With Silent Hill F and Silent Hill Townfall, Konami’s iconic horror series has escaped the spooky Americana of the original series. F, for example, is set in rural Japan, and Townfall is set in a very accurate Scottish town which is surprisingly populated entirely by English people.
While Bloober team works on a remake of the original game after its very successful SH2 Remake, Konami is actively pushing for studios to try something new with Silent Hill. Many franchises these days are pushing for similarity and legacy, but series producer Motoi Okamoto wants new ideas to flow into Konami’s iconic horror series.
In an interview with Radio Times, Okamoto explained that Konami does “technically have an internal bible for what constitutes Silent Hill”. However, as the series continues to evolve outside of its titular town, new studios are only given a small section of that bible to inspire originality.
“We try not to distribute that [bible] to our development teams too much because I think it’s more important that they organically can do their own research and try to figure out what is symbolic to them,” Okamoto said.
Okamoto, who started in development working on Nintendo’s Luigi’s Mansion, explained that it’s better that developers find their own interpretation of “what Silent Hill means to them”. While it’s easy to search online and see what the series means to players, it’s more creative and thoughtful for developers to have their own take.
While some classic players might not like F, and some F players might not like Townfall, they’re both wholly unique, creative games. Townfall, for example, is more than just a recreation of 90s Britain—it’s horror and puzzles are intrinsically tied to the feeling of living in a small coastal town during that period.
As a fan of the series, it’s telling that Silent Hill is now more popular than ever before. The original quadrillion of games were great, but what came after was so tied to what the series was before it that every sequel after failed. They were simply repeating the beats that were already made by a team that poured their soul into figuring out what stories they could actually tell.
As Konami pushes to get a new game in the franchise every year, Okamoto’s idea leads to more originality for the series, and that’s a good thing. After all, if you only like the original series, there are still remakes of those on the way!
