Masahiro Ito, the creature designer for the original three Silent Hill games, has recently shared an early concept piece of his most famous work, Pyramid Head. Initially a core enemy in Silent Hill 2, Pyramid Head has gone on to be emblematic of the series, and has been included in several follow-up Silent Hill titles, as well as the movie series, and other Konami licensed games.Ito joined Konami in 1997 and became part of Team Silent, where he worked as background and creature designer of Silent Hill, art director and creature designer in Silent Hill 2, and art director, creature and background designer in Silent Hill 3. Silent Hill 2 is still known today for its amazing narrative, foreboding atmosphere, and character design that is so celebrated that the Silent Hill 2 remake won’t add any enemies, with Pyramid Head being noted as a standout enemy.Now fans can see an early version of what would become the iconic monster. Ito, who often posts concept designs to Twitter as well as angry tweets about Pyramid Head, has shared an image of Pyramid Head in an early stage of development. The painting titled “3310” was made after Ito finished work on the first Silent Hill. The intention seems to be that the protagonist of Silent Hill 2 would encounter the “object” in water. It is unclear how far into development Silent Hill 2 was at the time of this design, but fans will know that water, in the form of Toluca Lake, would become a key part of the story.
The tweet closes off with the statement “This figure became Pyramid Head eventually,” confirming that the design wasn’t simply similar to the iconic monster. Ito has gone on record saying that Pyramid Head was intended to be tied specifically to the Silent Hill 2 protagonist, James Sunderland, going as far as to say that Dead by Daylight uses the wrong Pyramid Head. The monster was intended to be a manifestation of James’s guilt rather than a typical enemy.
Similarly, the nurses from Silent Hill 2 tie in directly to James’s narrative but have been re-used in the movie franchise. Even as one of the scariest nurses in horror movies, it could be argued that one of the reasons why Silent Hill 2 has achieved its status as a psychological horror classic, if not the definition of the genre, is the way that Ito’s creature designs tie in so perfectly to the psyche of the troubled protagonist.
Multiple Silent Hill projects are currently in development.