With Silent Hill: Downpour, Konami is making yet another attempt to revitalize its long-running survival horror franchise. They face the difficult challenge of including enough familiar elements to appeal to series fans while also moving forward and offering something new to keep the game from feeling stale. It’s a tightrope Konami has walked for years, with mixed results.
The first three Silent Hill games remain popular and critically acclaimed, and have proven to be a tough act to follow
The first three Silent Hill games remain the most popular and critically acclaimed in the series, with Silent Hill 2 (2001) in particular regarded as a classic for its strong storytelling. Influenced heavily by the writing of Stephen King and the films of David Lynch (there’s a scene in SH2 that’s almost identical to a key moment in Lynch’s Blue Velvet, and a plot twist that echoes Lost Highway), the Silent Hill games focused on psychological horror rather than shock scare tactics.
They also encouraged empathy in the player with protagonists who were ordinary people who weren’t necessarily the best at combat, and were frequently better off running rather than fighting enemies. One especially tense section of SH2 was built entirely around this mechanic. Silent Hill also had a unique atmosphere, creating a deep feeling of foreboding with its abandoned, fog-enshrouded environments and nightmarish shifts into the dark Otherworld, the evil underside of the town.
But all three games used essentially the same play mechanics and followed a similar formula- explore Silent Hill, enter the major locations that are key to the plot (and get frustrated by all the locked doors elsewhere), solve puzzles, and beat the bosses. Silent Hill 3 (2003) streamlined things by reducing the amount of wandering in the town, but it also repeated areas from SH2 and suggested the designers would soon need to change the series to avoid it becoming repetitious.
Silent Hill 4 marked a drastic change for the series, in part because it wasn't originally meant to be a Silent Hill game
Silent Hill 4: The Room (2004) was the first attempt at such a change. Konami took a game originally intended to be the start of its own franchise and reworked it into a Silent Hill game, and many of the play mechanics were radically different. Instead of freely exploring his environment, main character Henry was trapped in his apartment by malevolent forces, and could only leave by way of a portal in his bathroom wall. As the game progressed, the apartment itself became a threat with hauntings from evil spirits.
The story in SH4 is actually one of the most compelling in the series, except for one flaw: Henry isn’t really the main character. The game is actually about the villain, Walter Sullivan, and how his experiences in an orphanage run by Silent Hill’s cult, the Order, shaped him into a serial killer. Walter is a fascinating character, but Henry has nothing to do with him apart from having the bad luck to choose the wrong apartment and get trapped in Walter’s nightmare. It’s a decision that weakens the game unnecessarily.
Many of the gameplay changes in Silent Hill 4 failed to improve on the previous games
Konami’s revisions to the gameplay were problematic as well. Combat retained the same clunky, unresponsive controls from previous games, and was made harder by the terrible inventory system. Henry could only carry ten items at a time, including weapons, ammo, health drinks, and special items. The rest had to be stored in a trunk in his apartment. This meant a lot of backtracking and a lot of frustration, especially since each ammo box took up its own inventory slot.
Worse still, the second half of the game repeated the exact same levels as the first, only with Walter on Henry’s trail as a perpetual, invulnerable pursuer. At the same time, the player had to deal with immortal ghosts who could only be stopped with a limited number of swords, and had to escort and protect an AI character who ineffectually attacked enemies as long as she was armed. It made for extremely frustrating gameplay.
Silent Hill: Origins felt like a retread of the first three games, while Homecoming had the weakest story in the series
SH4 was the last game in the series to be developed in-house by Konami. With the PSP prequel Origins (2007), development was outsourced to Climax Games. Origins was largely a return to the style of the first three games, with the same style of town exploration, combat, and puzzles. But the sole gameplay innovation, breakable melee weapons, made the game far more frustrating, and while the story at least featured a protagonist with a personal connection to Silent Hill, it felt like a retread of elements of the early games and had continuity errors in its tie-ins to the first game.
But the weakest story of the series came with the sixth title, Homecoming (2008). It marked the series’ debut on the PS3 and Xbox 360, but the graphics were not significantly improved over the PS2 installments, and it also alienated many long-time fans by adopting numerous visual elements from the disappointing Silent Hill movie. The plot, concerning a soldier named Alex Shepherd who returns to his hometown of Shepherd’s Glen (just down the road from Silent Hill) to find his brother missing, was weakened by a poorly conceived plot twist and inconsistencies with the rest of the series.
Where Homecoming did make improvements was in the combat system, which made sense considering Alex was the only trained fighter among the series’ main characters. Fighting was far more fluid, and it was now possible to dodge attacks more easily and incorporate dodging into combat strategies.
Shattered Memories took elements of the first Silent Hill but reworked them in unexpected ways
Homecoming was followed by Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (2009) for the Wii and PSP, which took the opposite approach. It eliminated combat entirely, forcing players to run away from enemies when in the Otherworld.
The focus was on puzzle solving, and the game took the basic story and character names from the original and radically re-imagined the plot, to the point where it was essentially a different game entirely. With the interface redesigned as well, using Harry Mason’s cell phone as an intuitive way to access all its essential features, it was the first indication that Silent Hill could change while remaining appealing to long-time fans.
Downpour promises to introduce more free exploration to the series in the form of side quests
Downpour finds the series in the hands of yet another new developer, Vatra Games, and promises to make still more changes. The most promising is the addition of side quests, designed to allow the player to explore more of the town instead of being locked on a linear path. Producer Devin Shatsky promises there will be fewer locked doors barring players from free exploration, resolving one of the major complaints against the series.
Other changes may not be so pleasing to series fans. Downpour reintroduces Origins’ breakable weapons and will reportedly allow players to carry only one weapon at a time. The use of quick-time events in boss battles is also a major change, though if executed well (as Capcom did with Resident Evil 4), this alteration could work. This is also the first Silent Hill game not to feature music from composer (and former series producer) Akira Yamaoka.
But the promise of more open exploration, along with a visual style that clearly pays homage to SH2 (as seen in the trailer shown at E3 in 2010), suggests that Downpour has the potential to bring new life to the series. Its success all depends on Vatra creating a compelling story that can stand with the best of its predecessors.
Paul Brown - Paul Ferrell Brown graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1994 with a B.A. in English literature, and completed his M.A. in ...
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