When you review a game, if you don’t know anyone else that’s also reviewing it, it can be a bit difficult to guess how it might be received overall. There’s normally some assumptions you can make, but with a series like Silent Hill, a series where the general consensus is all over the place from game to game, it’s certainly not easy to predict. I myself ended up being quite fascinated by Silent Hill f in my review of it, but in a recent interview series producer Motoi Okamoto said that despite an overall positive reception, you shouldn’t expect every consequent game to be just like it.
Speaking with IGN Japan at TGS last month (as translated by Automaton), Okamoto said how he expected responses to the game much more divided than they ended up being due to its “challenging” elements. This is where the but comes in. But! As he notes, “that doesn’t mean every future Silent Hill will be like Silent Hill f. Each one will have its own distinct flavor. We want to keep experimenting and be ambitious, both in terms of gameplay design and storytelling, so please look forward to the next Silent Hill as well.”
The producer doubled down on this sentiment on Bitter, the nothing app, saying he wants to be bold with the series and make it so that each subsequent game offers fresh gameplay. Though he doesn’t want to abandon a key point about the series either – “I believe psychological stories are essential to what makes Silent Hill feel like ‘Silent Hill,’ and we’ll continue to place great importance on that in future works as well.”
Part of the process I took with reviewing Silent Hill f was working out my own feelings on how necessary the series is now, and if there’s anything it can offer any more. The answer, as it turns out, was yes, actually, so despite my curmudgeonly attitude towards it, I am curious to see where it goes next.
