Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro Team for New Silent Hill

[Halla Burrica]

I'm not completely sure about this project, sure it looks promising, both Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro are big talents in their respective mediums, but I'm not entirely certain if Kojima and Silent Hill blend well together. I don't know if Kojima will be the one doing the writing on this one, but if he is, he'll have to change his style up a bit.
From what I hear, one of the biggest strengths in Silent Hill (at least the good ones) is it's subtlety, and Kojima's stories, I don't know if they're bad, but subtle it certainly ain't.

 

[ThatDarnCoyote]

The involvement of Del Toro is a good sign. The Devil's Backbone [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256009/?ref_=nv_sr_1] showed he could do a good atmospheric horror story.

Kojima is another matter. His gameplay can be excellent, but it always trends to the gimmicky, and Silent Hill games have never really been about innovative gameplay. And if Kojima's allowed near the script I'm afraid he'll talk it to death.

 

[Shiftygiant]

Fuck it, the franchise has been dead since 2007, lets just let this madness happen, we might get something stupidly fun that'll make Yahtzee cry.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

From what Kojima has shown me, this has me worried.

Kojima can not stop from talking. He can not stop explaining and putting his view point out there. Almost everything he touches, it seems (To Me) that everyone speaking is speaking from Kojima's viewpoint instead of me listening to characters and their own minds.

Silent Hill needs that nigh impossible balance of characters moving enough and likable enough... but mysterious enough that some blanks will NOT be filled, along with making sure that one of the most important aspects of the series (the town) is at the center of it all.

I do not know how much Kojima will be involved with this, but if it is quite a bit, I worry about what comes next.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Norman Reedus is a bad pick for a protagonist. The player character needs to be someone quasi-relatable, and his air of being a badass just undermines any psychological mind-f**king that the game should have.

Also, who let Kojima out of his cage? This already sounds less like a Silent Hill game, and more of a Resident Evil sequel. I'm sorry, but unless someone takes the writing responsibilities away from that buffoon, this will just be another Kojima game. That is to say, another game with functional mechanics but with utter tripe for a story, not to mention the kind of disturbing way he views female characters in his games.

I mean, the only good thing here is Guillhermo del Toro, because his monster designs are great and genuinely unsettling at times, but like I said; unless Kojima is responsible only for the gameplay, the story will completely undermine it.

 

[Evonisia]

A chance to update one's opinion without editing the original post? Brilliant.

But while Kojima being involved spells "disaster" to me because he doesn't understand when a character should speak and when silence and world building should tell the story, maybe Norman Reedus and del Toro can save this, maybe. I'm still not hopeful for the game, but at least it might be over the top enough. Seeing as Shattered Memories and Downpour were good and great games respectively (in my opinion, I know Silent Hill existing beyond 3 is sinful even though 4 isn't that bad), this can either keep the momentum going of restoring Silent Hill to the great series it once was, or pummelling it into the ground. If it is just alright (which I doubt, look who is involved), then it just gives Silent Hill even more of a bad name and just another game to be unfairly grouped with the disc-based-shit that was Homecoming.

 

[ThatDarnCoyote]

Silent Hill needs that nigh impossible balance of characters moving enough and likable enough... but mysterious enough that some blanks will NOT be filled, along with making sure that one of the most important aspects of the series (the town) is at the center of it all.

I do not know how much Kojima will be involved with this, but if it is quite a bit, I worry about what comes next.

Hey, you know the enduring mystery about what exactly is behind the horror and madness of Silent Hill?

Turns out, it's nanomachines. Who knew?

 

[Kyrian007]

I see a lot of negativity so far. I'm not really sure I get that. Isn't Silent Hill in a place right now where just about ANY news is good news. Upon seeing the title, my first thought wasn't "Yea, Del Toro" or "Boo, Hideo Kojima" but instead "Cool, Silent Hill isn't DEAD."

Besides, for all the complaining I see about Kojima's stories I see 2 blindspots there. First, other than mistaking complexity for depth and a tendency beat a dead horse on his hangup themes there isn't really too much wrong with his writing. And second, Do you know who GUILLERMO DEL TORO is? With his name attached, do you really think Kojima is WRITING? So what, Kojima will write and Del Toro is there for ambient lighting design. Casting, character design and music? OF COURSE Del Toro is writing... what else would he do?

Oh and yes, without Akira Yamaoka they need not bother.

 

[Kyber]

Man, haven't been excited about a Silent Hill game in ages, I wonder how Kojima and Del Toro mix, I love Kojima, in my opinion one of the best writers of all time, and Del Toro has great vision but the writing comes off a bit lackluster at times, but I think the two can create something spectacular together, if they can tone down Kojimas comedy side a bit, it doesn't fit into the Silent Hill series very well.
Casting Norman Reedus is a bit odd though, hard to relate to a character that is supposed to be in a mental breakdown state when he's done by someone typecasted strictly as an action man "badass".

 

[gigastar]

Well, this will be interesting.

Kojima is finally doing something other than Metal Gear.

And Konami has finally woken up to the idea that people would actually want to play survival horror. And are evidently putting some decent resources behind a new project to boot.

Whatever the result, this will be interesting.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I'm of the opposite mind than many here, I guess. Kojima is an excellent game designer (apart from MGS4), and by this point Silent Hill is so fucking dead that letting him take whatever crack he wishes to take at it is fine by me. Though I think he'll take on more of a producer role.

Del Toro I honestly don't regard as that well of a filmmaker. He's good at visuals, but his actual storytelling skills and acting direction leave a lot to be desired. And even on the visuals front he tends to go overboard in that "Zack Snyder" sort of way.

And even if I did like del Toro, I trust a seasoned game developer with a game more than a movie director.

 

[thanatos388]

Why does everyone suddenly hate Kojima, was it the paid demo thing? I think he could come up with something good out of this, especially if he is working with del Toro. Kojima's obsessive attention to detail is something Silent Hill fans should be relieved by considering how buggy and incompetent the last few entries have been. As far as writing goes, yeah Kojima's stories have progressively gotten worse but either his dialogue writing (or the localization as some have told me) has gotten better to the point of it not looking all bad. Also I doubt he is an idiot who's going to put a diaper monkey and fart jokes into a horror game, he is capable of restraint at some points in Metal Gear, it's just not his usual style.

But this probably won't come out for another three years or so who really cares at this point, the game could very well fall though.

Although I have to wonder why they choose Reedus to be the protagonist, is it because he tweeted positively about Phantom Pain? He is just has way too much of a badass persona to be a fitting protagonist in Silent Hill, unless he can pull it off somehow I've only ever seen him in the Walking Dead.

 

[Evonisia]

Why does everyone suddenly hate Kojima, was it the paid demo thing? I think he could come up with something good out of this, especially if he is working with del Toro. Kojima's obsessive attention to detail is something Silent Hill fans should be relieved by considering how buggy and incompetent the last few entries have been. As far as writing goes, yeah Kojima's stories have progressively gotten worse but either his dialogue writing (or the localization as some have told me) has gotten better to the point of it not looking all bad. Also I doubt he is an idiot who's going to put a diaper monkey and fart jokes into a horror game, he is capable of restraint at some points in Metal Gear, it's just not his usual style.

But this probably won't come out for another three years or so who really cares at this point, the game could very well fall though.

Although I have to wonder why they choose Reedus to be the protagonist, is it because he tweeted positively about Phantom Pain? He is just has way too much of a badass persona to be a fitting protagonist in Silent Hill, unless he can pull it off somehow I've only ever seen him in the Walking Dead.

Downpour is not as buggy as it was at launch now. It got it's desperately needed patches. Admittedly, the frame rate sometimes dips but never for too long. Can't say I had issues with Shattered Memories beyond the Wii Mote being a load of shit (which is a problem). As long as Reedus isn't the same awful protagonist from Homecoming I think it's all good.

Spoiler

Said awful protagonist is a person who is so deluded he thinks that he was a military soldier who returned to his home town to find it ruined. In reality he's just creating false memories to hide the fact that he did nasty things to a member of his family and the town fell apart partly because of a death cult and partly because he's lost it.
If you noticed that this is like they took the best aspect of Silent Hill 2's story and made it shit, then it is. That's one of the big reasons why I hate Homecoming so much.

Reedus could fill a role like that, but the idea is so inherently awful that I hope to never see it.

 

[ninjaRiv]

I am happy. Very happy. This could be the perfect team up. Kojima doing a Silent Hill game has been a thing for a while now, but with Del Toro on board, we have some genuine horror expertise in the mix. Plus, he should be able to keep Kojima's more... Frustrating aspects in check.

 

[SweetShark]

Silent Hills? Multiple Protagonists? Different Versions of Silent Hill for each character?
Hideo Kojima's Silent Hill and Guillermo del Toro's Silent Hill?
This will be VERY interesting.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

Del Toro being involved excites me because of how dark it can get. And Kojima, I commend his writing skills. Reedus is a great actor, and that excites me to have three of my favorite people in the industry working on my favorite game series ever *^*

 

[Tohuvabohu]

I'm of the opposite mind than many here, I guess. Kojima is an excellent game designer (apart from MGS4), and by this point Silent Hill is so fucking dead that letting him take whatever crack he wishes to take at it is fine by me. Though I think he'll take on more of a producer role.

Del Toro I honestly don't regard as that well of a filmmaker. He's good at visuals, but his actual storytelling skills and acting direction leave a lot to be desired. And even on the visuals front he tends to go overboard in that "Zack Snyder" sort of way.

And even if I did like del Toro, I trust a seasoned game developer with a game more than a movie director.

The Escapist community's jerky-knee seems to have a thing for Kojima. Anything that mentions him tends to get swarmed with negativity. Even though I'm having trouble seeing how this is generally a bad thing.

Even if you don't like Kojima. I don't think anyone can deny that Silent Hill was fucking dead, and perhaps more importantly, Konami didn't give a shit about it.

Now, with the way this is being handled and the names attached to the project, the engine powering it, and the manner in which this was announced, we are seeing a Silent Hill game with actual effort put into it again. And this is a bad thing, why? "Cause Nano-machines?"

We don't know the extent of how Kojima and Del Toro will be approaching this project. The bottom line here is that one is an experienced, and seasoned game designer. And one is an experienced, and seasoned film director, screenwriter and producer.

This does kindof remind me a common complaint leveraged against Kojima. The fact that the man does almost nothing but Metal Gear Solid games, and that he should break away from it and do something else for once. And now that is actually happening. But it seems like everyone here just want him to go back to MGS lol.

This whole thing would be even better if Akira Yamaoka was confirmed to be a part of it. I hope we'll get word of that soon.

 

[fieryshadowcard]

Del Toro's penchant for bizarre yet compelling imagery and his ability to let the scene speak for itself, mixed with Kojima's batshit insanity and hammy over-the-topness. Sure, I could wonder who's doing what for this upcoming Silent Hill game or even if either is cut out for living up to the expectations of someone else's franchise, but all I'm hearing is Silent Hill: The Evil Dead. And believe it or not, good or bad, I think that sounds pretty awesome. If you take a moment to think about the things Silent Hill and Evil Dead have in common, this might not be blasphemy at all, but sheer genius.

 

[iLikeHippos]

It's going to be a 'new adaptation' of the Silent Hill game library, and it will be mediocre at best.

I guarantee it.