New "Silent Hills" teaser trailer by Hideo Kojima.

Looks like it's official now, Kojima Productions is making the next Silent Hill game. If anyone's hasn't heard and is wondering how this happened; basically he made an offhand comment about wanting to see Silent Hill on the Fox Engine after watching the first movie. Konami then immediately offered to let him make one and everyone loved the idea because being Japanese apparently makes him automatically a good fit (even though he was merely suggesting that he could let them borrow the engine).



Personally, I'm interested in the idea of Kojima doing a horror game, but I can't really see Silent Hill as a good match for him. Silent Hill normally leaves things up for interpretation; very narrative driven with very little exposition, while Kojima tends to dump loads of exposition. But who knows, maybe he'll do this differently, or maybe he'll stay away from the story.

Norman Reedus is there too.

Kojima isn't doing it alone, though. He's working with Guillermo Del Toro, which has me super excited. The game'll look gorgeous in Fox Engine.

I cried tears of joy when I saw that trailer. So hype.

Solid Snake got lost on his way to Alaska, and is picked up by Norman Reedus, who makes a wrong turn and ends up at a Y Intersection: left for Raccoon City, right for Silent Hill. Also, they were being chased by the dinosaurs from Dino Crisis, for some reason.

Is that so? Color me intrigued Hideo Kojima...we'll see what you can do

Hideo Kojima has stated that "There are a number of developers that will make a horror game less scary because players may get too scared to continue, never end up finishing, or even play the game again. For Silent Hills, this is more than okay with us and something we actually expect. The team are actively ignoring the ‘scary limit’ and want to make the game as scary as possible."

Apparently they are even thinking about adding a pair of trousers as a bonus in the Special Edition, as a joke. Since you'll soil them.

PWNERX wrote:

Solid Snake got lost on his way to Alaska, and is picked up by Norman Reedus, who makes a wrong turn and ends up at a Y Intersection: left for Raccoon City, right for Silent Hill. Also, they were being chased by the dinosaurs from Dino Crisis, for some reason.

The dinosaur was actually a Metal Gear. With a child's brain, for reasons.

It looks good so far! Excited to see what Daryl will bring to the table in a Silent Hill game!

On a real note, this is exciting. :p

Kojima says that they're looking to include both first and third person in the game, but haven't decided whether to make it so that certain parts will be first person, or to allow players to switch whenever they want between the two. He also says it probably won't be released until 2016.

http://whatifgaming.com/silent-hills-developer-deciding-between-first-person-and-third-person-point-of-view

I also found this old tweet where Masahiro Ito says he'd be open to working with Kojima if asked, although he hasn't said anything about it after the reveal.

Akira Yamaoka says he'd be willing to work with Silent Hills if Konami took him on the project.

http://mysilenthill.com/silent-hill-news/akira-yamaoka-happy-write-music-silent-hills/

If he gets on board this will already be my GOTY 2015.

Mass Distraction wrote:

Hideo Kojima has stated that "There are a number of developers that will make a horror game less scary because players may get too scared to continue, never end up finishing, or even play the game again. For Silent Hills, this is more than okay with us and something we actually expect. The team are actively ignoring the ‘scary limit’ and want to make the game as scary as possible."

Apparently they are even thinking about adding a pair of trousers as a bonus in the Special Edition, as a joke. Since you'll soil them.

PWNERX wrote:

Solid Snake got lost on his way to Alaska, and is picked up by Norman Reedus, who makes a wrong turn and ends up at a Y Intersection: left for Raccoon City, right for Silent Hill. Also, they were being chased by the dinosaurs from Dino Crisis, for some reason.

The dinosaur was actually a Metal Gear. With a child's brain, for reasons.

Next thing you know, the main antagonist is a demonic, resurrected Liquid Snake.

New image of Norman Reedus' character surfaces.

If there's no crossbow in this game, I'll riot.

That'd be beautiful. And, actually, a series first, unless you count Book of Memories DLC.

New trailer.

That's one freaky trailer and I'm loving it!


Btw. I hear they still haven't decided if the game should be first person or not. I really hope not, Silent Hill has always been 3rd person and I don't really feel the change would be all that good. First person implies that the player is the character but Silent Hill has always been about the characters themselves and how their fears and dreams affect the town. Making the game first person would take a lot of that away. Besides, what's the point of having Norman Reedus' likeness if you can't actually see what the character looks like apart from cutscenes?

Also, they are thinking of the possibilities of an episodic format. I'm kind of torn with this, since as a standalone main series title it wouldn't work and would break the great narrative of the games. However (and this is extremely doubtful) if the game told multiple individual stories similar to the comic series it could work rather well.

I'd be pretty disappointed if it was all first person. I read something where Kojima said he was deciding between either letting players toggle between first and third whenever they want, or automatically changing it during specific parts of the game (ala The Room). I'm okay with either as long as first person isn't dominate, but if first is more than half of the game then I'd rather just have the option.

Can't say I'm a fan of the episodic idea. With the new Resident Evil's I'm mostly indifferent to it, just give me a physical copy with all of them and I don't really care, but with Silent Hill I just can't see it working without negatively affecting the story unless, like you said, they're all individual stories.

Multiple stand alone stories might explain why they called it Silent Hill[s] plural.

And i rather like the first person perspective, it makes it even scarier when its you.
I mean i've seen people play who are too afraid to turn around
or peak out from behind the corner. because its actually them not just an avatar.

You know what this game really needs?...Oculus Rift!, i mean just imagine
that plus headphones plus this game....in the dark!.

Bulls-3ye wrote:

Multiple stand alone stories might explain why they called it Silent Hill[s] plural.

Kojima said that it was in plural because the game will have "horror in plural". Plus, they hired Norman Reedus to play the main character and I doubt he's just there for one story. This is the main reason I don't believe in the individual stories thing myself, no matter how good it sounds.

Bulls-3ye wrote:

And i rather like the first person perspective, it makes it even scarier when its you.
I mean i've seen people play who are too afraid to turn around
or peak out from behind the corner. because its actually them not just an avatar.

You know what this game really needs?...Oculus Rift!, i mean just imagine
that plus headphones plus this game....in the dark!.

But Silent Hill has always been about individual characters and their stories, how they got to the town and how the town in fact represents their deepest fears in various forms. That's why you never play as "you", because the town doesn't represent you. Even the very RPG-ish Book of Memories had distinct characters in it.

I wouldn't want to see Oculus Rift incorporated either. Silent Hill has never been about cheap scares and I don't want one of my favorite franchises of all time go that way just because it's the new and hip thing to do.

I didn't think P.T. had "cheap scares" in fact its one of the scareiest Silent Hill games in a long time.
But i can understand wanting third person, especially since Norman Reedus is in it.
Maybe they can switch back and forth, or have special first person parts like in SH4 The Room.

I still think full immersion fear with Oculas/Morpheus would be awesome, maybe in a spin off game.

For a spinoff, sure. We've had first person Silent Hill spinoffs before so I wouldn't mind that.

I just don't want first person in a main game, not because of Norman Reedus but because it would break the narrative. I don't care how scary the game is if the story doesn't work. Until the games can project my own nightmares in a full Silent Hill experience I'd rather play as the person whose nightmare I am in.