Interview With Mark Simmons (Silent Haven)

Date published: 2010.11.30
Source: Silent Haven

Very excited about this one, Mark Simmons, the director for both Origins and Shattered Memories, devoted much time to answer a grip of questions for us about his involvement and work with both Origins and Shattered Memories.

Silent Haven: As a game Director what are you in charge of, your duties?

Mark Simmons: As the Game Director I am ultimately responsible for the final game. If its not fun, if its rubbish, if it doesn’t make a profit, if it doesn’t get critical acclaim, then ultimately, it’s my fault. I am the vision holder for the game.

Silent Haven: You did work on both Origins and Shattered Memories. Do you find the Silent Hill universe fun to work with?

Mark Simmons: Of course. Because the game worlds can conjure up anything from the minds of the protagonists, the sky is the limit. When I was still at Climax - I am working at Sony London now - we were discussing making our next SH game branch away from the town to a new location, exploring the idea that the forces of the town aren’t bound within the town itself.

Silent Haven: You directed the first Silent Hill outside of Japan and then a re-installment of the original Silent Hill. Was that hard to deal with since Silent Hill’s fan base is so protective and has so many expectations?

Mark Simmons: The SH fan base is mental (in lots of ways). I’ve often been stunned by the detailed knowledge of the series that they hold and the depth that they analyze new titles. This protective nature has made it more interesting to develop those games as we’ve been able to put subtleties in the game and in the stories that only Silent Hill fans would get. Take the “Dead Dog” graffiti on the wall in the park at the start of the game in Shattered Memories, not many game series have fans that would get that.

Silent Haven: Were you a Silent Hill fan prior to your work on Origins?

Mark Simmons: Yes. My younger brother got me into it as he had a PS1 and put a lot of hours in SH1, I used to borrow his PS1 to play it. My favorite is 2, it was the first time I got truly immersed in a game story so it’s memorable for that reason. I had to play through 3 and 4 and replay 1 and 2 before starting Origins. I still haven’t played Homecoming.

Silent Haven: How much influence did you have on character design and character development in both Origins and Shattered Memories?

Mark Simmons: Myself, Sam, and Neale (Lead Artist) always worked closely as a trio coming up with character ideas, choosing which ones to include in the game, directing the concepts and their creation, along with figuring out how they would move and what their abilities would be in the game.

Silent Haven: Since Team Silent’s departure, Silent Hill games and other Silent Hill titled media have been seen as copying original elements like Pyramid Head, the nurses, and amnesia based story line similar to Silent Hill 2. Do you see this is a bad thing creatively for Silent Hill?

Mark Simmons: It’s definitely a bad thing, although its worth noting that Shattered Memories isn’t a amnesia based storyline. With Origins the inclusion of the nurses made sense since we where back at Alchemilla, but The Butcher was a legacy that we inherited (it clearly has been influenced by Pyramid Head). Origins started it’s development with a completely separate team in LA. That team weren’t doing such a great job and at the same time my team were just finishing off a PSP title so had the technology and experience to rescue the situation so it was handed over to us. We had 12 months and decided to throw away everything that LA had done to that point and completely re-wrote the story and recreated everything within the 12 months we had left. The only thing that did survive was The Butcher, and that was mainly because it was something that Konami was keen to retain at the time.

With Shattered Memories the cuffs were off. We’d already proved we could do a descent job of a ‘safe’ Silent Hill game so now was our chance to push the boundaries. we wanted to test the water with the fans as well, rather than give them a so so clone of a Team Silent SH game. We wanted to put our own stamp on the series. So, for SM we felt that churning out more twitchy nurses and PH clones would not be pushing ourselves creatively.

Silent Haven: Both Origins and Shattered Memories are beautiful in their atmosphere, one with the classic foggy, rust and blood covered look and the other with a town covered in Ice and snow. What inspiration did you take from with creating this look with both games?

Mark Simmons: Origins was inspired by the original games. We played it safe as we only had 12 months to develop it after taking over from the team in LA. SM’s ice theme was inspired by a metaphor for the mind trying to protect itself from facing the dark truths locked within, this is why whenever Harry gets close to finding out the truth the game world freezes over. The ice was also influenced by the desire to do something very different to what had featured in previous titles whist still being true to the essence of a SH story.

Silent Haven: Which game was more exciting for you to work with?

Shattered Memories by a long way. Whenever you make a sequel - I know, it wasn’t strictly a sequel - you’re making a game with the same team, starting with technology that you all know inside out, and you’re ready to get all the things you did wrong in the fist place, right this time round. That all makes it a lot more enjoyable. SM was a tough project though as we all put so much of ourselves into it, creative tempers often got frayed when they didn’t agree.

Silent Haven: What do you think of the future of Silent Hill?

Mark Simmons: It has to change in a big way to survive. This applies to survival horror in general, but especially to Silent Hill. There just aren’t enough SH fans to support the budgets it costs to make games nowadays. That’s a sad thing, but in order for Silent Hill to survive it needs to offer a new experience to the modern gamer and get more people buying it. Heavy Rain proved it to a degree by managing to deliver a commercially successful game driven entirely by an emotional narrative.

Silent Haven: How do you compare the American releases to the Japanese release?

Mark Simmons: I think the Japanese created a style of Silent Hill that is unique. It’s quirky because it’s a small town set in the US but created by a Japanese team as a homage to Americana. Us westerners will never capture that quirkiness, so instead it makes sense for us to focus on bringing something new to the SH experience. That’s certainly what we tried to do with SM.

Silent Haven: What was your main goal in accomplishing for directing games with in the Silent Hill franchise?

Mark Simmons: With Origins it was to rescue a tricky situation with a PSP game that wasn’t progressing as it should in LA, and to turn that around and earn our SH battle wings by creating a competent SH series entry that the fans would accept. With Shattered Memories it was to turn survival horror on its head, and deliver a SH game that could appeal to new. Gamers as well as retain all that was special about Silent Hill. I’m really proud of what we achieved with the two games, and turning Survival Horror on its head and bringing it to a wider audience will stay with me as a career focus for now.

Silent Haven: Do you and or Sam Barlow have any part in Silent Hill 8, the next game in the series to be released?

Mark Simmons: No. Sam’s working on something new at Climax, and I’m working on something new at Sony.