Silent Hill: Downpour

[Robotazy]

Can Vatra Games do what others couldn't?

Originally Posted by Exerpt from Folohan Olowoyeye

In the wake of a mediocre showing from Shattered Memories, Konami has turned to a Czech-based studio, Vatra Games to develop the next chapter of the franchise, titled Silent Hill: Downpour. The folks at Game Informer spoke with design director Brian Gomez and producer Devin Shatsky earlier this week about the intriguing, unsettling, (and rainy) world of Downpour.

"It's about disempowerment," says Gomez. Starting with the prison bus crash that strands Murphy (the protagonist) in the forests' misty silence, much of Downpour's focus is on recapturing the psychological and thematic aspects of its survival-horror roots; here Vatra's strategy proceeds chiefly through disorientation and defamiliarization. We know little about Murphy -- other than his convict's coveralls; he has no connection to any of the previous protagonists or to the town itself, as he trudges through the gathering storm. "Murphy's story is Murphy's story. It has nothing to do with Alessa, or James, or anybody." While the practical benefit of distancing oneself from a franchise's criticisms and disappointments are clear for any studio, for Gomez and Vatra, this decision is stylistic, meant to emphasize the primacy of setting and atmosphere: "If you look at the whole series, and the way that we chose to look at the series -- Silent Hill as an entity, a genius loci -- is the character."

According to GI, this "character" flows from atmosphere -- from manipulating events and perceptions to evoke not only the familiar defecate-your-pants terror, but more subtle shades of nagging anxiety and confusion. In this, the rain serves a persistent metaphor for the unreality characteristic to Silent Hill, and as well as its figurative and literal (all the roads are out) separation from the world. This effect is designed to be inherently idiosyncratic, as Gomez remarks: "You get a different result whenever you plug in a different person with a different psychology, a different load of guilt or remorse that they're carrying around with them." In Downpour, the circumstances surrounding Murphy's past trouble with the law factor into the atmosphere of mistrust and anxiety, but won't thud with the same corny coincidence at which we've previously yawned in horror games: "You're never going to dig up Murphy's past and discover he's the great, great, great grandson of the grandmaster of The Order," Gomez reassures.

It sounds good, but I'll understand if Silent Hill Fans are skeptical.

[Jere]

Ohh no last game i heard that came from Czech didn't fare well.

but im keeping all the channels open.

[Dancing Mad]

Looking forward to it, most especially if it attempts to regain some of its roots that were totally raped by Shattered Memories and Homecoming...I'm confident though, that however this turns out to be, we'll be treated to some insane psychological buggery that is prominent with these games.

I wonder if this one will have roadkill crawling after you...