Opinion — Kojima Is The Change Silent Hill Needs

Silent Hill has always been near and dear to my heart. I grew up watching scary movies, and when I found a video game that scratched the same itch, I was hooked. I love how the horror genre messes with your psyche, making you question everything. Did something just move? I hear footsteps, is something stalking me? What will I find when I open this door? The early Silent Hill games brilliantly used sound and atmosphere to increase this tension and the unnerving unpredictability found its way to the narratives. Sadly, much like the survival horror genre, Silent Hill has struggled to reinvent itself this past generation. However, if there's anyone who can bring it back to its former glory and redefine it for our current generation, it's Metal Gear mastermind Hideo Kojima.

Silent Hill needs a shakeup and strong mind to set it back on track. Recent entries have failed to make an impact, and have often felt removed from the series' survival horror roots. They've been mediocre at best. Take Silent Hill: Homecoming. Instead of feeling like a normal everyman, suddenly you were a former soldier who could throw punches and fire a gun like a pro. It took away a lot of the helplessness that made the Silent Hill series so engaging. And don't even get me started on Book of Memories, a hack-and-slash that is so far away from everything the franchise is about that it pains me to see the Silent Hill name on it. The franchise did try to return to its roots with Shattered Memories, which was decent, but didn't knock it out of the park. I've been disappointed enough to write an open-letter to the series on Game Informer.

Why do I think Kojima could be the one to turn it around? I know it might sound weird to hedge my bets on someone whose legacy doesn't have anything to do with a survival horror genre, but Kojima's past work speaks for itself, and he's already proven his team can do scares well with P.T. That's why I'm happy he's working on the next Silent Hill game.

P.T. is one of the scariest experiences we've encountered in a while, and it does it with such simplicity. You're walking through a series of looping hallways and things subtly change. Lights flicker, ghosts stare at you and disappear, babies cry, and a radio broadcast slips in, "Don't look behind you."

While at Tokyo Game Show, Kojima hosted a presentation about P.T., lending some insight into his vision for what he wants to do for Silent Hills. He spoke about the importance of creating uncertainty and wanting to make people feel like "if you don't do something then something will happen to you."  But where Kojima really sold me was how he talked about taking ordinary settings and slowly freaking people out with them. For Kojima, using a graveyard is too easy and it's been done before. "I want to create something that has a normal feeling, but there's something out of ordinary," he says. I firmly believe horror is at its best when it's grounded in reality - like this is something that really could happen to you.

Looking back at Kojima's Metal Gear work, the example that gives me the most confidence in what he can do with Silent Hill is the infamous Psycho Mantis fight from Metal Gear Solid. Psycho Mantis' presence is not only chilling, but Kojima also takes it to a new level. Anyone familiar with Kojima's work knows he likes to break the fourth the wall. In this fight, he messes with your mind so much. Psycho Mantis reads details from you memory card, echoing back what games you've played and how much you played, tells you to put your controller on the ground and makes it vibrant via "telekinesis," and then during the battle the screen starts to go black with only green words saying HIDEO on the upper right corner, making it seem like something's wrong with your TV.  This was Kojima just before his career took off; imagine with the new tech for the PS4/Xbox One what he could do in a horror game.  He has the camera, controller, and microphone at his disposal. Part of survival horror's biggest lure is its psychological elements. Kojima already likes to play mind games, and I can't wait to see how he uses this asset in a horror game.

Metal Gear is also all about hiding and stalking - something that is a fundamental part of horror games. For instance, Clock Tower's gameplay revolves around hiding, and Amnesia: Dark Descent forces you to stealthily sneak past enemies. Kojima and his team already have a good grip on this type of gameplay, and I'm excited to see how he uses it within a context dedicated to horror.

A film aficionado, Kojima also uses it influence shows in his work, most notably Snatcher (also a great game about things that aren't exactly as they seem), taking cues from Bladerunner and the Terminator series. He's used his film knowledge to create memorable cutscenes using various effects from movies. He put Norman Reedus of The Walking Dead fame in Silent Hills, whose acting prowess might help us better connect to the character and world. 

Kojima's love for movies also led him to form a friendship with famed director Guillermo del Toro, known for Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy. The two worked together on a Kojima Productions' poster for Pacific Rim, and share a fondness for giant robots and horror. Now the two are collaborating on Silent Hills. Del Toro's history with the genre, in films like Mimic and The Devil's Backbone, is bound to be an asset.

Kojima has been saying for a while he doesn't just want to be known as the man behind Metal Gear. Putting him on Silent Hill gives him a way to use his imagination in new ways. Unlike Metal Gear, the Silent Hill series' anthology-style storytelling opens up the creative doors for Kojima Productions. Sometimes doing something different just gives you an extra push and drive, and I have a feeling Kojima will find a terrifying new creative outlet in Silent Hill.