Horror fans watching The Game Awards 2021 probably noticed that, shortly before presenting the award for Best Art Direction, Guillermo del Toro mentioned Silent Hill. The long-dormant horror franchise from Konami is an important facet of the genre, but ever since Hideo Kojima and Konami parted ways in the middle of Silent Hills' development, the franchise's future has been in doubt. Unfortunate as that may be, The Game Awards 2021 also announced another game that has some major Silent Hill vibes: Slitterhead. If its appearance wasn't enough, it just so happens that Slitterhead is being developed by the creator of the Silent Hill franchise.
Slitterhead comes from the mind of Keiichiro Toyama, who directed the very first Silent Hill game with Konami in 1999 before joining Japan Studio in the same year. Since then, Toyama has continued working on horror games with the Siren series, as well as exploring action-adventure in Gravity Rush, but in 2020 Toyama left Japan Studio to form his own company: Bokeh Game Studio. What's more, he's coming back to horror with the bizarre and gruesome Slitterhead. Although Slitterhead might be a little more explosive than Silent Hill fans are used to, it could still have a lot of horror elements that Toyama built into the first Silent Hill.
Comparing Slitterhead to Silent Hill
In its time, Silent Hill was a major step forward for horror, introducing atmospheric and psychological horror elements to a genre that largely preferred slasher-style horror. Toyama's original Silent Hill certainly still had iconic monsters that Harry Mason had to confront, but combat wasn't everything. The town of Silent Hill itself was crucial to the game, unsettling fans with its uncannily desolate cityscape, supernatural Otherworld, and low visibility. Lots of games use similar elements now, but Silent Hill showed their potential, inspiring generations of titles.
Even with only one trailer out so far, Slitterhead looks like it could conjure some similarly unsettling environments. Early on in the trailer, a man meets a woman in an alleyway, only to watch her transform into a hulking, skeletal monster. The juxtaposition of the dark, claustrophobic, but fairly normal alley with an unexpected monstrous creature certainly rings of Silent Hill's sense of dread, with danger lurking on every street corner. Slitterhead could use its urban setting to create the same permanent unease that Silent Hill could create even when players were outdoors, rather than trapped indoors. In other words, Silent Hill's design philosophy could lie at the heart of Slitterhead.
Slitterhead is a Welcome Surprise
There are certainly things about Slitterhead that differ from Silent Hill, which didn't emphasize combat. While Harry and many of his successors could kill monsters, Silent Hill builds fear in the player partially due to their limited options in fighting off supernatural forces. In contrast, Bokeh Game Studio has indicated that Slitterhead will blend action with horror, giving the protagonist their own supernatural powers, which will let them slice and dice monsters. Even if Slitterhead is more high octane than Silent Hill, though, it could still create a tense, ominous atmosphere in many of its environments that'll give Silent Hill fans the kind of experience that they're looking for.
It's a shame that Silent Hill has fallen by the wayside when it was once such a horror icon. After Silent Hills fell apart, Konami promised that Silent Hill would carry on as usual, but there hasn't been any sign of a new Silent Hill project since Kojima Productions created PT. It's entirely possible that Silent Hill will return someday, but Konami hasn't given fans much hope lately. In the meantime, Slitterhead looks like it could inspire the same type of fear that Silent Hill built its brand on. If Bokeh Game Studio delivers on a blend of exciting combat and psychological horror, then Slitterhead might be the spiritual successor that Silent Hill fans need.
Slitterhead is in development.