Sunday, August 17, 2014

Silent Hill finally gets its due

This post contains mild spoilers for PT. To find out more about information on PT, please look here.

Anybody who knows me understands that I have an indescribably infinite love for well-made horror stories. It is my how to one day write serialized horror/science-fiction, and I'm certain that those stories will be incredibly influenced by the Silent Hill franchise, among my other favorite horror stories.

This year's Gamescom saw the announcement of P.T. on the PS4, a playable trailer that raised a lot of questions and sparked a lot f discussion. Upon experiencing it, we find it to be a disturbingly ongoing walk down an infinite hallway, which gets increasingly unnerving with each new loop.

The pacing is rough, or can be, since what little progression exists is based solely on the nerve of the player as well as their ability to spot and activate the nuances of the environment. Three of the play-throughs that I watched all went between twenty minutes and three hours of play, and none of them reached the end, either because they were too scared, or because they were too frustrated with not finding the clues needed to progress to the next version of the hallway.

After finally finding a short video of the final moments of PT, I'm greeted with a very reassuring sight. Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro are collaborating on the next installment of the Silent Hill franchise, entitled Silent Hills. It is also starring the likeness and voice of Norman Reedus from The Walking Dead.

This is an amazing bit of news that has me incredibly excited for a franchise that has done nothing but disappoint me since Silent Hill 3 (although Shattered Memories was an interesting revision). Del Toro's artistic flair and haunting imagery combined with Kojima's knack for breaking the fourth wall (which is displayed in PT), will combine for, what I expect to be, one of the greatest Silent Hill experiences in the franchise long and storied history. And these are high words coming from someone who is normally much more conservative with his excitement.