What makes Silent Hill as lovely and alarming as it is? Although coming to mainstream popularity with the release of the Playable Teaser demo that released in 2014 and was infamously taken down, players have always enjoyed their adventure into the dangerous town. As quaint as the town is, the horror of what lies beyond the quiet shadows is what attracts gamers to come back. As our favorite characters venture into their past emotions and trauma, they experience death at first hand, as their emotion morphs into dangerous creatures or situations. However, not all of these main characters are innocent, as a matter of fact, most of them aren’t. There are reasons that enemies manifest in the form of Pyramid Head like James Sunderland faces, and those reasons are evil psychological emotions. Silent Hill finally continues, with Silent Hill 2 Remake finally being announced along with completely new iterations of the series. What do you need to know about Silent Hill before entering its lovely, abandoned apartment complexes?
Murphy Pendleton, an escaped convict, on the streets of Silent Hill.
While the streets of Silent Hill have slightly changed through each main title in the series, some of the more common areas have remained. The somber Toluca Lake mostly remains in all titles, bearing the sadness of what happened in our character’s versions of Silent Hill. Gamers may also look to Toluca Lake as a sort of safe haven from the rest of the world, where protagonists rest and reflect on past memories that brought them to this very moment. Aside from the lake, vista’s like the hospital and apartment complexes showcase their eeriness in many titles, letting us fall victim to their victims in every new game. As for the new titles, not much is known about what type of town we will be visiting, or if we will be visiting that town at all. New announcements like Silent Hill f, which will be considered the ninth main title, actually take place in the 1960’s rural Japan. This will finally allow us to venture from the little town that we all know and love, showcasing a new style of horror for modern audiences. If the debut trailer is of any importance, this sequel will produce the scariest moments yet, bringing body horror to the front of the series yet again. It is safe to say that whatever past developers have chosen to depict in past titles of the series, have all worked in reference to keeping players on edge. The environment has largely depended on thick fog in the past to render our vision useless, using sound as an indicator of what may be ahead of us. The beauty in this is every environment was unique with sounds that helped unveil what was actually around us. The uneasiness of machine noises or creatures in wailing pain created a nightmarescape for us to explore with extreme caution.
The gameplay of Silent Hill has never been the largest strong point, although past titles have tried expanding on the original. The inventory system always seemed clanky, and very much stayed with the same tank control formula up until Silent Hill 4 when it took an action-oriented turn. Equipping weapons was always a chore and so was combining inventor items for other uses. Swinging a weapon and stomping on enemies heads created dangerous scenarios for many players when it didn’t work, or the swing was just out of reach of an enemy. It may have been more realistic in that sense, but it certainly was annoying on occasion. The stronger part of the gameplay was always the puzzle aspect of the game. As with many survival horror games, puzzles are a gigantic part of this series. A large amount of puzzles were even difficult to the point where players would get stuck in the world and not know what to do. These puzzles involved combining items that seemed to have no relation to each other, but that was the fun of it! To get stuck and have to make your way back through the dark corridors of nurses and a variety of other disgusting creatures made players second-guess their approaches through the world. Thought provoking puzzles kept the story moving, leading us to our beloved next chapter. These puzzles have led into other mainstream titles, with James Sunderland even being a playable character, along with Heather Mason. Dead By Daylight, for which you can buy DBD accounts have taken from the world of Silent Hill due to its inspiration on the genre.
A major reason to love the series is for the heartbreaking stories that are depicted so well. Developers make sure to portray every character as humanly as possible, with past side characters like Angela creating depressing moments that last a lifetime. I don’t often get attached to many characters but Silent Hill’s are all there for their own reason, whether it be depression or abuse or murder. Everybody has a backstory to why they’re being tortured or tormented, making purgatory a very real thing to our mind. James Sunderland, Silent Hill 2’s protagonist, creates a compelling relation to those who play through the full game as him. He relates to pain, depression, sadness, grief, regret, and redemption. All of these emotions and more are felt through his story of losing or finding his wife, depending on which ending you take as canon. People can feel the raw energy through each cutscene that was crafted with care, and each boss fight that makes you drop to your knees and think. The formula for survival horror is not rigid, and Silent Hill makes it very open-ended. There are many possibilities to the fates of our characters and each decision can change the way that we perceive our world. Those who murder may see the world in a twisted way, and those who are pure may see only bliss and warmth. These ideas are touched on in a creepily religious, euphoric, and pro/anti-life type of way.
Silent Hill filled with a creepy and misty look into rural Japan.
Silent Hill taught players to love and hate. The world of Silent Hill brings in new gamers and old, making them recollect over emotions that they are scared to visit. Death may be something that most don’t want to think about. A loved one passing away may be something that most don’t want to think about. A crime of punishment may be something that most don’t want to think about. All of these issues and life happenings are here, on display for the brave to complete. Silent Hill is about trials and tribulations, making players go through the horror with the main protagonist to reach an end that may or may not be worth it. The world of Silent Hill is so poetic in that sense. Every person created has a different path than the next, and will ultimately take the route that they best see fit for themselves. When it comes to the game, we get to play those routes, and they may have the outcome that none of us want, but it may very well be the most realistic outcome of them all.