Konami's Doing It Again

I feel like a five-year-old tattletale tugging on the teacher's dress, screaming, "Teacher, Konami's doing bad things again!"

So, there have been announcements for not one, not two, but FOUR new Silent Hill titles. Well, one remake and three "original" stories. There's also another movie being directed by Christophe "Only Women Raise Children" Gans, the director of the less horrible but still horrible initial Silent Hill movie. So, a remake of the actual Silent Hill 2 and three stories that will inevitably be games pretending to be Silent Hill 2, with an unwanted film on top of it. While the fanbase might be creaming their jeans, the bitter and jaded sour grapes like me are just sighing as history is due to repeat itself.

Konami tried to do this before, guys. Back in 2012, three mediocre games and an absolutely atrocious film were released under the Silent Hill name: Silent Hill: Downpour, Silent Hill HD Collection, Silent Hill: Book of Memories, and Silent Hill: Revelations 3D. Now, you might have played or watched these titles and enjoyed them and I'm not going to tell you that you can't enjoy them. I'm just offering some realism in this sea of hype. Hype is like being lifted higher and higher by an air balloon, the more excited you get, the higher you go. And then a seagull named Konami comes and punctures the balloon by either canceling the project or disappointing fans with glitchy, horribly designed games, which send you crashing back down to Earth. But I'm not writing this to pull you down by force - rather I'm placing a big inflatable on the ground to mitigate the crash.

Now, months from now, if these projects do release, I very much would like to be eating these words. I hope that my pessimistic expectations are proven false. But Konami has a track record of being dicks. I'm already seeing some red flags in the promo trailers for all these games. For instance, Silent Hill: Ascension is going to be multiplayer. If I may be one of those insufferable Silent Hill purists for a moment, I'd like to point out that one of the main themes of a good Silent Hill game is the feeling of loneliness. I just feel like Konami are trying to appeal to every popular game genre. Multiplayer games like PUB-G, Fortnite, and Overwatch appeal to people who have friends and I'm a misanthropic hermit who despises talking to other human beings.

Silent Hill f is a bizarre addition to the franchise which involves creeping red weeds and flowers. It's also far more influenced by Japanese culture, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The trailer seems like it could be a Fatal Frame game rather than Silent Hill. It's a bit indecipherable but that's also not a bad thing. I love that the series is going back to its ambiguous, interpretative roots. The Western games tried to do that, but it was way too clairvoyant. Ooh, Silent Hill: Downpour with its prison imagery and themes of incarceration, what could it all mean?!

Silent Hill: Townfall seems to be about a person not wanting to be in Silent Hill after doing something bad. I don't know, I'm still hung up on the not-word "townfall." What the hell does that mean? Is it like a pun of "downfall"? Something about the trailer was giving me "I'm 14 and this is deep" vibes. Are we going for a serial killer story, because we already did that in Silent Hill 4: The Room. No, it's probably going to be a stupid amnesiac protagonist who doesn't remember the bad shit he did until the town tortures him enough. You know, the continual theme of Western Silent Hills ripping off Silent Hill 2.

And of course, how can we forget the biggest news: Silent Hill 2 remake. I thought it was pointless at first because the original game still holds up pretty well, especially with the modded Enhanced Edition. However, it is hard to purchase the game itself, unless you go for the shitty HD Remastered version. I did buy the HD Collection and just, uh, "acquired" the PC port. Technically, I did buy the game so what's the harm? With a Silent Hill 2 remake, if it is done well, one of the greatest video games of all time will be available to purchase without selling an organ in exchange on Ebay. As long as it doesn't do the fucking early-access bullshit, which extorts players for cash before the full game is completed.

I have my qualms about Bloober Team developing the remake. From a technical side, they seem capable of upgrading Silent Hill 2 to modern game engines. I just hope that they leave the story and puzzles alone. Masahiro Ito and Akira Yamaoka's involvement have me less pessimistic about how faithful this adaptation is going to be. One of the biggest losses is going to be the original voice talent. Monica Taylor Horgan's portrayal of Mary and Maria was phenomenal, especially her reading of the letter at the end of the game. From the trailer, I can tell that the original voice actors aren't involved in this. Guy Cihi's performance of James Sunderland was highly-praised because it was realistic. He wasn't a professional voice actor when he was asked to voice the character, but the original team chose him because he's brought James' various neuroses across in the dialogue without being too hammy. I doubt the team would want to want with Cihi nowadays because he has since turned into a conspiracy nut, believing that 5G towers cause Covid-19.

I'll also lament Angela's portrayal, as Donna Burke won't be returning (as far as I know). Her voice-acting of the character was just the right amount of somber, juvenile, and haunting. I'm also terrified of how Angela's backstory is going to be handled by Bloober Team, knowing that they created a game that sympathized with pedophiles and claimed that people can never get over trauma. Angela's backstory in Silent Hill 2 is one of the best portrayals of what sexual assault does to a person. It does not show the assault happening, it shows the aftermath and how victims can blame themselves even when it was not their fault. There's no scene of James swooping in like Prince Charming to make her feel better, he just happens to be in the vicinity and helps to fight the Abstract Daddy. Angela is the one to deliver the final blows to the creature, which is symbolic of her father's abuse, and her rebuffs of James' attempts to white-knight are appropriate. James is not the person to fix Angela's problems. He might feel sympathetic toward her, but he is not a hero and Angela is not a damsel in a distress.

Before I wrap this article up, let's talk about the new Silent Hill film in production. Apparently, Christophe Gans is adapting Silent Hill 2 into a movie. I can see that he's not continuing off the end of Silent Hill: Revelations 3D or even acknowledging its existence (which is a good thing) so this isn't completely horrible news. I just thought future films were out of the question after the disastrous Revelations 3D. I hope that new actors are coming in to play the characters. I'm not watching another film about Sean Bean doing boring shit or a Pyramid Head vs. Cenobite Mortal Kombat fight.