It’s a funny thing when a new game studio comes along with an identity that heavily revolves around being set up by ‘the creator of [classic old game that everyone adores].’ So much expectation gets loaded into the studio the moment it goes for that approach, because it immediately taps into the fanbase of said game, suddenly filling us with a ton of subconscious expectation that we might see a true ‘spiritual successor’ to the original game, even if the studio hasn’t directly hinted that that’s what it’s doing.
It’s a classic marketing move, case in point being when I heard that Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama was working on a horror game with his new outfit Bokeh Game Studio. Ofcourseit’s going to have my attention, and ofcourseI’m going to be looking for signs that the studio’s upcoming game will have glimmers of that old Silent Hill magic. I can’t help myself, and they damn well know it!
The game in question isSlitterhead. Announced last year, we haven’t seen much of it other than a cinematic trailer showing peoples’ faces opening up like venus fly traps, and strange spiney monstrosities skittering around urban streets at night. Oh, and it’s got Silent Hill’s own Akira Yamaoka doing the soundtrack, which again sends a certain message.
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Now, thanks to a dev diary video from Bokeh Game Studio, we have some insight into how the game actually plays. Obviously, it’s in a rough state still, so it’s both bold and cool of them to share anything at all at this point, but the mechanics they’ve shown also tell a story: Silent Hill this most definitely ain’t.
Slitterhead looks like a combat-oriented game. The in-game UI shows five gauges, one of which indicates health, and another four for god-knows-what. Clearly, there’ll be a variety of combat mechanics, special moves, and the like. We see the playable character putting together sword-slashing combos, blocking, firing a gun, and using some kind of magic powers to suck blood up from the floor and restore your health. There’s also an intriguing little clip showing the player in control of a dog, walking around damp backalleys and seemingly following a scent to some person or other.
And it’s safe to say we’d never see Silent Hill’s Harry Mason weave magic and fight massive monstrosities using a pair of Wolverine-like clawblades.
We’ve seen time and again how hard it is for developers trying to recreate their glory days with ‘spiritual successors’ to their own past games.
Who knows from this, really. Maybe the game looks good? All I know is that its action-game stylings aren’t really my jam, and that a diverse arsenal of combat abilities is antithetical to a pure horror experience; you’re able to’t be stylishly kicking the asses of the things that are supposed to scare you. While there’s a part of me that’s disappointed at Slitterhead’s lack of Silent-Hilliness, I realise that it’s a bit silly to expect Toyama to be pigeonholed into making a certain kind of game (even if he is constantly reminding people that you’re the creator of said game is kind of self-pigeonholing).
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Also, we’ve seen time and again how hard it is for developers trying to recreate their glory days with ‘spiritual successors’ to their own past games. Yooka-Laylee had nothing on Banjo-Kazooie, and the less said aboutThe Callisto Protocolthe better (though, if youdowant us to say something about it, then check outour Vlad’s thoughts on the recent DLC).
Shinji Mikami’sThe Evil Within, meanwhile, wasn’t nearly as good as the game it was ‘spiritually succeeding,’Resident Evil 4, and it was only when the studio branched out withThe Evil Within 2intoits whole strange open-world thingthat the series really hit its stride. When Mikami’s studio Tango Gameworkscompletelyabandoned that RE blueprint with Ghostwire: Tokyo last year, I had this weird adverse reaction where I had no interest in the game because it seemed so far removed from the kind of RE4-descended horror I expected from the studio. I finally got round to playing it this year on Game Pass, andwaddya know I absolutelyloved it.
The big kicker in all this is that Toyama already has created a spiritual successor to Silent Hill in the form of the Siren/Forbidden Siren series, and from what I understand they’re actually pretty good! I’ve bought rather pricey second-hand copies of those games yet never got round to playing them. So those options are already there; Toyama has already created the thing us Silent Hill fans would want from him, and it’s understandable that he might not want to constantly regurgitate endless spiritual successors to Silent Hill. Anyway, there’s a ton of actual first-party Silent Hill on the way with theSilent Hill 2remake andSilent Hill f, so it’s not like we’re in desperate need at the moment.
Maybe it’s just the curse of being the creator of something great then carrying that label around with you. Nostalgia is such a precious, sensitive thing that when wedaresuggest that, say, a Silent Hill 2 remake may want to rethinksomethings, it can send people all up in a fluster. Naturally, spiritual successors offer more creative freedom in that respect, but there’s always this strange tinge of disappointment when a studio flaunting its horror kudos with games like Silent Hill and Siren goes off to make something altogether different.
Slitterhead may turn out great. I’ve no reason based on what I’ve seen to think it can’t. I just have a feeling that it won’t be the game for me despite coming from a creator renowned for making games that I love.
What’s my point here? Where am I going with this? Hmm, I think what I’m trying to say is that developers I like should stay in their lane, keep making the games that I like, because in my own little universe I’m the most important person in the world…
… or I just need to own my shit when the world doesn’t work exactly like I want it to.
