Fans have been long awaiting more news about the Silent Hill 2 remake since it was announced on October’s Silent Hill Transmission live stream. Whether some were eager to see more gameplay or hear more about how Bloober Team, creators of The Medium and Layers of Fear, would be handling the project excitement was at an all-time high in the Silent Hill community.
In a recent interview with IGN series producer Motoi Okamoto, Silent Hill 2 concept artist Masahiro Ito, and composer Akira Yamaoka talked about the decision to jump straight into Silent Hill 2 rather than remake the first game. Okamoto spoke about how initially Konami was having trouble finding a way to bring the series back. He explained, “the only thing was that everyone had different ideas of what Silent Hill is and why they loved it, making it difficult to coalesce around a single direction.” He went on to say that when he initially joined Konami in the midst of this crossroads they had to take a step back and first decide what Silent Hill‘s identity was:
During that period of dormancy, though, lots of indie horror games had come out, some of which were influenced by Silent Hill. If we wanted to revive Silent Hill in that environment, we needed to firmly redefine its identity as a brand, sharpening it and differentiating it so that it stood out… When we thought about what Silent Hill‘s identity is, we came to the conclusion that it’s the true psychological horror of the series. And when you ask people what true psychological horror is, just about everyone will tell you Silent Hill 2.
Motoi Okamoto – Silent Hill Series Producer
He explains that once the team came to this conclusion that it was clear to them that they had to start remaking the series at Silent Hill 2 and focus on that feeling of “true psychological horror.”
We decided that if the brand’s identity is true psychological horror, we needed to start by remaking Silent Hill 2. There were of course some people inside the company who thought it would be better to start with 1, but I wanted to start this project with something that symbolizes this identity.
Motoi Okamoto – Silent Hill Series Producer
The Silent Hill 2 Remake currently has no release date yet. The original Silent Hill 2 is available on PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC
