I’ve spent a little bit of time with NeoBards Leisure’s Silent Hill F over the previous few weeks, primarily out of curiosity for Konami’s technique in reviving the critically acclaimed horror collection. I’ve spent my profession observing the Tokyo-based writer from a distance, having not extensively performed the Steel Gear Strong, Castlevania, or Silent Hill franchises.
What’s made me inquisitive about this revival effort (first introduced in 2023) was its technique to farm out growth to a number of recreation studios with no unifying visible id. The remake of Silent Hill 2 was capable of journey on the bloody coattails of the unique’s iconic monsters—however you could not inform Silent Hill f is from the identical collection at first look.
However perhaps that lack of “iconic” creatures is a boon, not a bane, for Silent Hill f—and it tells us one thing concerning the means of reviving and nurturing recreation franchises.
Why are not any of Silent Hill f‘s monsters ‘iconic?’
Magnificence is within the eye of the beholder however scanning the web, I do not see any indicators the Japanese folklore-inspired monsters of Silent Hill f have made as huge an impression as their predecessors. I might chalk this as much as one key issue: the huge availability of high-quality 3D visuals.
The creature’s designs are nonetheless robust, and means NeoBard’s imaginative and prescient of rural Japense horror resonated with gamers with none gimmicky creatures shoehorned in. The scarecrow-like Ayakakashi’s stuttering motion performs excellently within the recreation’s open areas and the “Spawning Monster,” a beast with dozens of pregnant bellies, spews out enemies in a not-so-subtle manifestation of the protagonist’s dread over a pressured marriage.
In the meantime The Shiromuku’s bridal-inspired design continues that pattern, whereas a mysterious particular person generally known as “Fox Masks” takes a extra demure strategy, showing as a good-looking younger man gazing on the participant by means of a Fox masks, made extra horrifying by his calm demeanor and the way he guides the protagonist into harmful conditions claiming he is serving to her—however appears completely content material to let her hurt herself to finish mysterious mystical rituals.
Picture by way of NeoBards Leisure/Konami.
Once more these are all robust designs (and like all Silent Hill monsters they’re deeply anchored to the protagonist’s psychological turmoil) however they do not ascend to “iconic” standing. That is most likely as a result of they exist in a world the place video games that are not even within the horror style have their very own roster of gory monstrous creatures rendered in excessive graphical element. They’re competing with the ominous beasts of Elden Ring or freshly French-inspired designs of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
These video games aren’t even horror video games. The monsters aren’t meant to scare, they’re meant to seize the attention. Most aren’t even what you’d name “iconic.” Solely Elden Ring‘s tragic armored knight Melania and Clair Obscur‘s ally characters Monoco and Esquie appear to have made any impression. That is to not slight any of those designs. It simply exhibits the expertise obtainable to builders has raised the bar exceptionally excessive.
In 2001 PlayStation 2’s {hardware} was so restricted that Group Silent famously used the city’s ominous fog to decrease the required rendering distance in a determined bid to squeeze as a lot reminiscence and efficiency energy as they might.
It is on this context that Pyramid Head emerged: a product of robust artwork course, recreation design, and writing that appeared particularly monstrous, particularly in a interval the place horror video games have been drifting in direction of changing into extra action-oriented titles. Somebody laser-focused on marketable characters that would drive future Silent Hill titles is likely to be disenchanted these creatures do not make the mark.
However Konami’s belief in NeoBards’ imaginative and prescient—mixed with its multi-pronged launch technique—could also be instructive for a way different builders can revive dormant franchises and preserve ongoing ones recent.
Konami can have its cake and eat it too
Sequence and franchises are essential to the sport enterprise as a result of they each breed familiarity for gamers and might present steady floor for builders to work on, not having to reinvent all of the wheels with each new recreation (just some of them, generally).
By kicking off its Silent Hill revival with Silent Hill 2 and never Silent Hill, Konami rapidly rushed probably the most “iconic” recreation within the collection again within the highlight. That recreation’s success reacclimated gamers to the horror franchise, and the quick follow-up of Silent Hill f got here not as a shock diversion, however an natural introduction to the “subsequent chapter” of Silent Hill.
When a collection stumbles—as Silent Hill did within the 2000s earlier than going dormant for a decade—it is painful for all concerned. The artwork course of Silent Hill f exhibits us a method builders can re-energize franchises with out simply replaying the hits: diversifying the forms of releases and distributing “familiarity” versus “experimentation” between completely different video games and probably completely different builders.
And with the following chapter laid out—and over one million copies bought only a week after launching—Konami’s laid out a imaginative and prescient for Silent Hill that is greater than one monster or collection: fastidiously crafted psychological horror the place the monsters come from contained in the participant characters…and present how monstrous they’re in flip.
