The Horror Design of Silent Hill
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- Опубликовано: 11 фев 2024
- The Silent Hill series is poised to enter a creative renaissance with many new titles having been announced.
Before we scatter the fragments of Psychological Horror about to create new experiences, it might be worthwhile to examine the foundations as they were laid down.
In this video I discuss the mechanics and design principles employed by Team Silent in the original 3 Silent Hill games.
Enjoy!
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My Silent Hill videos:
Silent Hill 1 Analysis:
• Silent Hill • Retro An...
Silent Hill 2 Commentary:
• Silent Hill 2 • Analys...
Silent Hill 3 Commentary:
• Silent Hill 3 • Analys...
Silent Hill Horrors Lost in Translation Video:
• The Horror Lost in Tra...
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Footage:
World of Longplays:
/ @worldoflongplays
LongplayArchive:
/ @longplayarchive
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Patreon: / medievalmegaman
Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/aesiraesthetics 
Игры
![Ambient & Relaxing Silent Hill Music (w/ rain ambience) [Reupload]](/img/1.gif)
Huh, I never considered just how ridiculously high the ceilings were in Silent Hill games. Guess they did a good job of diverting attention from it
It's not uncommon for the player model to be slightly smaller than what proportionality would dictate, but Silent Hill cranks this up a notch!
My most vivid memory from playing through SH3 for the first time back in 2003 was the part of the game where you go from the Subway -> Construction Site -> Hilltop Center. The unrelenting tension without any release during that incredibly long stretch stuck with me for years. I was begging for it to end, for some kind of respite for Heather (and myself) while also being so affected in a way that I hadn't experienced before and have craved since. The lack of blatant jump-scares or overt danger from enemies, along with the oppressive darkness of the environments just nailed that sense of hopelessness...it felt like what I imagine hell to be.
I hope BLOOBER TEAM can hear you through the static🫣
lol
Game will suck
@@Mimon1967no u
@@Mimon1967 Yeah, it will
I like how the Old Silent Hill games didn't introduce every monster in a Cutscene. Like Homecoming.
Homecoming does that?
Oof
@@AesirAesthetics Yep whenever a new monster gets introduced a cutscenes plays to introduce them. Including those annoying bug enemies. Edit: I decided to check the monster and look. Yep every monster has a cutscenes introducing it. Though the bugs are introduced in the same scene as Pyramid Head. Also the game is gorier then I remembered. Like Power drills to the skull type stuff
@@Smith-rb1qfsounds fun tbf
So it basically removes any chance of the enemies being scary. Introducing enemies subtly and quietly is non negotiable for horror. It sounds like they turned the game into devil may cry.
@@MRed0135 Yeah. Now that you mention it. The monster intro are like Devil May Cry. Homecoming is the most actiony Silent Hill. It included a Dodge Button. Over the shoulder aiming, and Melee attack combos. It also had QuickTime events.
I remember seeing an interview with one of the devs and there explanation for that was that the main character was a veteran so they were better at fighting, but that ends up being a big load of BS. Which is a shame since exploring a veteran journey through Silent Hill sounds like an Interesting concept.(On paper) But it gets thrown away.
Still awaiting sh4 analysis lol. This is a great idea though.
SH4 commentary 2024
Maek it happen
@@AesirAestheticsMake Silent Hill Great Again.
this I can do!@@golDroger88
Oh man. I remember playing SH4 in 2006. That was the most Draining Silent Hill for me. In a good way. Should never sold it. Fortunately I still got my Original Silent Hill 2 copy.
Did you play Signalis ? Let’s just say that a certain section of the game has a lot of influence from silent hill.
Its honestly on of the best indie games I played and on the same level as the games it got inspired by.
The gameplay is weaker than the more refined version of the best survival horror games but it is still very solid.
The story in its themes and overall point is not the most groundbreaking thing but the presentation is very interesting and has a own character even though I got reminded of other franchisees a little bit to much for my taste.
Still it left me with a very good feeling in the end.
I can only recommend it to every on who liked classic survival horror and especially silent hill. You won’t regret trying it out.
Excellent distillation of what makes the individual design decisions in the original SH games greater than the sum of their parts. Always impressed by the clarity with which you present your arguments.
Been a huge fan of your content for years, so glad you’re continuing to make videos! Please do keep it up 😊
thank you for watching 😎👉👉
It's always great to hear you speak about SH. Your kegare video was really informative and something I wish every fan of SH would watch.
Glad you enjoy!
😎👉👉
Can't wait for Bloober Team to fuck it up more than they already did in the trailers.
have you seen the original SH2 E3 trailer lol?
Aparently it was Konami who was responsible to the trailer and not the team, they have made a comment about it online
you seem fun
Always love your takes on Silent Hill. I remember being so excited for your commentary on SH3 after being blown away by your take on SH2. Thank you for this.
Glad you enjoy it!
The OG Silent Hill had a unlockable camera mode that was over the shoulder, similar to the REremakes. But it wasn't really designed around it so while it looked cool, it was kinda disorientating.
The Remake does have a dodge mechanic. Some people (people that didn't actually play the original but act like they did) claim the original did too, but it didn't. It had a side/backstep that wasn't really used for dodging.
The remake is heavily emphasizing the act of engaging in combat with more active abilities.
I’m replaying silent hill 2 in anticipation for the remake and it’s crazy how it’s still scary
yuuup!
Still goated!
You’re the reason I actually sought out silent hill and played it so consider yourself my silent hill guru, I will listen intently
😎👉👉
Have you ever played Darkwood? I think that game also benefits a lot from limiting the player in some ways. I think you'll like it quite a bit.
The game so tension filled, you can't finish it. I'm among that number
I have not, but I feel like people have been pointing me towards it quite a bit
Do it @@AesirAesthetics
I hope you're doing this in preparation for a full-length commentary walkthrough of Silent Hill 4. That game is so much different from the others, even the ones that came after it like Homecoming, Downpour, Shattered memories... It's such an interesting game and comes off as the "weird sibling" of the franchise.
Hi!! Im a college student whos taking a class on the history of video games. I wanted to thank you for making this video bc i used it as one of my main sources for my essay (it was about how silent hill uses the medium of video games to infuence player emotion)
Anyways this video was more useful than most of the atual academic papers i used since you atually go into detail about how game mechanics work, what they mean, and how they effect the overall experience and horror.
So yeah, great video, you really saved my essay.
The radio static is a variant of the motion tracker used in earlier games like Alien vs Predator or Alien Trilogy.
This was an excellent analysis. And one I agree with 100%.
The clumsy combat moves and the fixed camera angles were central elements in making the protagonist (and therefore the player) always on edge. Mind you, these very "tricks" (that could not be worked around back in the days) are the very reason why even the seminal horror game of all, Alone in the Dark, which pretty much invented this whole vocabulary, can still make you shiver and jump to this day more than 30 years later.
Horror, like humour, is all about precise timing, and controlling timing in a video-game narration cannot do without putting restrictions on the autonomy of the player. As such, I have been very worried about the most recent gameplay trailer I saw online: combat was pervasive in all scenes, while the third-person view suggested that the camera angle could be freely controlled by the player. As a result, the general feel of the sequence was closer to a Resident Evil 4 type of game than to the atmosphere you expect to feel in a Silent Hill game.
I really hope the developers did not go that way. Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2 were transgressive games, and in 2024, the truly radical thing to do would be to enforce unusual and almost out-of-date constraints on the player's movements, not updating the game's interface to current fluidity standards. We certainly do not need one more third-person action shooters disguised as a horror games.
Maybe I still just don't understand the ambience of the radio, but I always thought it undercut the tension and horror since a telegraphs that there's an enemy in the room and lets you know when you're safe. So there's actually not really any tension going on when the radio isn't on so I know when I'm safe and when I'm not. I always thought that it would have been a lot more intense and nerve-racking if there was no radio so I would never know if I was safe or not
And I'm actually terrified about sh2 remake
I am not optimistic but I am rooting for the developer
I enjoy your work very much, keep it up. Looking forward to the new Bloodborne vid
:)
My younger sister is currently playing SH2 on PC (just killed Eddy) and I showed her your videos on the themes of those games, so she would have a better understanding of them. I am glad you made another one on the topic, she will find it helpful!
awesome!
Happy to see the Silent Hill love grow :)
This is how I’ve always felt about the radio! The sound design is seminal for the genre!
😎👉👉
Thanks for the vid
I don´t know how the remake is going to turn out in the end, I hope they are able to acknowledge the cause and effect between adding/removing/changing certain options, actions or design choices and account for it in a non-detrimental way, including characterization and story. The main difference I see between, say, RE2 and RE4 remakes and this one is that, for the most part, Capcom has proven to me that they can go the "change this" route in a way that either rivals in quality with the original or straight up improves it.
As it is now I can´t say the same about Konami, and their most recent titles aren´t helping much. I never thought that with the revival of the IP we would be experiencing a potential immediate downfall for a second time, with a "quantity over quality" Disney approach by Konami, having maybe 1 title that could be interesting, but here we are.
I think all Konami needed to do was successfully release a critically acclaimed horror game first to have some good will going into remaking the most critically acclaimed horror game of all time.
@@AesirAesthetics I 100% agree. And btw good video, keep'em coming!
thank you :)@@SkepticalBucketman
In regards to how combat could be handled in the SH2:Remake, I propose an idea.
It's clear that, from the combat trailer, it's going to take more of a Resident Evil Remake approach, so the player will have full control over the camera and aiming will be manual.
What if... James's aim is shaky at best? In Resident Evil 4 (the non-remake versions), the red laser that would indicate Leon's aim would waver slightly (more or less, depending on the gun), so aiming was never 100% exact, and would be harder to do when aiming at something much smaller and/or much farther away. So, how about applying that to James, but cranking up the wavering? Make it clear that handling a gun isn't something he's used to (with bigger arms being harder to use). That way, even IF the player is actually good at manual aiming due to practice from other Third Person Shooter games (such as Resident Evil post RE4, sans 7 and 8), the character's ability would hinder it a bit more and thus apply higher tension.
Imagine a modern remake of ICO and the developers took the advice about combat feeling more like a chore rather than entertainment. They preserve and even enhance the natural beauty of that game. I'm imagining how awe inspiring that looks..
Sh1 is the best thing that gave me nighmares when I was a kid
Great video!
Glad you enjoyed it
What I remember about silent hill...
Silent Hill 1:...Everything, Yeah everything
Silent Hill 2: Pyramid Head
Silent Hill 3: The start till before going to Silent Hill
Silent Hill 4: Get Me Out!!! (Games to spoopy for me)
On the subject of encounter design with a more modern approach to camera control, you could potentially change it so that at least some of the enemies are invisible, or possibly unkillable until you use the radio like a geiger counter to mark them out, with attacks otherwise only stunning them.
I'm envisioning something a bit like a mix between the torch mechanics from Alan Wake, and the combat from Enemy Zero (or you could go further and integrate the radio as a means to identify points of interest and traps, a la Illbleed on the Dreamcast)
In this system you would need to drop any defensive weapons whilst turning the dial on the radio to match the frequency of your assailant, then you can fight back.
In theory: outside of combat the radio would be a means to sense where enemies would be coming from, even without line of sight, but to actually kill several of the different types of enemies you'd need to do a Project Zero/Fatal Frame style thing where you use the radio to make them vulnerable (dropping your defences for several seconds and losing situational awareness) then attack.
I feel like it could go some way towards expanding upon the use of the radio as a means of detecting the location of threats by making it much more directional and allowing you to identify where the monsters are and help you to avoid them, with the player needing to either initiate combat from a safe location or accept that their shots won't be lethal and they can only knock the enemies down or otherwise delay them, reducing their available ammo in the process.
You will probably be able to hear static before opening doors in the remake too. Wich was impossible in the original.
There is something about ps1 graphics that works really well with horror and melancholic vibes that i enjoy
0:52 Woah! I was shocked to see ICO on here! It’s supper hidden! I hadn’t thought about it having similarities with silent hill before!
They both prioritize characterizarion over fun gameplay 🙂
Crap dude I forgot about you. Good stuff
Okay just gotta ask do you have any plans to review fear and hunger because I'd love to hear your takes on that setting personally
not immediate plans but if it comes on my radar I might check it out
Idk how many more Silent Hill videos I can watch.
Feels like I've been watching the same video for 10 plus years.
Can the remake just come out already because man.. I just can't anymore lol
No offense maybe I need to go do something else but I dont have any other hobbies beside watching youtube
neweee videoooooooooo less goooo
enjoy!
RE2 Remake should have been an entirely nee entry in the series and not a Remake. No one is talking about the original RE2 anymore, so it kinda got replaced by the Remake.😢
No one was talking about it before remake either other than the superfans.
I play through SH2 every few years and honestly I turn the Radio off because its annoying. I dont think that has as big of an effect on the horror as you think it does. Having the radio turned off is actually more scary. Try playing the whole game without it you'll see what I mean.
Whats the music track that starts at 25:45 and plays until the end of the video?
"She"
Thank you! Lovely video btw, as always
I'm concern about the 3rd person view the remake is gonna go with and if a HUD is gonna be implemented. hope not
I'm not optimistic but I am rooting for the developers to deliver
babe wake up new aesir aesthetics video abt silent hill
well, did the babe wake up!??! 😗
she rolled over and whispered "it's okay...it's just a dream"@@AesirAesthetics
:O@@ChillEpps
Pending the age of the game, I think every remake should have the original with it so we can compare it. This mainly applies to Resident Evil remakes cause you can't play the 2 or 3 on modern consoles especially with how different they are.
I think regardless of the age, the original should always be playable in the remake.
gimme my Demon's Souls back you monsters!!!!
@@AesirAesthetics Fair, that part mainly applies to remakes that are nearly identical to the original. Just new graphics, like the Last of us and presumably, the Until Dawn one coming out soon. (Which IS a remake, the trailer said built from the ground up)
They just shouldn't have touched SH2. Do SH1, which stylistically lends itself more to a modern AAA game anyway, then if its successful, you do the big SH3 Remake which REALLY lends itself to that AAA style, in terms of a remake.
The fact that they went to SH2 is what makes the cash-grabbiness of it so overt
there is a non-0 percent chance that they started with 2 because they saw Capcom do RE2 remake and thought skipping the first one was the trick.
(not knowing Capcom already remade RE1 way back)
@@AesirAesthetics I'm sure that's part of it. And truthfully, a large swathe of ppl who played 2Make prob didn't play RE 1Make.
Keep doing God's work!
What song is at 6:55
I can look past gameplay and such, but I won’t do that for the story. Mostly. I am all for expanding upon Eddie, because his story is a little less obvious than James and Angela. It would be unforgivable to me personally if they changed Angela and her story. Expanding is cool, changing it isn’t. But that’s just me.
I Love the OG Playstation
😎👉👉
Try signalis! It's a modern improvement of old silent hill games
Has the silent hiatus come to an end?
SH4 Commentary 2024
@@AesirAesthetics AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Engagement²
thank you 😎👉👉
I’m hoping for sick combos like in Homecoming
give James the People's Elbow of we riot!
Engagement
thank you :)
I don't like the new RE games because they replace the originals, i can't play the OG's on PS5.
and also they are just RE4 clones with less cool stuff.
New Resident Evil games are not Resident Evil 4 clones with less stuff. Are so far removed from Resident Evil 4s survival action approach and Item drop rate, that its not even close. From what perspective are they missing less stuff? What the ability to roundhouse kick monsters, lol.
@@yeahyeahwowman8099 If you haven't played the OG's there's no point explaining it to you.
If you did and still don't get it, that's also non of my concerns.
but it seems that you don't get it what i'm implying, so that's ok.
@@DrRESHES the thing is you can't explain it which is why you didn't. Can't come into a debate acting like you don't got to explain yourself, guess what, you do. Debate works, the Original games have nothing to do with anything, you said the remakes played like Resident Evil 4 remake with less stuff, which tells me you know almost nothing about the fundamentals of a survival horror game.
@@yeahyeahwowman8099 guess what - I don't.
just like that.
lol. even roflcopter.
i might even add Eggs Dees ____.
If you don't get it you're not part of the cool kids secret club, it's primarily a - you, thing, because you're a dweeb.
@@yeahyeahwowman8099 Guess what - I don't.
that's all.
lol, roflcopter even.
Also XD, eggs Dees ____.
It just seems to me that you don't understand why i don't like them or choosing not to understand.
because of that reason, there's no point explaining it to you, and that means you will never be a part of the super secret cool kids club.
because you're a dweeb.
"Some of the best" Maybe of the AAA market given how bad they have all been, but RE:3 Remake is a dumpster fire of a game that shot so far past the mark that its a "Don't play this garbage" bottom of the bin game and I'm not going to say otherwise. I have fewer issues with RE: 2, but unlike RE: 3R the issue of it being a lesser experience than the original doesn't subtract from it actually being well thought out and decently executed game. I just found myself pining for the original whenever I turned it on.
I haven't revisited RE3 and I was disappointed with the direction they chose to take it after the strong survival horror action showing they had in RE2Remake but I maintain that if you approach RE3remake as just an extension to the more action packed second half of RE2remake, it's a totally good game.
It's the weakest of the remakes, but I'd still play it over many other recent AAAs
@@AesirAesthetics "I'd still play it over many other recent AAAs"
I would choose the gun they'd have to hold to my head to try to force me to comply with such options, but you do you.
You are going against what is the definition of a remake. Additions are made to them, like when it was coined in film and how it was carried out. You're asking for a revision if want as many changes as possible, not making it a remake. No revision has ever been successful on many levels, but remakes can possibly replace the original on the update and quality of life + additions.
I don't think because something can be remade means it should be. Some may be in their best form as products of their time and will lose too much if had to be "modernized".
they are marketing it as a remake so I'm calling it a remake
Who plays silent hill games for combat? 😂
apparently enough people that this complaint has come up 😄