect the players’ data. Game development, nearly 20 years ago, was very much an analog experience. It was also hard work, but when I look back, I have so many good memories of that time.
Q - Do you remember any kinds of ideas that you and the team wanted to include in the game, but didn’t in the end?
A – I’m sure this will sound obvious, since SHA was based on a pre-existing IP, but since the framework was pretty much already set when it came to characters and plot, we had to be extremely careful not to deviate from it so that we wouldn’t create inconsistencies. Personally, I would have loved to take the story in slightly wilder directions and include new and fresh ideas.
Q - I loved seeing so many locations from Silent Hill 3 and 4 make an appearance in the game! Was the team who worked on those two games involved in making any decisions for Silent Hill The Arcade?
A - We of course personally consulted select staff members of Konami, like for example Producer Yamaoka, with whom I had been acquainted with since before SHA. However, most development teams had a mix of internal and external members that changed pretty fluidly with each and every year, so there was no real collaboration between the various teams.
Q - What level of freedom were you given for creating this original story within the Silent Hill universe? Were you given any specific directives on what you could or could not integrate/use in the story?
A - If I have to express my personal point of view on the matter, however, should you compare the storyline for SHA with the timeline of the other games, you would indeed notice a few minor inconsistencies that we were not able to completely solve. That’s something I still have regrets about.
Q - Tell me about translating a traditional survival horror experience into the rail shooter genre and control style. What kind of considerations did you have to make for this?
A - The biggest challenge was by far to design a game system that could be as simple as possible, and to regulate the level of challenge in a way that felt balanced, because we didn't want to force complicated controls or an exceedingly high difficulty level on the casual arcade players. Moreover, there was another balance we had to strike perfectly: more specifically, the one between the aforementioned "haunted house" element - the one that was unique to SHA, with its sequences of terrifying events - and the thrilling playstyle that a rail shooter should provide to the player.
Q - As a final product, what are your personal thoughts on the game?
A - I think it had a state-of-the-art sound system, that the design of the cabinet, with its creepy-looking curtains, made people want to take a peek inside, and that the rail shooting system was simple and could be enjoyed by virtually everyone. I think we managed to combine these various elements with a one-of-a-kind worldview of Silent Hill in a way that was in my opinion pretty good! Of course, each and every member of the staff did their part, and I thank all of them wholeheartedly.
Q - Are you working on anything currently that you’d like me to mention?
A - Feel free to write whatever you prefer! If anything, I should thank you, since you allowed me to walk down the nostalgia lane and recall memories from almost 20 years ago that had been dimmed down by the passage of time. Thank you very much!
Shigenobu Matsuyama's site: shig.jp
INTERVIEW WITH TOMM HULETT - SENIOR ASSOCIATE PRODUCER ON SILENT HILL DOWNPOUR
As part of my video on Silent Hill Downpour, Tomm kindly agreed to be interviewed! A big thank you to him for providing insight on the making of this title :)
Q1 - What led to deciding that open world aspects would be included in Downpour? Was it the trend of games at the time or was there something else that influenced this?
I had several aspects of the original SH games that I kept championing for the new ones, and one aspect was how much of SH1 was exploring the town itself. It was (relatively) huge! SH2 had a smaller more focused set of “town” areas, and then SH3 reused those. Origins brought it back to a degree but there wasn’t very much to do beyond the main quest.
Another thing I loved was how the notes in the original games would often mention characters or side stories that were not part of the main quest but definitely contributed to the atmosphere and creepiness. Lastly, as you said, open world games like GTA3 were cropping up all over. So these three factors all coalesced to become Downpour’s big explorable town filled with optional side quests that told little mini stories. But to be clear – we were not asked “can you put in something modern like Open World?” It’s more like what we wanted to accomplish with the town and sidequests made sense in an open world context, and then that created an exciting bullet point for marketing organically.
Q2 - Was there ever supposed to be a UFO ending? If yes, was there a rough outline for it?
We were not planning a specific “UFO” ending and I don’t actually recall why. We did plan for a joke ending, which turned into the happy birthday surprise. Or, it’s possible we planned for a UFO ending but someone came up with that instead and we just went with it, due to the nice escaping prison aspect of it.
I do know we wanted a wide variety of ending types, like the original games had, which is how we ended up with cool twists like the Anne/Murphy prison swap, etc.
Q3 - How did you get Korn on board for the theme?
When we got the unfortunate news we could not involve Akira Yamaoka, we knew that finding a worthy replacement for the game’s score was job # 1, and we were fortunate enough to be connected with Daniel Licht who did an amazing job matching the mood of Silent Hill with his own style.
But another big aspect of the SH music is the attract mode video, along with a rock song. Of course Yamaoka-san had always handled this as well, along with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn. Since this was kind of up in the air, our licensing department wanted to find a good licensing partner that might extend the awareness of Silent Hill beyond its core audience, but still sounded brand-appropriate.
A lot of different artists were discussed, but in the end, Korn made the most sense due to a variety of factors I can’t really get into. However one key factor was tailoring the lyrics to Silent Hill Downpour, rather than just being given an unreleased B-side as-is.
Q4 - The architecture (more so interior) style in Downpour feels very unique compared to the other SH games. Slightly gothic, almost like fancy buildings in New York - especially those apartments and office buildings! Although once I learned that the development team was based in the Czech Republic, I felt like maybe that was a big influence. What was the thought process behind going for this different style of environment?
I think a lot of this is, as you said, the Czech influence. Western Europe and North America have enough common threads I think it’s probably more similar than we realize if that is our whole sphere of reference. And obviously game players are familiar with Japan through games (Yakuza and Persona of course, among others) but Eastern Europe is far less represented. I think that Vatra “making what they know” had a positive effect on the games visuals and ambiance. It is the most unique and interesting of the Western SH games.
I think it’s generally accepted that as a whole, western gamers prefer the original SH games, made in Japan. And it turns out, there are a lot of Japanese fans who love the Western games most (going so far as to import Homecoming!), which was an interesting thing to discover. It tells me that an important part of Silent Hill’s creepiness is that sense that something is just OFF that you can’t put your finger on, and maybe it’s a result of unconscious cultural influences creeping into the design of the town itself, then being perceived through a different cultural lens.
Q5 - What were some of the most difficult parts of developing Downpour?
A minor challenge was the fact that fear is so subjective. Between two people sure, but let alone 2 teams in different cultures. So at times there was a lot of heated discussion about what the important parts of a scare or intense moment were, and what the audience would respond to.
The biggest difficulty though was external, just knowing the feelings and expectations of the fanbase at the time. The other Western Silent Hills had their fans of course, but nothing had made a huge splash like Silent Hill 2 (which itself wasn’t popular immediately but that’s a different story entirely!) We were very proud of Shattered Memories, but that was an unconventional entry and we just really wanted Downpour to be the “HD Silent Hill” that fans deserved. We all put a lot of pressure on ourselves. However even taking a quick peek at any forum there was so much cynicism it made the work challenging. And then at some point during the final year or so of development, an infamous series of videos released and sucked up a lot of air in the room as it were.
It also ended a lot of the spirited debate that Silent Hill fans enjoyed, as there were a lot of declarations of the “true” canon or “here’s what the game is REALLY about”. Those debates were always what kept the fanbase alive and vibrant, and it was rough seeing that go away. I don’t really feel like Downpour was given its fair shake in the indepth analysis department, which I was really looking forward to seeing, during development!
Q6 - What were some of the reasons behind the enemy designs of the game? Are their appearances all stemming from Murphy’s mind and experiences? Or Anne’s too? The prisoner types felt like they could be both, but the Dolls in particular made me wonder since they feel more related to her backstory!
It is kept purposefully vague. Obviously at first you’re supposed to assume this is Murphy’s Silent Hill, and the enemies need to support that. But then when you realize this is perhaps Anne’s story that Murphy is caught up in, they can’t betray that idea either. Fortunately the two characters have a lot in common. Murphy is a father willing to do anything to avenge his child. Anne is a child willing to do anything to avenge her father. Both have failed marriages because of their trauma, and so on.
Honestly this is one of the things I was hoping to see more debate about among the fanbase!
Q7 - For the Anne’s Story comics, was that originally supposed to be the basis for DLC for the game? I saw a mention of this online but wasn’t sure how true it was! Were there plans for other DLCs too?
In the very beginning, Anne and Murphy were conceived to be a 2-player experience, so each player could see situations from a different perspective, and we could play with that idea a lot. However after a very short time we realized that idea was a bit ahead of its time, and we focused on making a solid single-player horror game, but the overall story themes remained – but obviously you see less of what Anne is actually doing moment to moment.
As we were wrapping up the game for release, there were conversations about DLC and what form that might take, and Devin and I knew instantly it would be Anne’s side of the story. I wrote up a general structure of it for internal discussions. DJ Ricks had also had a more detailed story originally, so I tried to get some of those details back in as well (when this DLC fell through, I added his story in the Book of Memories DLC – if anybody still has a Vita and wants to delve into that!)
Right around the time I was leaving Konami, there were early discussions with IDW to release a companion comic to Downpour, since Tom Waltz was their SH guy (and has gone on to write their TMNT books and many other great things. Congrats Tom!) and had also written Downpour for us. I gave him a breakdown of my ideas for key moments in Anne’s story; things like Murphy and Anne operating in different chronologies (Murphy sees Anne in the clocktower otherworld BEFORE seeing Ricks, but Anne traverses that otherworld AFTERWARD), or a drowning Anne desperately reaching out for Ricks’s hand, only to find it’s a severed hand tied to his boat.
It took a few years for that deal to come together with the right artist, but thankfully it did! It’s a great companion piece to the game – there are some new details in there that weren’t in my treatment, but it was no longer my story to tell – I experienced it as a fan.
Q8 - What is something you’ve seen players rarely notice in the game which you think is a cool detail? Can be found in the world, story, gameplay or anything!
A tangible detail might be the road signs. I spent a long time figuring out where the other districts of Silent Hill would be, as well as Ashfield, and made sure they were properly charted on the large road signs. I made a map and measured distance and everything.
Story wise, I think Murphy’s role in the story is a bit misunderstood. Many players see it as a standard tale of the town punishing our protagonist but it’s a lot more nuanced than that. Anne, I feel, is being punished, because she is out for revenge right now. Murphy already got his revenge, and dealt with the consequences, and “did his time” as it were. Yes, he has to deal with the consequences of his actions – but those are consequences caused by Sewell, and they were already in motion outside of Silent Hill.
Murphy’s journey is more akin to “Born from a Wish”, or even Eileen’s role in SH4. While most of Walter’s victims did something wrong, Eileen was marked because she was kind to him. It’s basically circumstantial. The Orphanage level is meant to be something different from a standard Silent Hill construct. The town is almost rewarding Murphy for passing a test. It gives him a key that says “Freedom" and everything we weren’t being subtle. And if you watch during the boat scene, there are clear skies ahead of Murphy (and dark storm behind Anne).
And then of course the Silent Hill ambiguity – we all know the only thing on the other side of Toluca Lake is more Silent Hill, so that’s up for debate. Again I was really excited to see how the fans dissected our story and there was never a big discourse about it.
Q9 - There’s a big stretched face with a monocle at the end of the rollercoaster section in Devil’s Pit, I couldn’t wrap my head around it (ha) but who is that/what’s their backstory? I saw somewhere mention it was supposed to be a boss which appeared in a trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSSoIWJPL-4) but wanted to confirm what the deal was!
Originally there was a boss encounter with JP Sater which took the form of this hideous train man creature. The goal was to have characters such as Howard and Sater, who have both accepted their places in Silent Hill, but with drastically different results. This would be something for players to ponder and explore.
For various reasons we needed to cut this encounter, and it isn’t exactly key to the story, but we didn’t want to waste the creepy model. So we extended the mine train sequence so it could end with the reveal and taunting by Sater. I guess Murphy can be thankful that he wasn’t part of Sater’s story, so he didn’t have to overcome an enormous steamengine behemoth.
Q10 - Always love hearing about any strong memories you have working on the game, feel free to share anything that comes to mind!
Devin and I both spent a lot of time in the Czech Republic during development, both together and alone. I think a lot "clicked" for both of us early on, when Andy Pang (Producer) took us on a trip to some of the sights around Brno, which included the Punkva Caverns – the inspiration behind the Devil’s Pit.
At the bottom of the caves is a river, and your group of maybe 20 tourists board a small boat and a guide navigates you through these dimly-lit caverns. The guide was discussing that this journey changes based on rainfall, as the water level in the caves may be too high to be safe, and as he said this, we noticed the ceiling was coming AWFULLY low. Especially on the left side of the boat, where we were. In fact, we had to lean over on our neighbors to avoid it. In fact, we scraped our shoulders a bit on the rock.
Afterward we both noted that in America, they would NEVER have sailed at that water level. In fact, there would be signs and barriers preventing you from touching the rock, and the boat might even be on a track or guide of some kind, to ensure maximum safety.
We understood a lot more about Downpour’s Silent Hill after that excursion.