Silent Hill f is without doubt one of the few Silent Hill video games set exterior Silent Hill itself. It transports gamers from the everlasting doldrums of Maine, North America to Sixties Japan, and casts you as a college scholar within the foggy village of Ebisugaoka. It is excellent, thanks not least to a considerate and poignant story from Ryukishi07. Appetites at the moment are whetted for a Silent Hill bundle tour, and Konami producer Motoi Okamoto already has a number of concepts about the place he’d just like the collection to go subsequent. Concepts that, admittedly, make me nervous about the potential of ham-fisted cultural misrepresentation.
“We consider we might maybe take related approaches with different cultures throughout the globe,” Okamoto advised Inverse’s Shannon Liao in a current, translated interview. “For instance, in Central or South America, we might maybe faucet into the extra native, shamanistic beliefs and see how that ties in. However we might additionally attempt to broaden our horizons and look into different areas, like probably Russia, Italy, or South Korea, as a result of all these areas have their very own distinctive forms of perception methods. I consider that will likely be a gateway for us to broaden our ideas additional.”
Requested to elaborate, Okamoto commented that he reads horror books from Central and South America. He additionally referenced magical realism, a literary custom by which myths and folklore kind a part of day by day life, which has precedents throughout the globe, however is closely related (in my expertise, anyway) with twentieth century Central and South American authors together with Gabriel García Márquez and Mariana Enríquez. I can not fairly inform from the write-up, but it surely seems like Okamoto cited these final two authors specifically.
He additionally made extra common – certainly, broad to the purpose of demeaning and reductive – reference to political occasions that might make a helpful context for a Silent Hill recreation. “These areas have been affected by a number of navy governments and coups,” Okamoto advised Liao. “There’s a sort of bravado and ‘machismo’ that comes from these political landscapes. There’s additionally the extra folkloric angle coming from shamanism and native beliefs.” As for the above point out of Korea, Russia and Italy, Okamoto did not go into element. In his defence, he was answering questions in particular person and, I think about, making an attempt to keep away from getting too particular, for worry of setting tongues a-wagging.
Okamoto feels one impediment to setting a Silent Hill recreation in Central or South America is the absence of an area developer they might belief with the keys to this horror collection. “Central and South America should not have very many distinguished growth studios for video video games able to dealing with an IP like Silent Hill,” he mentioned. “So whereas they’ve a number of attention-grabbing motion pictures, books, and tales, how we’d translate that into video games is one thing we nonetheless must discover.”
Anglophone writers within the northern hemisphere have typically finished a horrible job of overlaying the sport growth scene in Central and South America. Effectively, I have at the least. However one group who come to thoughts are Ace Group, the creators of Zeno Conflict, Rock Of Ages, and The Everlasting Cylinder. I believe they could discover Silent Hill a bit sedate visually, however they’ve actually obtained an eye fixed for unearthly creatures and locations. There’s additionally Twin Impact, creators of Tormented Souls, which is in the suitable ballpark, however nearer to Resi and Outlast than Silent Hill.
Within the shorter time period, there’s Silent Hill: Townfall. It is being developed in Scotland by Display screen Burn (previously No Code), builders of Commentary and Tales Untold. I do not know the place it is set, however given the studio’s previous initiatives, it ought to have some frightful devices in it.
