Silent Hill V

[AndrewTS 0]

A: Turn the development of an acclaimed Japanese horror game series over to a team of American developers, who not only have never made a horror game, but their past works are average at best games, and nearly all are licensed titles and beat 'em ups.

 

Much like with Contra 4, Konami made a curious choice in who would be making the next major installment of Silent Hill. However, The Collective's track record has been spottier than Wayforward's. An Associate Producer at Konami, Tomm Hulett, though said "Konami is not giving developers a license, a check, and a deadline." Akira Yamaoka will be serving as an advisor, although unfortunately the bulk of Silent Hill V's creative roots are unknown at this point.

 

1up/EGM has been putting together a massive amount of coverage on the game; there's an EGM cover story on it, and the 1up site has new media on it as well.

 

1up Preview:

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3162608

 

Previews: Silent Hill 5

Bonus Q&A, first ever video footage, and Akira Yamaoka interview.

By 1UP Staff

09/07/2007

 

While Konami has offered hints in the form of minor announcements and trailers

over the past few months, the October issue of EGM -- on store shelves

now, conveniently enough -- features the first significant information

and impressions of Silent Hill's PS3/360 debut.

For those looking for a little something extra, we have an excerpt from

EGM's interview with lead artist Brian Horton and lead designer Jason

Allen of The Collective, as well as a video preview of the game with

the first footage and a video interview featuring Konami's Akira

Yamaoka. Read on for the interview, and head over to our Silent Hill 5 video page for the video preview and Yamaoka interview.

 

EGM: As a Silent Hill fan, when I heard that a Western team was

taking it over, automatically skepticism, trepidation... "How are they

going to destroy my beloved franchise? What are they going to do to it?

Is it going to be a first-person shooter?" But instead of that, I think

you guys -- from what I've seen -- are staying true to the original

heritage but evolving it. What was your approach to making this game?

BH: On an art side, obviously we want to maintain what everyone -- I

mean everyone knows that Silent Hill is known for its high quality

assets -- so we wanted to make sure we maintain the atmosphere, the

strong characters, the rich environments... So for my job, it was just

to make sure I could take the spirit of what was done in the past and

really bring it forward with the next generation system.

JA: From a design perspective it's the same thing. If I were to change

the game, it ceases to be Silent Hill. And Silent Hill has got very

specific characteristics associated with gameplay so I have to be true

to those when we're making the game, but at the same time, I want to

make sure that it's approachable and playable from the perspective of

people who aren't necessarily used to playing the series, who aren't

traditional fans. So I want to make sure that they too can play and get

enjoyment out of it without at the same time diluting the gameplay that

is Silent Hill. So that was really the approach that we looked at.

 

EGM: Because this character as a soldier, you know, is not just

"every guy off the street" -- he has more skills -- can you tell people

what to expect from the combat?

JA: Well the combat is essentially a system where you have light and

heavy attacks: you can counter out of those attacks at any time, you

can use dodges and counter out of dodges, but the idea is to maintain

fluidity. We want the player to feel he is not at all stilted when he

is interacting with these characters, so that -- if he's got a group of

enemies to fight -- he can choose which one based on their positioning

that he wants to deal with first. So if this one is a greater threat,

then I'm going to deal with this and I can maneuver myself into the

best position, maybe to buy myself a bit of time before I deal with my

next opponent, but really our focus is fluidity to ensure the player

feels comfortable in the system.

BH: In order to do that, you want to make sure that the enemies are

equally difficult. Since our character is a little more capable, we

want to make sure our enemies are that much more dangerous -- so it

hits you a couple of times, you're done for. Really, there's going to

be a heavy focus still on the tension and being afraid. As soon as

you're empowered you tend to lose fear, so I think it's still a very

scary experience to fight these characters.

 

EGM: In past Silent Hill games, a lot of gamers just run past the

enemies because they don't see you, they don't follow you.... That

doesn't work anymore?

 

BH: No. We definitely spent a lot of time making sure that the A.I. was

taken to the next level. In addition to that, the motion style of these

characters, I think, we borrowed from the past; we wanted to make sure

they had that jilted, staccato style where you couldn't quite

anticipate what they'd do next. But we've layered in many, many

additional animations, so each character has at least seven different

walk cycles, and they're dynamically blending between those things so

you can't quite anticipate exactly what they're going to do -- they

look very frightening coming towards you. And when you go to close a

door in the past Silent Hill games, they were blocked off to you; now

they'll open those doors right up and still pursue you, so it's a lot

more frenetic compared to what [players have] seen in the past.

 

EGM: So the game begins in Sheppard's Glen, and then eventually,

ostensibly, you go to Silent Hill. Can you talk about what parts of

Silent Hill you go to, and for returning fans, what can they look

forward to seeing again?

BH: We wanted to make sure we paid a certain amount of time and

attention in Silent Hill. We did want to enter Sheppard's Glen because

we felt there were a lot of possibilities you could do with a new town,

but Silent Hill, we really wanted to make sure that fans were

retreading some territory that they do know, and even expanding on that

territory. So we're using the landscape that was in Silent Hill 1 as a

basis and expanding from there, and also showing you a version of

Silent Hill that I don't think fans have seen yet.

JA: We looked at the spaces and we paid particular attention to the

maps of all the previous games -- what spaces were explored, where

places were, what was available to us in the landmass, what areas were

where potentially we could add a few things that doesn't interfere with

the canon that's already established. We looked at those things, and as

Brian said, we wanted to make sure the player feels grounded in that

space, where he goes through and visits places that he's been to or

she's been to and is very familiar with, but at the same time now they

get to explore somewhere else that was maybe behind the building or to

the right, or somewhere else they hadn't been to before, and it's like

"oh this makes this world a lot more rich to me because I'm learning

something else about the town that perhaps I wasn't aware of before."

 

 

1up Exclusive First Look Video: http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/14542

Gametrailers link: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/103527.html

 

Akira Yamaoka interview Part 1: http://gamevideos.com/video/id/14522

Akira Yamaoka interview Part 2: http://gamevideos.com/video/id/14523

(sorry, only gamevideos seems to have it up now)

 

BTW, Shane was mistaken crediting Yamaoka as the "creator" of Silent Hill. Keiichiri Toyama was the creator, but left after the first game and created the Forbidden Siren games (the first game was released in North America as Siren).

 

The biggest concerns I have is how eager the developers are about improving the gameplay...yeah, it's a nice thought, but in a horror game that's basically the last thing you want to worry about. It's good that it's not going to be like every Resident Evil game before 4 (Capcom admitted to game magazines the crappy controls would stick around to make it scarier), but the worry is there of it being creatively mundane at a time when the series needs one that is a creative blowout.

 

Alex (the main character) being a former soldier could provide lots of excellent opportunies for pushing the series in a great direction creatively. The developers favor Silent Hill 2 above all the others, and due to that game having the main character's deep-rooted issues play a large role in things that unfolded (monster designs and some of the best scenes), we could see something similar here.

 

I'll be maintaining my skepticism for a while...but hey, the game looks great and will sound great too. Hopefully that's not all, because I'd had for it to be a repeat of the Silent Hill movie's issues.