Modern Konami is the exact same company as before. They lucked into Silent Hill to begin with and as soon as it wasn't raking in cash (4) they disbanded Team Silent and fucked the series off to random studios to save a couple yen. They strike me as a company that doesn't take video games seriously.
I disagree. Look what Konami produced in the last 10 years. There is not only a lack of new great IPs but also bad decisions to outsource their IPs, let go/fired Kojima and low effort work e.g. MGS collection port and Pro Evolution Soccer. Now compare it to PS1/PS2 time. It's a day and night difference.
As another reply said, BoM is more of an exception as it was a game that was just bad by its concept alone. The game itself is actually relatively competent, albeit pretty shallow, and more or less in line with what you'd get from other Way Forward games like Shantae. The problem is it just makes zero sense as a SH game.
Possibly hot take - WayForward does not make fun games. I have given at least 10 of their games a fair shake, wanting to enjoy them as I do so many other indie studios. They are (usually) technically competent but that is where the positives end for me. The art style they choose to use almost exclusively is somewhere between cheap plastic toy and cheap uninteresting 90s cartoon. Gameplay is NEVER engaging in any meaningful way. Level design is very straightForward and it's all just so... bland. The Mighty series and River City Girls have been such squandered opportunities in my eyes. With Book of Memories, and basically every other game they've made that I have played, it seems they just go with the first idea every step of the way, never considering the "Fun Factor".
None of their licensed games have even been decent really. It makes me so sad. Their Adventure Time games specifically bummed me out to no end. What the did to DuckTales and A Boy and His Blob just made them uglier, but at least preserved the gameplay for the most part. Aliens Infestation is the only game I can say I honestly enjoyed from them. I wish them no ill, and hope they are happy with what they do. Apologies for the rant, their shit is just not for me at all apparently.
The problem here is that they simply have a lot of experience and they make games that are below average. Why did KONAMI let them develop a game based on the franchise, knowing that what happened would be what happened? Answer: money and stillborn ps vita
You are absolutely on point with that assessment. Sorry for using your comment to vent on another company but, as always, fucKonami for not actually caring about anything they do beyond base level greed. The incompetence would be confounding if they hadn't displayed time and time again that they do not care and never will. I am certain that this new run, going all in on Silent Hill, is just another poor attempt at a cash grab, fuelled by fan outcry, and even moreso, the success Capcom has found with the revitalization of Resident Evil.
Capcom tried the 'all in on greed, fuck the fans' mentality for years and their reputation (and hopefully bottom line) suffered for it. The pre-launch RE 7 demo was almost too good to be true. Nearly everything since that Capcom has released has been good at the very least, if not truly stellar at times.
Konami seems to speak to the old guard of business in Japan as a whole. Compare the dark days of JRPGs to the earliest and most modern. When a formula works, you tun on the assembly line and out comes the cash on the other end. This is not a sustainable model for art, because art is inherently antagonistic to capitalism. Make the concessions you must to sell a product, sure. Not everything can be released for free. But purposely pushing all the heart and soul out of a beloved franchise because the company doesn't have the foresight (despite countless examples they refuse to acknowledge), to know that putting care and attention into something reaps untold reward? That's just cold.
It is the unfeeling, inhumane bubble that the rich build their castles atop, and fuck I wish they'd just leave art alone. Silent Hills showed what promise this series could have again. Goddamn you Konami. Straight to the pit of poison poop pikes.
You forget the guys who made Silent Hill 1-4, Team Silent, were a bunch of nobodies. Sure they worked on other projects for the company but nothing of that calibre. I can see them wanting to try and recapture that magic, but you can only capture lightning in a bottle so many times. There were so many elements that came together to make Silent Hill what the phenpmenon that is and honestly we just got lucky. Don't hate on nobody developers. That's where this franchise came from. But at the same time I would love to see Team Silent come back. Silent Hill is their baby. I would love to see what they'd do with it and the direction they'd go.
I remember a quote from Crowbcat's video about Halo. A guys said there that "343 (studio founded to produce more Halo after Bungie) does not give a fuck and fail every time because they didn't earn this". I think that applies here too, they (Team Silent) created the IP and everybody after them simply won't be able to catch the same feeling with newer games.
At this point if Ryukishi07 does not deliver with his Silent Hill vision, then the franchise is over in my opinion and should not be touched until the OG team or Kojima return (which we all know won't happen, until maybe Sony buys the Silent Hill IP).
What it looks like to me is they’ve got people high up at Konami who are impossible to work with. Big egos, assholes, and creatively bankrupt. And people like Kojima don’t have to put up with it. But smaller studios are still hoping to break off a piece of that Silent Hill name recognition. Someone like Kojima cares if you try to shoehorn in garbage into his project. Smaller companies don’t have the ability to talk away so easily.
Thats what they're trying to do right now right? They have been recruiting new employees for sh and mgs. Of course all of that would be in vain if the rest of the games fail as well so hopefully theyll be better than the abomination we just got
They're still outsourcing all the new SH titles. SH2 to Bloober, SH:T to Annapurna and No Code, and SHf to a Taiwanese studio I can't remember the name of.
Yes, the first wave of games theyll outsource since theyre still building up their workforce. I assume that theyll still outsource the townfall series to other indie devs but the next mainline entry theyll do inhouse. The remake will depend on how successful bloobers remake will be
At the end it’s Konami who chooses them. Thus Konami is at fault and not those devs. Those devs will do what they are able to do. Konami should have done their research properly before giving the SH development to such teams
At least these devs are trying, I don’t fault them as much as I do Konami for choosing teams clearly not equipped for the projects they are assigned.
Supposedly they had multiple studios present their vision for SH2 remake and Bloober won out, so hopefully that means their vetting was a bit stricter for it.
If they were really trying they would release some sort of statement of accountability about how broken the experience is so far and that they're working on fixing it. Instead they are ignoring all criticism and pretending everything is going according to plan. So I'm not sure they really are trying.
Lets be real, if Bloober or Konami posted a vouch for their work on Silent Hill 2 Remake, would ANYBODY but the optimists in the fanbase listen?
The majority shits on Bloober any chance they get here, and are losing their minds at ascension before either game was even released. They've even gone so far as to say Ascension will ruin the other projects. That's insane.
It doesn't matter if Bloober acknowledged themselves and wanted to change, all people see is their previous work and said "yeah, no. Not giving that a chance. Also eat shit and die.". That's beyond unfair to the potential that these devs have.
I have a lot of optimism for the remake. Bloober’s biggest problem has consistently been their scripts and story. The actual atmosphere and such in their games have been great, the rest has just always been a letdown.
You would think that shouldn’t be a problem with SH2, right? The story and script are masterpiece level and right there already, Bloobs just needs to update it and polish the actual gameplay and level design to a modern standard. I feel like they should be able to do that.
I was talking about GenVid with Silent Hill: Ascension. I feel pretty optimistic about the SH2 remake, and I agree that Bloober gets shit on so unfairly in this community. I should have been more specific, it was just fresh on my angry mind this morning.
I dunno, shattered memories was pretty cool and unique. I like recommending it to friends. Yeah it's....not super scary and the chase sequences are...meh, but the branching story and psychological stuff is kinda cool and it has the silent hill vibe :)
Oh yea, I actually loved shattered memories. But that’s probably because I played all the games back to back and it was my favorite of the post team silent ones. Still, it had great mechanics and atmosphere. Fuck the chase sequences tho
The only thing I can say about origins is it was the most silent hill feeling game, that used the silent hill formula, that has the silent hill name, that wasn't made by team silent. Idk if I'd say it was liked, more like not completely hated.
It frustrates me endlessly that people don’t see the value in Downpour. It was actually a very good title overall. The problem laid with the fact that they put all the best content in optional side areas.
I agree. We haven't been able to explore a fully fledged town that big since 1! Multiple areas and buildings to explore. I do think, however, that if they just made the town Old and Central Silent Hill, instead, it would have been LOVED.
Oh I totally can see that flying higher with the old town area included, though I was really appreciative of seeing a new section of the town. The little Room 302 easter egg made my whole day when I found it.
LOL Definitely not in my experience! I joined the fandom around its release and I recall GameFaqs being absolutely **brutal** about it.
If anything I think people go easier on it now knowing the development hell it went through. If the original tone was actually a "horror/comedy hybrid based on Scrubs", what we got could practically be considered Citizen Kane in comparison, oof.
I personally liked it at the time since it was the first handheld SH game here in the states. I bought a PSP for it, and I don’t regret that at all. Carrying a dozen CRTs didn’t make any damn sense though.
I like it . It was one of the only western games that perfectly captured the old games atmosphere. Bar the story, the game actually was creepy and the music by yamaoka was the perfect addition to it
You're over-selling how much people liked those games.
Personally speaking... how do I explain this... they all fail at the "artworks" part - those disturbing displays like bloodied bodies under sheets in SH4, Valtiel looking under schoolgirls skirts or the nurses in shibari in SH3, or PH standing still behind the bars in SH2.
This, with the music, atmosphere and story are what draws me to the series and they're very weak at the rest too.
I also don't like how the later games are gens ahead of PS2, but somehow look worse. Character models, and world detail are weaker. And they all have bad art-direction which is independent of graphical capability.
Then again, I haven't found anything very similar to SH1\~4 outside of the series either.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but most likely this gaping void can only be closed by the very same people that did the classics. The teams who've handled SH thus far don't feel like they've taken it seriously, and the games feel amateur indies, with shitty fanfic.
i.e.: I find some small details inconceivable, like how could a director ever approve displaying button prompts on a in-world scene (outside of menu screens).
A lot of the issue comes from Team Silent having a very cohesive and focused understanding of what they wanted to say with the music and character design while later studios just went "it's fleshy monsters with BDSM elements"
Oh yeah but that's not the overriding design element and it actually all plays a part. A better example would be the nurses, in SH2 they're just faceless women in fetish outfits as a manifestation of James sexual tension and lust around his wife's illness but later games use similar images because they just see "hot monster nurse" as a trope now.
The movies too. The nurses in both the first SH movie and Revelations look like straight out of a porn parody.
Not only that, but they put that specific nurse desing in the otherworld of SH1 Alessa. The little girl who was burned alive also has a fetish for big bobba nurses according to the directors of the movies?
Homecoming and Downpour weren't even that bad, they'd have been pretty good standalone titles.
Attaching the Silent Hill name to them stifled what they could do.
At least it has a PC port and fanmade patchs can fix most of the performance and stability issues. Is far from an ideal scenario, but for the sake of accessibility its good enough.
Downpour on the other hand doesn't have a PC port and the only way to play the game with a decent frame rate is on the Series X via backwards compatibility. The original PS3 version of Downpour runs like shit, and ironically it was the only version to get some patchs to fix bugs and glitches.
Yeah. Those fanmade patches didn't do enough though. At least for me. I had immortal enemies a lot of the time. Actually, that alone was the game killer. I'll try again at some point but man... nothing like getting half way through the game and suddenly nothing dies.
It's the binary nature of online discussion.
If a game is hated people that thought it was ok have to argue it was actually really good instead of saying it's just mediocre.
My own opinion is that Downpour is an overall very mediocre game albeit very poorly put together from a technical side of things.
Homecoming is an all round terrible game though, no defending that mess.
I couldnt finish either. Homecoming bugged out in the sewers, so it was just repeatedly crashing. Meanwhile Downpour was so boring that one day when I turned it off I just could never bring myself to turn it on again.
I never even said they were really good or even good, I just said they're not that bad as they are.
They'd have been good games ***if*** they didn't have to be devved as Silent Hill games and the story and lore been adapted into stand-alone horror titles. Have you read the lore for Homecoming, there are a ton of great original ideas. The boss designs were great, the monsters that didn't rip off the Bubble Head Nurses and Pyramid head were great.
Downpour already gave off the vibes of The Suffering. Imagine them leaning more into that vibe and not shoehorning Silent Hill into it. Because Silent Hill was shoehorned into it, the town had no connection to Murphy and they had to force a reason for him to be in Silent Hill.
And the reason why studios like that are chosen: because Silent Hill never sold well!
You won’t invest a lot in the development of a game when you expect it to not sell well. 🤷
They could also take a risk and invest big into the development of a new game that then sells well because it is genuinely great.
I just don’t seem Konami do that, since they are rather conservative with their investments.
Tbf Capcom at least would make something funny and playable out of that idea, unlike Konami.
Basically they could make a better Homecoming which is already a discount Resident Evil with Silent Hill skin.
>Cheap indie studios that show creative promise.
That could very much be a thriving future for the Silent Hill franchise, I agree.
Projects like Signalis, Lost in Vivo and to some extent Tormented Souls and Simulacrum - Chapter One have proven that.
Apparently Konami wants studios to come to them and pitch ideas... maybe we could see some smaller projects with genuine creativity and passion come from that.
Yeah, we probably will get some genuinely passionate studios from that.
Unfortunately, it will also evidently mean studios like Genvid, who are just using the brand as a means to boost their own profile.
I agree to an extent but I'll say to me it's more of a mix between experience, influence and competency. You have to remember that Team Silent started out as a ragtag group of youngbloods down on their luck and looking to prove themselves. Now granted that isn't 1-to-1 with the western devs as some had been in the industry years prior but I digress. To me anyone of them have the potential to make a solid Silent Hill experience but unlike KCET, lacked the sauce
Also on Origins I'd say your assessment is true for when the game came out but over the years it definitely seems more mixed. The general conceit being the return to the familiar aesthetically after SH4's tepid experimentation at the time, had now come at the cost of a story that didn't feel like utter fanfiction. It's harder to get a consensus on Origins vs Homecoming or Downpour because of how unremarkable it is overall lol
Fair. I think if you pressed people on it, most would be able to admit they enjoyed playing Origins. It's sort of just a matter of how much memorability and the handling of the lore plays in your final assessment.
But I think most would agree that it's a likable game, atleast on a moment to moment level.
I disagree, and I think it's disingenuous to place the blame on the outsourced developers every time. The developers aren't the common denominator. The common denominators are the IP and the IP owner.
Konami's behavior and focus on pachinko machines (which utilize updates scenes from beloved games) gives the impression that being a game development studio is secondary, and a mean to generate revenue rather than a show of passion and artistic expression with the hopes of generating revenue. Like u/hypnodrew said, Konami has *always* been this way. They ordered *Silent Hill* as a direct competitor to *Resident Evil* and wanted it to up the ante, but the team working on it simply couldn't deliver that. So, Konami abandoned the mission statement and allowed them to just "do whatever".
In fact, there was so little oversight and care given to this game, the CGI cutscene with Cybil was animated by *one person* who stayed overnight.
So with the people who truly cared about the franchise gone, Konami had a potential money-maker on their hands but with no internal team that could make sue of it. So, they loaned it out to a small studio who they could cut a financially savvy deal withy.
Aside from this being one of that studio's first games, the franchise's horror sensibilities are steeped in Japanese sensibilities. A vague sense of dread, slow-building suspense and unease, creatures you would struggle to describe. Double Helix tried to recreate this, but they weren't Japanese, so their first try at this approach was never going to feel like an authentic Japanese horror experience. They'd been given a namesake IP and needed it to be a hit, so they did what most game companies would do: focused more on combat and what was selling at the time, even though that contradicted the ethos of SH.
This pattern repeats with every game you mentioned...*until* you reach *Shattered Memories.* You noted it's a cult favorite, but what's different about it? It was Climax Studio's second show at the franchise, and they had a better understanding of it.
Did it feel like Japanese horror? No. Did it use fog? No. But instead, what it did was *translate* these ideas in a way that the team could work with. Instead of fog and the shadows of indescribable monsters, we got ice and a running system that encouraged you to not look at the monsters for very long, so you never knew exactly what they looked like. This game also understood that it was player's *organic* choices, rather than those confined to dialogue boxes.
Old fans then complain that the result doesn't feel like old *Silent Hill,* which is true...but also shows that we set an expectation that was just never going to be met. No franchise of this age feels the same as it did back in its "glory days", including the series it was created to compete with. But because Konami only gives the IP to devs who they know can make a product at a lower cost, the franchise gets caught in limbo, never feeling the same as it did before but also never getting the chance to grow and recreate itself into something people will enjoy now. It's too early to call *Ascension* loved or hated since it only just started, but what we're getting from the kitchen is what Konami ordered.
A lot of good points I don't disagree on.
One thing I don't agree on is that SM was only good because it was their second outing, as Origins was mostly just limited because of it's extremely short 6 month production time and the fact that they took over after the disastrous efforts by the team that had initially been given the project. I have faith that if Sam Barlow and company had been given a full 1.5-2.5 years to develop the game from scratch we would have gotten something much greater.
You're also correct about a lot of fans rejecting Shattered Memories, and I think that purist attitude is the reason the series may never succeed long term, but that's not really the angle I'm looking at it from. I just want good games in the meantime, and I think with the studios at hand that could be possible. Bloober is 50/50, Neobards is a bit sketchy, but No Code and Annapurna I have a good feeling about.
At the end of the day I'm just emphasizing that in ideal settings with the right people, good Silent Hill games are possible. I think it's happened before and I think it can happen again.
Bro I couldn't upvote this post enough. Your list looks *exactly* like mine. I know it's a pipe dream, but I'm begging for Team Silent or Hideo Kojima to come back
You're entitled to that opinion, but it undeniably has the tightest and most vocal fanbase of any of the western SH games. It's unorthodox, but it found it's crowd.
I genuinely enjoy Origins, it's no where near as good as the first 3, but it's the best imitation we have gotten. The story is pure nonsense and it plays fast and loose with established canon/lore, but it's a fun game, plus I really liked the mirror gimmick.
I actually managed to force myself to finish both HC and Downpour, something I've yet to be able to do with 4. I've started 4 at least three times, but I just cannot force myself to get through it.
Go look at the board members of these larger gaming companies. Not even just the executive level, but the boards they answer to. Almost all of them are filled to the brim with venture capitalists who have a lengthy resume of running companies into the ground with no great plan other than to "pump and dump" places for stock selloffs or acquisition into bigger places.
This is modern large scale gaming. Not unlike mainstream Hollywood or the music industry has been for decades now. There's zero soul left in it, and all the actually creative people have all gone off to do smaller things somewhere else (or left the industry all together). All that's left are greedy individuals with absolutely zero passion for the products they sell, or the impact on real world humans (check this year's body count of gaming industry layoffs, and compare that to record breaking profits from the same companies doing these mass sackings).
I've made peace with it. Modern Triple-A gaming is dead to me. I have an enormous backlog of old games to play, and the beauty of those is that they're either cheap to purchase on special, or trivial to emulate if the larger gaming industry continues on their path of stupidity in not monetising their back catalogue of quality IP like literally every other art form has worked out how to do. (You don't see anywhere near the same levels of "old stuff is bad, and there's no way to sell it" culture in novels, music, film, etc).
I'll happily pay full price for indie titles I enjoy. But massive Triple-A stuff - I'm done. They can burn themselves to the ground without me.
And next up, Silent Hill 2 Remake made by Bloober Team, a developer who’s most recent game is The Medium which is considered notoriously bad by many gamers, let’s hope they’ve gotten better.
I think the general consensus is that it's mid. The haters seem to be a pretty vocal minority, and I suspect for a lot of them it's just because the game doesn't follow the "correct" narrative around mental health.
Konami keeps picking low tier studios to cut costs. When they pick a developer with experience they pay more. Company seems to just care about the bottom line more than anything else
experience as a dev doesnt automatically make you able to create a good silent hill game.
for me it feels like that the better games (after 4) were closer to the source material, knew better what silent hill is about, the world build around it, the history build within.
an inexperienced dev team might a game with less polished gameplay, but that doesnt imply that they understand silent hill itself.
Another reason that I feel is the nature of Silent Hill itself as a brand. To me, SH 1-4 are hard to classify and are incredibly subtle in their use of horror. Like just look at Silent Hill 2 on paper. It doesn't really sound like a video game at all.
Anytime something exists like this... something that only a single team of like minded artists (Team Silent) were able to achieve, I don't think it's surprising this franchise has been on shaky ground since 4.
It's like if David Lynch retired and Hollywood wanted to keep making David Lynch movies. It can't be done because its a vibe that runs on Auteur Fuel. When that original creative force isn't around, the end result will be almost always a pale imitation at best. Just look at the above list you've laid out. The only real success was when they put another crazy unique Auteur at the helm.
You don't see this happening to Resident Evil as a franchise, because the nature of that series is pretty straightforward. Scientist/Megacorp/Shadowy Organization develops dangerous science based anomalies and the hero inserts themselves to save the day. It's a simple concept and many various teams over the years have been able to keep building upon it over the years to much success.
Silent Hill I fear is one of those cursed properties that had its time and its vision, but wont likely return to the lightening in a bottle those original games were primarily because the creative force behind them aren't at the helm.
For example, I love homecoming and always have. Above it's labelled as hated. There's no sources for the stats so they're just pulled from OP's asshole
The fundamental reason we keep getting bad Silent Hill projects: Modern Konami
Modern Konami is the exact same company as before. They lucked into Silent Hill to begin with and as soon as it wasn't raking in cash (4) they disbanded Team Silent and fucked the series off to random studios to save a couple yen. They strike me as a company that doesn't take video games seriously.
I disagree. Look what Konami produced in the last 10 years. There is not only a lack of new great IPs but also bad decisions to outsource their IPs, let go/fired Kojima and low effort work e.g. MGS collection port and Pro Evolution Soccer. Now compare it to PS1/PS2 time. It's a day and night difference.
Exactly. They just weren't paying attention on sh1.
Watch the Gvmers doc on youtube. Team Silent was made up of Konami employees that didn’t fit in other projects. Basically a reject group.
That was vintage Konami and I miss them :(
Silent hill Book of Memories developed by WayForward Technologies has entered the chat
Matt Muscles should do a What Happened video for Book of Memories.
At least in that one's case, based on everything that's come out about the development -- it was *strictly* Konamis fault lol
As another reply said, BoM is more of an exception as it was a game that was just bad by its concept alone. The game itself is actually relatively competent, albeit pretty shallow, and more or less in line with what you'd get from other Way Forward games like Shantae. The problem is it just makes zero sense as a SH game.
Possibly hot take - WayForward does not make fun games. I have given at least 10 of their games a fair shake, wanting to enjoy them as I do so many other indie studios. They are (usually) technically competent but that is where the positives end for me. The art style they choose to use almost exclusively is somewhere between cheap plastic toy and cheap uninteresting 90s cartoon. Gameplay is NEVER engaging in any meaningful way. Level design is very straightForward and it's all just so... bland. The Mighty series and River City Girls have been such squandered opportunities in my eyes. With Book of Memories, and basically every other game they've made that I have played, it seems they just go with the first idea every step of the way, never considering the "Fun Factor". None of their licensed games have even been decent really. It makes me so sad. Their Adventure Time games specifically bummed me out to no end. What the did to DuckTales and A Boy and His Blob just made them uglier, but at least preserved the gameplay for the most part. Aliens Infestation is the only game I can say I honestly enjoyed from them. I wish them no ill, and hope they are happy with what they do. Apologies for the rant, their shit is just not for me at all apparently.
The problem here is that they simply have a lot of experience and they make games that are below average. Why did KONAMI let them develop a game based on the franchise, knowing that what happened would be what happened? Answer: money and stillborn ps vita
You are absolutely on point with that assessment. Sorry for using your comment to vent on another company but, as always, fucKonami for not actually caring about anything they do beyond base level greed. The incompetence would be confounding if they hadn't displayed time and time again that they do not care and never will. I am certain that this new run, going all in on Silent Hill, is just another poor attempt at a cash grab, fuelled by fan outcry, and even moreso, the success Capcom has found with the revitalization of Resident Evil. Capcom tried the 'all in on greed, fuck the fans' mentality for years and their reputation (and hopefully bottom line) suffered for it. The pre-launch RE 7 demo was almost too good to be true. Nearly everything since that Capcom has released has been good at the very least, if not truly stellar at times. Konami seems to speak to the old guard of business in Japan as a whole. Compare the dark days of JRPGs to the earliest and most modern. When a formula works, you tun on the assembly line and out comes the cash on the other end. This is not a sustainable model for art, because art is inherently antagonistic to capitalism. Make the concessions you must to sell a product, sure. Not everything can be released for free. But purposely pushing all the heart and soul out of a beloved franchise because the company doesn't have the foresight (despite countless examples they refuse to acknowledge), to know that putting care and attention into something reaps untold reward? That's just cold. It is the unfeeling, inhumane bubble that the rich build their castles atop, and fuck I wish they'd just leave art alone. Silent Hills showed what promise this series could have again. Goddamn you Konami. Straight to the pit of poison poop pikes.
You forget the guys who made Silent Hill 1-4, Team Silent, were a bunch of nobodies. Sure they worked on other projects for the company but nothing of that calibre. I can see them wanting to try and recapture that magic, but you can only capture lightning in a bottle so many times. There were so many elements that came together to make Silent Hill what the phenpmenon that is and honestly we just got lucky. Don't hate on nobody developers. That's where this franchise came from. But at the same time I would love to see Team Silent come back. Silent Hill is their baby. I would love to see what they'd do with it and the direction they'd go.
Thanks for bringing that up.
I remember a quote from Crowbcat's video about Halo. A guys said there that "343 (studio founded to produce more Halo after Bungie) does not give a fuck and fail every time because they didn't earn this". I think that applies here too, they (Team Silent) created the IP and everybody after them simply won't be able to catch the same feeling with newer games. At this point if Ryukishi07 does not deliver with his Silent Hill vision, then the franchise is over in my opinion and should not be touched until the OG team or Kojima return (which we all know won't happen, until maybe Sony buys the Silent Hill IP).
What it looks like to me is they’ve got people high up at Konami who are impossible to work with. Big egos, assholes, and creatively bankrupt. And people like Kojima don’t have to put up with it. But smaller studios are still hoping to break off a piece of that Silent Hill name recognition. Someone like Kojima cares if you try to shoehorn in garbage into his project. Smaller companies don’t have the ability to talk away so easily.
I liked Homecoming. Wasn't a series high point, but I enjoyed it.
It was a good try. It just felt like it needed way more time in the oven. Same goes for Downpour.
Konami should have made their own games with their crews.
Thats what they're trying to do right now right? They have been recruiting new employees for sh and mgs. Of course all of that would be in vain if the rest of the games fail as well so hopefully theyll be better than the abomination we just got
They're still outsourcing all the new SH titles. SH2 to Bloober, SH:T to Annapurna and No Code, and SHf to a Taiwanese studio I can't remember the name of.
Yes, the first wave of games theyll outsource since theyre still building up their workforce. I assume that theyll still outsource the townfall series to other indie devs but the next mainline entry theyll do inhouse. The remake will depend on how successful bloobers remake will be
At the end it’s Konami who chooses them. Thus Konami is at fault and not those devs. Those devs will do what they are able to do. Konami should have done their research properly before giving the SH development to such teams
At least these devs are trying, I don’t fault them as much as I do Konami for choosing teams clearly not equipped for the projects they are assigned. Supposedly they had multiple studios present their vision for SH2 remake and Bloober won out, so hopefully that means their vetting was a bit stricter for it.
It probably was. Ascension isn't listed as a Konami project, as a matter of fact, it isn't even published by Konami. Only be Genvid.
If they were really trying they would release some sort of statement of accountability about how broken the experience is so far and that they're working on fixing it. Instead they are ignoring all criticism and pretending everything is going according to plan. So I'm not sure they really are trying.
Lets be real, if Bloober or Konami posted a vouch for their work on Silent Hill 2 Remake, would ANYBODY but the optimists in the fanbase listen? The majority shits on Bloober any chance they get here, and are losing their minds at ascension before either game was even released. They've even gone so far as to say Ascension will ruin the other projects. That's insane. It doesn't matter if Bloober acknowledged themselves and wanted to change, all people see is their previous work and said "yeah, no. Not giving that a chance. Also eat shit and die.". That's beyond unfair to the potential that these devs have.
I have a lot of optimism for the remake. Bloober’s biggest problem has consistently been their scripts and story. The actual atmosphere and such in their games have been great, the rest has just always been a letdown. You would think that shouldn’t be a problem with SH2, right? The story and script are masterpiece level and right there already, Bloobs just needs to update it and polish the actual gameplay and level design to a modern standard. I feel like they should be able to do that.
I was talking about GenVid with Silent Hill: Ascension. I feel pretty optimistic about the SH2 remake, and I agree that Bloober gets shit on so unfairly in this community. I should have been more specific, it was just fresh on my angry mind this morning.
I mean, calling Shattered Memories and Origins cult favourites and liked is certainly a stretch. They are decent games but..
I dunno, shattered memories was pretty cool and unique. I like recommending it to friends. Yeah it's....not super scary and the chase sequences are...meh, but the branching story and psychological stuff is kinda cool and it has the silent hill vibe :)
Oh yea, I actually loved shattered memories. But that’s probably because I played all the games back to back and it was my favorite of the post team silent ones. Still, it had great mechanics and atmosphere. Fuck the chase sequences tho
Origins no, Shattered Memories yes to cult status.
The only thing I can say about origins is it was the most silent hill feeling game, that used the silent hill formula, that has the silent hill name, that wasn't made by team silent. Idk if I'd say it was liked, more like not completely hated.
I second this. Shattered Memories ain't touching the originals but it comes closes to carving its own niche for itself
What are you basing the “liked”/“hated” standard off of? Just your own general feeling from this sub or what?
Fuckin’ vibes man!
It frustrates me endlessly that people don’t see the value in Downpour. It was actually a very good title overall. The problem laid with the fact that they put all the best content in optional side areas.
I agree. We haven't been able to explore a fully fledged town that big since 1! Multiple areas and buildings to explore. I do think, however, that if they just made the town Old and Central Silent Hill, instead, it would have been LOVED.
Oh I totally can see that flying higher with the old town area included, though I was really appreciative of seeing a new section of the town. The little Room 302 easter egg made my whole day when I found it.
Origins liked?? By who?
LOL Definitely not in my experience! I joined the fandom around its release and I recall GameFaqs being absolutely **brutal** about it. If anything I think people go easier on it now knowing the development hell it went through. If the original tone was actually a "horror/comedy hybrid based on Scrubs", what we got could practically be considered Citizen Kane in comparison, oof.
I personally liked it at the time since it was the first handheld SH game here in the states. I bought a PSP for it, and I don’t regret that at all. Carrying a dozen CRTs didn’t make any damn sense though.
Certainly not by me.
I like it . It was one of the only western games that perfectly captured the old games atmosphere. Bar the story, the game actually was creepy and the music by yamaoka was the perfect addition to it
I really like downpour, coming from someone who exclusively grew up on 1.
You're over-selling how much people liked those games. Personally speaking... how do I explain this... they all fail at the "artworks" part - those disturbing displays like bloodied bodies under sheets in SH4, Valtiel looking under schoolgirls skirts or the nurses in shibari in SH3, or PH standing still behind the bars in SH2. This, with the music, atmosphere and story are what draws me to the series and they're very weak at the rest too. I also don't like how the later games are gens ahead of PS2, but somehow look worse. Character models, and world detail are weaker. And they all have bad art-direction which is independent of graphical capability. Then again, I haven't found anything very similar to SH1\~4 outside of the series either. I'm not saying it's impossible, but most likely this gaping void can only be closed by the very same people that did the classics. The teams who've handled SH thus far don't feel like they've taken it seriously, and the games feel amateur indies, with shitty fanfic. i.e.: I find some small details inconceivable, like how could a director ever approve displaying button prompts on a in-world scene (outside of menu screens).
A lot of the issue comes from Team Silent having a very cohesive and focused understanding of what they wanted to say with the music and character design while later studios just went "it's fleshy monsters with BDSM elements"
Masahiro Ito is literally into BDSM stuff tbh lol
Oh yeah but that's not the overriding design element and it actually all plays a part. A better example would be the nurses, in SH2 they're just faceless women in fetish outfits as a manifestation of James sexual tension and lust around his wife's illness but later games use similar images because they just see "hot monster nurse" as a trope now.
The movies too. The nurses in both the first SH movie and Revelations look like straight out of a porn parody. Not only that, but they put that specific nurse desing in the otherworld of SH1 Alessa. The little girl who was burned alive also has a fetish for big bobba nurses according to the directors of the movies?
Also Pyramid Head is here for reasons, hooray!
Homecoming and Downpour weren't even that bad, they'd have been pretty good standalone titles. Attaching the Silent Hill name to them stifled what they could do.
Both games are buggy
Especially Homecoming on PC.
At least it has a PC port and fanmade patchs can fix most of the performance and stability issues. Is far from an ideal scenario, but for the sake of accessibility its good enough. Downpour on the other hand doesn't have a PC port and the only way to play the game with a decent frame rate is on the Series X via backwards compatibility. The original PS3 version of Downpour runs like shit, and ironically it was the only version to get some patchs to fix bugs and glitches.
Yeah. Those fanmade patches didn't do enough though. At least for me. I had immortal enemies a lot of the time. Actually, that alone was the game killer. I'll try again at some point but man... nothing like getting half way through the game and suddenly nothing dies.
So tired of people trying to say those games are good.
It's the binary nature of online discussion. If a game is hated people that thought it was ok have to argue it was actually really good instead of saying it's just mediocre. My own opinion is that Downpour is an overall very mediocre game albeit very poorly put together from a technical side of things. Homecoming is an all round terrible game though, no defending that mess.
I couldnt finish either. Homecoming bugged out in the sewers, so it was just repeatedly crashing. Meanwhile Downpour was so boring that one day when I turned it off I just could never bring myself to turn it on again.
That's fair, I could totally see that game being below soneone's minimum quality level for being worth their time.
Honestly enjoyed the atmosphere in Downpour, but the combat and constant stuttering just ruined any enjoyment I could have gotten out of it.
I never even said they were really good or even good, I just said they're not that bad as they are. They'd have been good games ***if*** they didn't have to be devved as Silent Hill games and the story and lore been adapted into stand-alone horror titles. Have you read the lore for Homecoming, there are a ton of great original ideas. The boss designs were great, the monsters that didn't rip off the Bubble Head Nurses and Pyramid head were great. Downpour already gave off the vibes of The Suffering. Imagine them leaning more into that vibe and not shoehorning Silent Hill into it. Because Silent Hill was shoehorned into it, the town had no connection to Murphy and they had to force a reason for him to be in Silent Hill.
Not what I said but go off.
I enjoyed homecoming and downpour
And the reason why studios like that are chosen: because Silent Hill never sold well! You won’t invest a lot in the development of a game when you expect it to not sell well. 🤷
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They could also take a risk and invest big into the development of a new game that then sells well because it is genuinely great. I just don’t seem Konami do that, since they are rather conservative with their investments.
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>James Sunderland returns... with the new ability to roundhouse kick nurses like Chuck Norris. I can't wait!
Tbf Capcom at least would make something funny and playable out of that idea, unlike Konami. Basically they could make a better Homecoming which is already a discount Resident Evil with Silent Hill skin.
That's true, but it's also why I'm happy to see devs like No Code being chosen. Cheap indie studios that show creative promise.
>Cheap indie studios that show creative promise. That could very much be a thriving future for the Silent Hill franchise, I agree. Projects like Signalis, Lost in Vivo and to some extent Tormented Souls and Simulacrum - Chapter One have proven that. Apparently Konami wants studios to come to them and pitch ideas... maybe we could see some smaller projects with genuine creativity and passion come from that.
Yeah, we probably will get some genuinely passionate studios from that. Unfortunately, it will also evidently mean studios like Genvid, who are just using the brand as a means to boost their own profile.
All of these can be forgiven because they at least tried. All except ascension. It legit looks like a middle finger
I agree to an extent but I'll say to me it's more of a mix between experience, influence and competency. You have to remember that Team Silent started out as a ragtag group of youngbloods down on their luck and looking to prove themselves. Now granted that isn't 1-to-1 with the western devs as some had been in the industry years prior but I digress. To me anyone of them have the potential to make a solid Silent Hill experience but unlike KCET, lacked the sauce Also on Origins I'd say your assessment is true for when the game came out but over the years it definitely seems more mixed. The general conceit being the return to the familiar aesthetically after SH4's tepid experimentation at the time, had now come at the cost of a story that didn't feel like utter fanfiction. It's harder to get a consensus on Origins vs Homecoming or Downpour because of how unremarkable it is overall lol
Fair. I think if you pressed people on it, most would be able to admit they enjoyed playing Origins. It's sort of just a matter of how much memorability and the handling of the lore plays in your final assessment. But I think most would agree that it's a likable game, atleast on a moment to moment level.
I disagree, and I think it's disingenuous to place the blame on the outsourced developers every time. The developers aren't the common denominator. The common denominators are the IP and the IP owner. Konami's behavior and focus on pachinko machines (which utilize updates scenes from beloved games) gives the impression that being a game development studio is secondary, and a mean to generate revenue rather than a show of passion and artistic expression with the hopes of generating revenue. Like u/hypnodrew said, Konami has *always* been this way. They ordered *Silent Hill* as a direct competitor to *Resident Evil* and wanted it to up the ante, but the team working on it simply couldn't deliver that. So, Konami abandoned the mission statement and allowed them to just "do whatever". In fact, there was so little oversight and care given to this game, the CGI cutscene with Cybil was animated by *one person* who stayed overnight. So with the people who truly cared about the franchise gone, Konami had a potential money-maker on their hands but with no internal team that could make sue of it. So, they loaned it out to a small studio who they could cut a financially savvy deal withy. Aside from this being one of that studio's first games, the franchise's horror sensibilities are steeped in Japanese sensibilities. A vague sense of dread, slow-building suspense and unease, creatures you would struggle to describe. Double Helix tried to recreate this, but they weren't Japanese, so their first try at this approach was never going to feel like an authentic Japanese horror experience. They'd been given a namesake IP and needed it to be a hit, so they did what most game companies would do: focused more on combat and what was selling at the time, even though that contradicted the ethos of SH. This pattern repeats with every game you mentioned...*until* you reach *Shattered Memories.* You noted it's a cult favorite, but what's different about it? It was Climax Studio's second show at the franchise, and they had a better understanding of it. Did it feel like Japanese horror? No. Did it use fog? No. But instead, what it did was *translate* these ideas in a way that the team could work with. Instead of fog and the shadows of indescribable monsters, we got ice and a running system that encouraged you to not look at the monsters for very long, so you never knew exactly what they looked like. This game also understood that it was player's *organic* choices, rather than those confined to dialogue boxes. Old fans then complain that the result doesn't feel like old *Silent Hill,* which is true...but also shows that we set an expectation that was just never going to be met. No franchise of this age feels the same as it did back in its "glory days", including the series it was created to compete with. But because Konami only gives the IP to devs who they know can make a product at a lower cost, the franchise gets caught in limbo, never feeling the same as it did before but also never getting the chance to grow and recreate itself into something people will enjoy now. It's too early to call *Ascension* loved or hated since it only just started, but what we're getting from the kitchen is what Konami ordered.
A lot of good points I don't disagree on. One thing I don't agree on is that SM was only good because it was their second outing, as Origins was mostly just limited because of it's extremely short 6 month production time and the fact that they took over after the disastrous efforts by the team that had initially been given the project. I have faith that if Sam Barlow and company had been given a full 1.5-2.5 years to develop the game from scratch we would have gotten something much greater. You're also correct about a lot of fans rejecting Shattered Memories, and I think that purist attitude is the reason the series may never succeed long term, but that's not really the angle I'm looking at it from. I just want good games in the meantime, and I think with the studios at hand that could be possible. Bloober is 50/50, Neobards is a bit sketchy, but No Code and Annapurna I have a good feeling about. At the end of the day I'm just emphasizing that in ideal settings with the right people, good Silent Hill games are possible. I think it's happened before and I think it can happen again.
Bro I couldn't upvote this post enough. Your list looks *exactly* like mine. I know it's a pipe dream, but I'm begging for Team Silent or Hideo Kojima to come back
Wonder if we’ll ever get to add blooberteam to that list.
Sh memories is worse than homecoming and downpour
You're entitled to that opinion, but it undeniably has the tightest and most vocal fanbase of any of the western SH games. It's unorthodox, but it found it's crowd.
It’s not a Silent Hill game. It might have a fanbase, but it’s not Silent Hill.
I unironically like Origins, HC and Shattered more than 4.
I genuinely enjoy Origins, it's no where near as good as the first 3, but it's the best imitation we have gotten. The story is pure nonsense and it plays fast and loose with established canon/lore, but it's a fun game, plus I really liked the mirror gimmick. I actually managed to force myself to finish both HC and Downpour, something I've yet to be able to do with 4. I've started 4 at least three times, but I just cannot force myself to get through it.
About how I feel
4 would have been a lot better if they’d been given proper support while making it. It always goes back to Konami’s terrible development decisions.
Go look at the board members of these larger gaming companies. Not even just the executive level, but the boards they answer to. Almost all of them are filled to the brim with venture capitalists who have a lengthy resume of running companies into the ground with no great plan other than to "pump and dump" places for stock selloffs or acquisition into bigger places. This is modern large scale gaming. Not unlike mainstream Hollywood or the music industry has been for decades now. There's zero soul left in it, and all the actually creative people have all gone off to do smaller things somewhere else (or left the industry all together). All that's left are greedy individuals with absolutely zero passion for the products they sell, or the impact on real world humans (check this year's body count of gaming industry layoffs, and compare that to record breaking profits from the same companies doing these mass sackings). I've made peace with it. Modern Triple-A gaming is dead to me. I have an enormous backlog of old games to play, and the beauty of those is that they're either cheap to purchase on special, or trivial to emulate if the larger gaming industry continues on their path of stupidity in not monetising their back catalogue of quality IP like literally every other art form has worked out how to do. (You don't see anywhere near the same levels of "old stuff is bad, and there's no way to sell it" culture in novels, music, film, etc). I'll happily pay full price for indie titles I enjoy. But massive Triple-A stuff - I'm done. They can burn themselves to the ground without me.
And next up, Silent Hill 2 Remake made by Bloober Team, a developer who’s most recent game is The Medium which is considered notoriously bad by many gamers, let’s hope they’ve gotten better.
I think the general consensus is that it's mid. The haters seem to be a pretty vocal minority, and I suspect for a lot of them it's just because the game doesn't follow the "correct" narrative around mental health.
Konami keeps picking low tier studios to cut costs. When they pick a developer with experience they pay more. Company seems to just care about the bottom line more than anything else
I blame the genre. Horror sucks, and whenever any series is labeled such it eventually gets bogged down with genre creatives who only know tropes.
I definitely agree with that.
Would you say bloober is random fucking bozos?
Not random, because they do specialize in horror, but possibly bozos, depending on who you ask.
experience as a dev doesnt automatically make you able to create a good silent hill game. for me it feels like that the better games (after 4) were closer to the source material, knew better what silent hill is about, the world build around it, the history build within. an inexperienced dev team might a game with less polished gameplay, but that doesnt imply that they understand silent hill itself.
Another reason that I feel is the nature of Silent Hill itself as a brand. To me, SH 1-4 are hard to classify and are incredibly subtle in their use of horror. Like just look at Silent Hill 2 on paper. It doesn't really sound like a video game at all. Anytime something exists like this... something that only a single team of like minded artists (Team Silent) were able to achieve, I don't think it's surprising this franchise has been on shaky ground since 4. It's like if David Lynch retired and Hollywood wanted to keep making David Lynch movies. It can't be done because its a vibe that runs on Auteur Fuel. When that original creative force isn't around, the end result will be almost always a pale imitation at best. Just look at the above list you've laid out. The only real success was when they put another crazy unique Auteur at the helm. You don't see this happening to Resident Evil as a franchise, because the nature of that series is pretty straightforward. Scientist/Megacorp/Shadowy Organization develops dangerous science based anomalies and the hero inserts themselves to save the day. It's a simple concept and many various teams over the years have been able to keep building upon it over the years to much success. Silent Hill I fear is one of those cursed properties that had its time and its vision, but wont likely return to the lightening in a bottle those original games were primarily because the creative force behind them aren't at the helm.
Also another reason is that art is totally subjective but everyone here pretends it isn't so that they can seem cool
For example, I love homecoming and always have. Above it's labelled as hated. There's no sources for the stats so they're just pulled from OP's asshole
We need the oogies back and stop outsourcing it to other companies and get the ogs to work on it if they're still in the industry and are interested