There is a type of fear that, well projected, is capable of overshadowing all others: the fear of the unknown. A very intense feeling of anxiety and uncertainty that goes far beyond the casual shock displayed on the screen. A type of horror that few video games have been able to project as masterfully as the classic Silent Hill on PlayStation.
Because the experience of Konami’s Psychological Terror , set in a cursed town in the United States, dilutes the typical feelings of progress or achievement typical of any adventure to drag us with each step taken towards uncomfortable realities and imminent dangers.
Raising the tension gradually and constantly, even when we cannot understand what is happening and, to top it off, we can barely see what is happening beyond our noses.
After all, Silent Hill has the feeling that we are constantly getting into the wolf’s mouth. That each puzzle solved and each situation we survive brings us closer to an even worse outcome.
Above all, because Harrold “Harry” Mason , the protagonist of Silent Hill, is not a hero or someone who minimally knows how to defend himself in the face of adversity, but a desperate father who faces the unknown . Something that is fully reflected in the gameplay.
And what’s more interesting: from the opening bars of the game to its final stretch, we are fully aware that our foray into Silent Hill will not have a happy ending for Harry.
However, despite this, the Konami classic manages to catch you , keep you with the controller in your hands throughout the tragic experience, obsess over each revelation and overcome our greatest fears. And, ultimately, tempt us to start a new game after witnessing its end.
It is not that Silent Hill has a dense plot that must be played twice to be fully understood, although it helps to interpret many of the signals that appear in the opening bars, but because it becomes clear that, once the game is finished, it still there are revelations and much to discover in the cursed town of Konami.
A great project? Rather, a very experimental title that came out better than expected and maintained Konami’s streak in a 32-bit Sony version that hosted great games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Metal Gear Solid or the first two installments of Pro Evolution Soccer. Being the finishing touch of an exceptional stage in which one obligatory appointment was chained to the next.
Now, beyond being positioned at the same level as all previous cult classics, Silent Hill reached another great milestone: it broke the mold of a genre in full swing like Survival Horror, taking the chair, in the process, at the time. of transmitting and experiencing horror in video games.
Welcome to Silent Hill, the town that will push your sanity to the limit
Harry Mason’s eyes are open, but he’s living a nightmare. He has just suffered a violent car accident and, as soon as he gets behind the wheel and regains consciousness, he looks towards the seats and falls in a panic: his little daughter Cheryl has disappeared.
The last thing Harry remembers is driving down the road near the town of Silent Hill to spend a few days off with his daughter. Suddenly, Harry was forced to swerve to avoid taking a girl who had appeared out of nowhere in front of his vehicle. A young girl Cheryl’s age. The collision was inevitable.
Determined to find his little girl and in search of help, Harry enters a Silent Hill subjected to a very thick fog and a deathly silence. However, all he finds is the silhouette of a girl very similar to his daughter, who follows as best she can to a narrow alley.
Suddenly, Harry hears a powerful siren that is heard throughout the town. Not long after, the sky darkens, and by the time he can regain his vision, the very alley he’s in has radically changed in appearance, looking depressing and threatening.
Paying more attention, Harry manages to make out a grotesque vision a few feet away: a twisted and disfigured figure is found violently hanging on the fence before him. Impressed, Harry takes a few steps back, only to find menacing abominations barely three or four feet long heading his way.
Harry wakes up again. This time in what appears to be a restaurant. Although it seems that everything has been a nightmare, it does not take long to realize that his daughter is still missing and is in Silent Hill. Luckily, this time a police officer is standing before him: Agent Cybil Bennett.
Cybil seems as taken aback by what’s going on in Silent Hill as Harry, and while she’s determined to help him with her daughter, she decides it’s best to separate. Of course, before saying goodbye, he gives his gun and a handful of bullets to the desperate father. Somehow, the two of them know that it is not enough to deal with the horrors that await them from that point on.
Although Silent Hill is defined as a psychological horror video game, what it proposes to the player is an adventure that takes with great success environmental aspects of thrillers and horror films. Discarding the action components of Survival Horrors like Resident Evil to focus on emotions and uncertainty.
A curious fact: the color of the Silent Hill inventory depends on the level of difficulty we choose
In fact, to make the experience even more immersive and cinematic, Silent Hill does not have a player interface . If we want to know the state of Harry’s health we must open the game menu. Moreover, we will not see direction indicators on the screen or life indicators on the enemies.
That does not mean that in Silent Hill we go completely blind in the playable: although the thick fog and darkness are an ingenious environmental resource that reduces the visual load -all the scenarios have been created in 3D-, throughout the adventure we will receive a radio that will react to threats and the proximity of nightmare creatures.
Achieving, through the setting, the limitation of visibility and the acoustic signals, that the player is in constant tension. Helpless and at the same time alert. Which, on the other hand, will not prevent us from putting ourselves in the worst case scenario every time darkness suddenly floods the streets of Silent Hill.
Don’t be afraid of the dark. Fear what is hidden in it
It can be said that the development of Silent Hill was, speaking badly and soon, a commission by Konami. After the success of games like Resident Evil, the Tokyo company decided to assemble a new team made up of various talents from the house who had not shared the same success as Koji Igarashi , Hideo Kojima and other of its great creatives.
The priority of the project: basically, that it was focused on the international market . A game that worked well in North America and Europe. Two emerging markets for Japanese developers that became a preference for Konami after the success of the great Japanese sagas in the West (such as Final Fantasy) through PlayStation.
Now, although Konami’s priority is that this new game was a commercial impulse abroad, the truth is that Keiichiro Toyama , leader of the project, was quite experimental in many aspects. Its objective being that the player experiences fear in a different way: on an instinctual level.
Provoking before new kinds of stimulus – compared to what is seen in other horror alternatives in video games – the fear of the unknown. Taking advantage of a lighting system that, by the way, did not take long to establish a chair among horror games.
Although, in the plot, Silent Hill knows how to start with clichés – deliberately – and gradually lead the whole to a twisted web of dark cults and paranormal enigmas, its maximum success is the way in which the player himself leaves his curiosity parked during his inaugural game to focus on the concept of absolute survival.
Because, two decades later, Silent Hill is technically facing the corresponding retrograde typical of the pioneers of 3D on 32-bit consoles. But even to this day, the milestone of Keiichiro Toyama and his team is still evident in offering an extraordinarily intimidating atmosphere in each of its sections.
Managing to leave the player defenseless throughout the game by constantly exposing him to uncertainty . Either through gloomy environments designed to generate hostility and discomfort, or through situations that gradually twist. Successfully maintaining the plot suspense until the final stages of the game.
With that in mind, and as we said just above, in Silent Hill we are not exactly a hero or the typical protagonist of a video game: Harry is a writer and a father who faces all kinds of horrors in a very clumsy way. Who fights like a cat on his back for his daughter, but is constantly overcome and at the mercy of events.
Not that Harry is clumsy, but he is definitely neither an athlete nor someone used to using violence . If you run you get tired and the game is designed so that shooting or attacking with knives, metal pipes or kicks does not exactly leave you in an advantageous position.
Which leaves us with a control system that hasn’t aged well , but still fulfills its original goal: to constantly expose us to the terrors of the game.
Ahead, nightmare creatures that crawl, fly, crawl or advance at their own pace, but being real threats . Enough, so that we consider facing them as soon as we see how our radio reacts, but also to be startled when we see them emerge from the fog or darkness.
Of course, throughout the game we will also see puzzles and other kinds of challenges that will have us thinking about the city of Silent Hill and its key buildings beyond our games and with the console turned off. To which we must add really uncomfortable decisions during the course of the story that will determine which of the five endings of the game we will see.
Because, although Silent Hill asks to be played a second watch to finish assimilating everything shown on the screen, one of the main claims to re-expose ourselves to its nightmare is the possibility of making the other decisions and, consequently, witnessing the different game outcomes.
Including a surprise ending – as a gift and as an Easter Egg – in which Harry makes contact and is exposed to beings from beyond our planet.
Silent Hill: a powerful way to transmit horror through video games
When Konami developed Silent Hill, they had no plans to create a sequel. In fact, before launch, both the Tokyo company and the development team itself ended up being very moderate in terms of its potential commercial impact.
However, that nightmare set in a cursed town will end up being an instant classic in its own right and most importantly: it will become a new benchmark in video game horror.
Not that Team Silent, the team assembled for the occasion, created Silent Hill out of thin air. Beyond the clichés themselves, the game’s cinematic influences are clearly visible: from the work of Italian director Dario Argento in the game, to the aura of mystery from the Twin Peaks series, to the visual style of Jacob’s Ladder. .
Comparisons with Resident Evil were and continue to be unavoidable given its theme. But despite the similarities, which there are, Silent Hill’s kind of psychological horror experience came as a welcome surprise to everyone.
Silent Hill’s way of conveying terror was especially groundbreaking. Above all, for an adult audience that demanded innovative and courageous content from video games. Retaking, amplifying and reshaping those unprecedented sensations that had begun to be forged with Alone in the Dark.
And although, as we said, visually and in playable Silent Hill has not aged particularly well , in its day it was a technical surprise that knew how to take advantage of the hardware limits of the original PlayStation, based on fog and darkness.
As expected, Konami was able to channel the good reception and sales of Silent Hill with a sequel that, despite losing the surprise factor of the original installment, raised the bar in all its sections and successes. And not only that, he knew how to penetrate more and better in the fans, intensifying his strengths thanks to the hardware of a recently released PS2.
Being, as a whole, the beginning of a saga that has been dedicated to exploring horror in video games in a much more intense way. Daring to reinvent itself with each new installment. And that, despite not being one of Konami’s priorities, it resists being forgotten.
