Silent Hill 3 Special Interview

Producer Akira Yamaoka speaks at length about the latest installment in the series, which features the franchise’s first female protagonist.

Date published: 2003.06.27
Source: PS World
Note: Machine translation

What is the “SILENT HILL” series?

The first game in the series was released in 1999. At the time, titles like Resident Evil were all the rage, but the goal for Silent Hill (hereinafter *SH*) was to create a horror game that wouldn’t just be a copycat. So what would that be? The answer we came up with was a cinematic, American modern horror experience. It featured themes not found in existing games and was more about following the story than action. The content also had an occult-like feel to it. Then, in 2001, we released the sequel, SH2. This title moved away from the occult and emphasized human drama. It might even be said to have stepped outside the boundaries of the “horror game” genre. Story-wise, it’s a completely separate narrative from SH1. Now, with SH3, the game returns to the roots of SH1 and depicts a form of horror with a strong occult flavor.

What influenced you as you developed this series?

We’re definitely influenced by 1980s movies and music. I’m no exception, but there are quite a few older guys on our team (laughs). When it comes to movies, think David Lynch and Stephen King. Those influences are huge. However, if we just directly translate those influences into our work, it often ends up as something very niche and hard to understand. We’re careful to steer things in a direction that translates that into a more mainstream perspective. If we just made things the way we personally like, I’m sure it would turn into something completely incomprehensible (laughs).

Another thing we all have in common as a team is our love for the Czech animation director Jan Švankmajer. He’s well-known among fans as a leading figure in clay animation. In that sense, maybe we’re a team of real enthusiasts. Strangely enough, though, none of us are horror fans (laughs).

What are the visual highlights?

Since we’ve been creating this series with the same team since SH1, our technical skills have become more polished, and I think SH3 serves as a culmination of the know-how we gained from SH1 and SH2. When we started production on SH3, the first thing we did was thoroughly test every aspect of the hardware. We wanted to see exactly what the PS2 was capable of. That’s why I believe SH3 pushes the hardware’s potential to its absolute limit. Especially the graphics. Players should be able to enjoy visuals and presentation styles unique to this game. For example, animated textures. I don’t think anyone else has done this yet—veins pulsing, skin changing. These effects happen while you’re playing. Especially from the middle to the latter half of the game, you’ll see more of these effects applied to both the creatures and the backgrounds.

We experimented with animating textures in SH2 as well, but we didn’t get around to implementing it. Those experiments finally came to fruition in SH3. Players probably won’t notice exactly how these effects are achieved, but we’ve incorporated all sorts of interesting mechanisms like that, so I’d be happy if they paid a little attention to those details too (laughs).

Our Commitment to the Demo Scene

For SH3, we moved away from pre-rendered footage and ran all the cutscenes in real-time. While pre-rendered visuals are easier to make look beautiful, it’s a letdown when the look shifts abruptly between cutscenes and actual gameplay. We wanted to ensure a seamless flow—eliminating any jarring transitions in camera work before and after these events so the game’s momentum wouldn't be broken. There are plenty of games these days that employ cinematic techniques, but I believe there are still many forms of expression unique to gaming—things movies simply can't do. I want to continue exploring those possibilities in future titles beyond SH3.

Depiction of Light and Shadow

We’re also paying close attention to character design. CG characters tend to look smooth and egg-shaped, but in this game—even though the protagonist is a young girl—we’ve added wrinkles to her face and paid careful attention to the shadows cast on her. If we add shading to the background, we have to adjust the characters accordingly; and if we focus on the characters, we naturally have to pay attention to the background as well. Striking that balance is difficult. To get into the nitty-gritty, in a typical game, you’d create a half-body model of a character and flip it to make it look like a full figure. But in SH3, we didn’t do that—we actually render the characters as single, complete images, which is why we can capture even those fine details. I think this is probably close to the limit of what’s possible with real-time rendering on the PS2. Even though we’re on the same team, I was really impressed (laughs).

A Commitment to Making the Game Fun

While we focused primarily on the enjoyment of reading the story in SH2, in SH3 we placed more emphasis on the fun of progressing through the game. In that sense, I think the gameplay experience is closer to SH1.

We put particular effort into combat against enemies. However, the appeal of combat in the SH series differs from other action games—it’s not just about hordes of enemies appearing and the thrill of mowing them down. We wanted players to feel a sense of “fear” even in the midst of battle.

So, what is it that frightens the player? It’s the same fear that the protagonist, Heather, feels. Heather isn’t a superhero—she’s just an ordinary, powerless girl, right? If that’s the case, her attacks should feel feeble too. That’s why we designed it so she can’t land solid hits. We’ve adjusted the mechanics to make it harder to hit enemies. But if she never hits them at all, it just increases the player’s stress, so we tried not to overdo it there (laughs). For example, we’ve added a slight delay before the shotgun fires. So I think the combat scenes are designed so that the frustration of having to attack while scrambling to escape actually feeds back to the player as a source of fear.

What an eerie creature

I try not to design them so that, at first glance, they look like, ‘This is a bad monster—please defeat it.’ Instead, I want players to naturally think, ‘Something creepy is attacking me for some reason, so I have to defeat it.’ I pay attention not only to the design but also to their posture and movements to create a somewhat eerie atmosphere.

My favorite creature is the Insane Cancer. It’s a pretty massive character—I’d say it’s about twice Heather’s size. Plus, this guy moves incredibly fast. A chubby, humanoid creature attacking you at breakneck speed… that’s scary (laughs). I definitely recommend checking it out. Sometimes multiple ones appear at once, so be careful if you run into one (laughs).

Also, this time around, we’ve significantly tweaked the weapons from the previous game. Until now, there wasn’t much distinction between them, but this time, certain weapons are more effective against specific creatures. I’d love for you all to figure that out for yourselves. Of course, we’ve also included some hidden weapons.

What is the theme of the story in SH3?

Since it’s part of a series, people tend to think they won’t be able to enjoy it unless they’ve played the previous two games, but that’s definitely not the case. As a horror game, it’s designed to be enjoyable even if you’re not familiar with the previous ‘SH’ titles. The overarching theme of the series’ story is “love.” The first game focused on the love between parent and child, the second on the love between husband and wife, and while you’ll have to play the third one to find out what kind of love it’s about, love is the theme once again this time. I guess you could call its unofficial genre “love adventure.” I don’t think even the scenario writer considers it a horror adventure, though. (laughs)

The main character, a girl named Heather

She’s cheerful, has a sharp tongue, and is feisty (laughs). Visually, I’d say she’s kind of like Sophie Marceau. She usually acts tough even around grown men, but when she actually comes face-to-face with a creature, she ends up getting scared. I think that’s part of what makes her so cute (laughs).

This is the first time we’ve made a young girl the protagonist. Since the protagonists in both SH1 and SH2 were middle-aged guys (laughs), it seems to be a hot topic among fans. So, I think players will be able to experience a different kind of storyline and discover a new side of SH. Story-wise, having a middle-aged guy as the protagonist limits the scope of what you can create (laughs). With a female protagonist, I think you’ll also notice a change in the gameplay, don’t you think?

Highlights of the Story

It’s the complexity of human nature. As I mentioned earlier when discussing how the creatures were created, the same goes for the characters who appear around Heather. They aren’t the kind of people you can immediately label as ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Claudia, the mysterious woman; Douglas, the detective hired by Claudia; and Vincent, the man waiting for Heather in the world she stumbled into—these characters play key roles in Heather’s story, but it’s unclear whether each of them is an ally or an enemy to her. There might even be a creature among them. As the story progresses, the mystery deepens.

Isn’t that true of the people around us, too? You might have been getting along fine with someone until yesterday, but then suddenly they do something unexpected that takes you by surprise. There are people who seem nice on the surface but are actually scheming, aren’t there? It’s scary when you’re faced with a situation like that, isn’t it? That kind of fear stemming from human drama might be one of the horror elements in SH3.

Will the mystery from the first installment be revealed?

It's not exactly a ‘here it is!’ kind of reveal, but there are references to the first game in the characters' conversations. The mysterious town of Silent Hill makes another appearance, after all. I hope those who played the previous game will look forward to those moments as well.

Which mystery are you curious about?

To be honest, I think it’s a little challenging (laughs). However, this time around, you can choose the difficulty level for both the puzzles and the action, so we’ve made sure even beginners can enjoy the game with confidence. Just like the combat, challenging puzzles are a key element of the ‘SH’ series, so I really hope that adventure game fans who haven’t played this series before will use SH3 as an opportunity to give it a try.