What's SS stand for? I thought METAL GEAR 2: Sons of liberty when someone says MG2. Should be abbreviated MGS2:SOL(Shit Out of Luck)
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Sony rebooting Silent Hill series - Update: Maybe ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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What's SS stand for? I thought METAL GEAR 2: Sons of liberty when someone says MG2. Should be abbreviated MGS2:SOL(Shit Out of Luck)
I just hope it's solid, simple combat like the originals, allowing the story and atmosphere to take center stage.
Toyama could get.... let's just say 'creative' with gameplay in the SIREN series. I really don't want to play sequences as dogs, blind people, or children that have sneezing problems* anymore, lol.
Toyama could get.... let's just say 'creative' with gameplay in the SIREN series. I really don't want to play sequences as dogs, blind people, or children that have sneezing problems* anymore, lol.
* I might have made one of those up 😂
Soft reboot generally means that the canon of the previous games will still be preserved but that the new game won't address them directly and will standalone. Think the new God of War. In games it sometimes also means that the gameplay mechanics will be different, too, but in the case of a series that's been dead for a long time it may not.
Nothing, just someone randomly saying it. No rumor or anything, just fan wish.
He's not saying MGS2, he's saying MG2 as in the MSX release. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
I can't speak for Downpour, which I haven't played, but Shattered Memories was a direct re-imagining of Silent Hill 1, and it was built around you knowing the story for the twist to be effective. Origins is basically a prequel to 1. Homecoming has ties to Origins, and focuses on a sect of the Silent Hill cult which broke off from Silent Hill. Basically, all these games have strong ties to previous games.
A soft reboot implies that all you need to know is that the game takes place in Silent Hill.
I'm not saying that it isn't a PR term--because it most definitely is. But it also heavily implies that none of the past continuations would be directly addressed in the game, but it's really hard to put judgment on it when we barely know what the game is about.
Oh like I said in my post, I have no more worries about the combat now, and it's not because of Bloodborne even--it's because of Siren: Blood Curse.
LMAOOOOOOOOO
Solid Snake. You're thinking Metal Gear Solid, not Metal Gear.
Is it really though? People are kinda expecting a new Silent Hills by now. And MGS2:SS...I guess that could do...something? I assume a Demon's Souls is more wanted here.
Hopefully he's not like horror filmmaker John Carpenter: thrives in small/mid-budget situations, but gets overwhelmed when handed larger budgets/more pressure.
That said, unless has been specified otherwise somewhere in this thread, I think Japan Studio SH reboot might be AA-tier, just with impressive built-in PS5 tech and incredible engineers/artists to mask any potential budgetary shortcomings (not unlike classic SH games).
It would explain the seemingly short dev time if the game truly releases next year.
Silent Hill 3 was a direct sequel to Silent Hill 1. Silent Hill 4: The Room has story elements brought from Silent Hill 2. Shattered Memories was a reimagining of Silent Hill 1. Origins was a prequel to the other games and focused on the cult. I mean, you aren't wrong in the sense that most of them standalone, but most likely 'soft reboot' in this context just means a new entry that isn't going to try and tie in much, if at all, with the previous games and be its own thing.
But you also have to think of it in terms of not just narrative, but also the fact that the series has basically been dead for almost a decade. A reboot in this sense probably also means a revival.
I voted "no" because I always temper my expectations when it comes to Silent Hill these days. Don't want to get disappointed again.
The first 2 Metal Gear games were on the MSX and were called Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. Metal Gear Solid is actually the third game in the series, and many have long hopes for a remake of the first 2 games as they were, overall, a lot simpler than what came after.
For soft reboot talk, this is nothing new I'm saying here but the project was made with them knowing this will be many people's first Silent Hill game. I don't know if its the final name, but I do know they just wanted to call the game Silent Hill. Part of the soft reboot angle is just to let newcomers know they don't need to have played the other ganes, scare them off or confuse them.
I also know from a creative standpoint Toyama and the team pretty much knew from the get-go what they wanted this to be, and for it to be more about creating the "essence" of Silent Hill, so take that as you will.
In a more real sense its rejuvenating the IP has been dormant for a decade, mishandled for longer, and I guess depending on factors either a fresh start or a final hurrah, so it is literally soft rebooting the franchise.
I also know from a creative standpoint Toyama and the team pretty much knew from the get-go what they wanted this to be, and for it to be more about creating the "essence" of Silent Hill, so take that as you will.
In a more real sense its rejuvenating the IP has been dormant for a decade, mishandled for longer, and I guess depending on factors either a fresh start or a final hurrah, so it is literally soft rebooting the franchise.
I think this in itself is enough to hype me.
I felt like post-Team Silent games had great ideas here and there, but it never coalesced to one good, strong vision either because of Konami or because the team just didn't have any (looks at Homecoming).
At the very least, we're coming out with a game that Toyama and co feel strongly attached to.
While I don't know anything about the story, it is clear to me from Silent Hill 1 and the Siren games that Toyama loves the occult, failed rituals, false Gods and blaring air raid sirens.
Literally all four horror games he's made deal with cults (though I'd argue aren't about cults persay), so I say maybe get ready for that.
Yeah, given what we know about Toyama I would be shocked if the game was about anything other than the cult. This is honestly one of the things I'm least excited about because the cult is boring when used as a central plot device. It's great when it's background lore to help explain HOW the city got as fucked up as it is, but it's never fun to actually confront directly.
Huh. TIL Siren is a Sony-made series. and TIL the director of Silent Hill made it and Gravity Rush. I'm very surprised lol
Yup. After Blood Curse Toyama moved on to making the Gravity Rush series.
Eh, nothing surprising considering this is how everyone is approaching "late sequels" nowadays.
Even though there's cults in all four of his horror games, I also feel none of the games make them a central focus. Like they're THERE and present but the game is a lot more interested in the weird nightmare they've tapped into, "TAKE DOWN/SURVIVE THE CULT," or anything like that. Though I do think the final boss in ALL of these games is the God the cult was trying to summon, so there's that.
Yeah, the cult stuff is pretty...lifeless.
I'm excited for this more out of curiosity for like...how do you make a new Silent Hill in 2021 that feels fresh when everyone and their grandmother has bitten those first two games' mojo in the years since?
I'm excited for this more out of curiosity for like...how do you make a new Silent Hill in 2021 that feels fresh when everyone and their grandmother has bitten those first two games' mojo in the years since?
I would argue 1 and 3 push pretty hard into the cult's direction and the stuff directly related to the cult is always the least interesting part of both games. It's worse for SH3 because it's so central to Cheryl's story, something that would otherwise be more atmospheric and location-driven if the cult and its cronies weren't always popping up to steal focus.
2 uses it almost entirely as set dressing and 4 uses it a bit more than 2 but mostly just in background material. And then 5 made it a huge deal again.
Toyama's involvement, obviously, was just limited to the first game, but I'm not a big fan of the first game outside of respecting it for establishing the franchise.
I ahould clarify by four games, I meant Silent Hill 1, Forbidden Siren 1, 2, & Blood Curse.
SH1 and the Siren stuff all have cult stuff in them and characters who are part of the cult present in the story.
Yeah, I caught that right after I hit send, hah. 'tis early, no coffee in brain yet.
The Siren games never held my attention for very long, I'll be honest. The constant revolving doors of dead protagonists made it incredibly hard for me to stick with any of them to the end. But my memory of the cult stuff in those games is closer to the way it was handled in SH4 than it was in SH1 or 3.
Gravity Rush deserves another chance. The open world flying (err... falling) is absolutely perfect for the PS5.Gravity Rush is really surprising lol
From this
To this
Not exactly as Toyama left after SH1 so he wasn't really involved in SH2, but it is worth mentioning despite all this horror talk Toyama hasn't made a horror game in 12 years, and made two very different games in the meantime in Gravity Rush, so maybe his approach to horror will be changed up some now.Gravity Rush is really surprising lol
From this
To this
You can still see the horror roots of the team in gravity rush. A lot of the enemy designs and bosses especially in 2, are lot of fun.
Toyama handles the occult in a really creepy, hidden dread kind of way.
The cult aspect was handled pretty shmaltzy in SH3, Origins, and especially Homecoming, IMO.
I'm not worried.
The cult aspect was handled pretty shmaltzy in SH3, Origins, and especially Homecoming, IMO.
I'm not worried.
Yeah, honestly, I'd almost be surprised if there wasn't some cult shit
It's been awhile since I played Siren, but I remember the cult stuff getting pretty prominent the more you went on.
It's been awhile since I played Siren, but I remember the cult stuff getting pretty prominent the more you went on.
Wouldn't surprise me. I've never finished any of them. I read through some text-based LPs of Siren 1 and Blood Curse, I think, but I honestly can't remember - the games all kind of blur together because none of the characters are very interesting.
WHAT?!?!
How could you possibly forget Ichiro Nakajima, Ryuko Tagawa, and the classic character of the PS2 gen: Kyoya Suda?!?!
😉
Siren with the cult stuff is kinda weird. Big spoilers for Siren 1 and Blood Curse.
I can tell you didn't get far in Siren as part of Siren is time loops and doing things differently to break the loop and people not being able to die, just more and more... out of it then becoming Shibito themselves.
So in Siren the "God" is actually just an alien that crash landed on Earth decades ago during a famine, and the religious/superstitious people of the village thought this was a gift from their God for their prayers of hunger and ate it.
That does some really fucked up things to the people, and their leader believes they mistakenly ate their God and this is their punishment, so try to ressurect the alien for repetance, which interestingly what they ressurect is but isn't the alien, like its the alien "influenced" by what they believe their God is.
In game this does play a role but most characters trapped are trying to escape the village and time loop. You do see the ritual on and off and things becoming grosser and more "affected" by the ritual like its the end of days but people are turning into weird insect human shells of themselves.
So in Siren the "God" is actually just an alien that crash landed on Earth decades ago during a famine, and the religious/superstitious people of the village thought this was a gift from their God for their prayers of hunger and ate it.
That does some really fucked up things to the people, and their leader believes they mistakenly ate their God and this is their punishment, so try to ressurect the alien for repetance, which interestingly what they ressurect is but isn't the alien, like its the alien "influenced" by what they believe their God is.
In game this does play a role but most characters trapped are trying to escape the village and time loop. You do see the ritual on and off and things becoming grosser and more "affected" by the ritual like its the end of days but people are turning into weird insect human shells of themselves.
Yeah, I was oversimplifying things so I don't have to go into spoiler territory.
As far as I'm concerned, when a character becomes a Shibito, they're dead. Zombie movie rules. But I do remember a bit of that cult stuff from S1/BC, it just didn't really engage me very much.
It's okay, and I'm not trying to sell you on the story, more just skim over it as I know many don't really know about this.
A surprising number of characters actually do end up surviving, but there's some time loop shenanigans at play about that.
A weird plot point in Blood Curse that stuck with me is this one asshole father survives and escapes the time loop, but he lost his daughter in the process who's stuck in the loop and he was ejected out to 1976, decades before the game takes place and the year the real life village of the game was destroyed in a landslide. Escaped but wanting his daughter to live on forever, he grows old as a homeless crazy man to the 2000s and ends up being the old man who got main character Howard to come to this town at all. He tricks Howard to get trapped in the time loop in the first place due to the father wanting his daughter to live forever, and Howard in the time loop is crucial to her survival as he saves his daughter and causes her to live, to the point there's more than one of her alive but one is a child, one is an adult since I think time loops on itself in the village every 30-something years or so.
Its a very weird plot point, but for whatever reason it stuck with me.
I thought I was the #1
It's one of those "what have you done for me lately" type of situations.
Plus you still number 1. It's just if this rumor is right.
I guess it comes down to who's writing it.
If they manage to pull Owaku away from his bean-counting pachinko financials, we might get a more emotional story.
If it's Toyama and/or Naoko Sato writing, I'd expect something more weird and batshit disturbing.
I believe all regular Team Silent staff (not key) who worked on The Last Guardian, Knack II and Gravity Rush 2 have been moved to the Silent Hill project.
All regular MGS/ZOE staff who worked on The Last Guardian, Knack II and Gravity Rush 2 have been moved to the project Kouno is spearheading.
According to Shuhei Yoshida in late Sep 2018 around TGS he basically was interviewed by Dengeki PlayStation and said "we have people now at Japan Studio who wants to make AAA games".
"Now we have it" is key. Lines up well what Japan Studio producer said by wrapping up 2016. They are moving forward with the creation of ambitious new titles which seems to be very hard to understand by many in this thread.
Sony is aware that Konami has been sitting on so many talents since the PS3 days and they are hiring them consider what projects they have in the pipeline that suits their experience. They have hired before but not on a large scale like now.
Well organized internal development department is the initial plans. Since Shu mentioned AAA games in late Sep 2018 makes me think Silent Hill plans were already under wraps by that time Shu was interviewed by Dengeki PlayStation. I just want to point that out.
Takahiro Omori who was also a key member of MGS series at Konami including ZOE2. Aside from development he took also part in creative services like 2D art in software manual which Japan Studio has a department for. He has been the director of 2DCG unit.
With his disappearance after MGSV Ground Zeroes he seems to have vanished at Konami. Someone like him should have followed Kojima but he didn't, surprisingly.
So where are those "a lot of talented people at Japan Studio" Allan Becker mentioned in June 2017 to IGN? Silent Hill project was not a thing in 2017 but then he was probably talking about the project in Kouno's team. I can mention many staff members as possible to back up Allan Becker's words. The problem is, they haven't shown a damn thing with their claim and I hope this neverending wait ends soon and Sony Corp's damn "waiting game" tease.
There are so many questions that needs to be answered right now.
Teruhiro Shimogawa broke the news a few days ago and all speculations that he is part of Sony's plan of AAA games is not the case, thankfully.
下川輝宏 on Twitter
“フリーランスで痛感したのはＨＰがあると便利（逆にないと不便）ということでした。役所での証明に使えたりするので。というわけで用意させてもらいました。下記のＵＲＬです。 https://t.co/JRboAgDp0f”
twitter.com
On his blog he explained he has been working at Comcept for 9 years (since 2011 when Soul Sacrifice project began). It's time for him to become a freelancer. He will do scenario works for games.
So we can debunk that rumor now about Japan Studio making an JRPG or RPG. I don't remember when Ruin4r said anything about JRPG or something. That was made up by a fraud insider on NeoGaf who got slammed by Jason Schreier in FF15 debacle thread and permanent ban for good. If he is not Foxy Games UK I would be very surprised.
The only true insider from that timeline we can trust is Ruin4r who disappeared on reddit after E3 2017. He probably got caught by Sony unfortunately. He was the one who gave us a bone on unnamed space project from WWS in 2015. He was also the one who teased Dead Don't Ride by Bend Studio in 2014 which Game Informer brought up in 2019 when they interviewed Bend's Chris Reese and he laughed by avoiding the question... "It might have been.. hehe".
And I honestly don't see Sony making an JRPG in-house after Shu's "no statement" at PGW 2015 and Shawn Layden's statement in 2018 about Square Enix does it better than Sony. They play to their strengths of what they believe is driving their business to success.
But I do believe Sony's new strategy for Japan Studio is to snatch up as many Konami staff as possible who is connected to MGS and Silent Hill. Thanks to KatharsisT we know Toyama's team is working on a Silent Hill reboot. But we also know Kouno's team has been working on something for years and it won't be made by thin air. Talents don't grow on a tree. They have to find talents somewhere and I don't think Takashi Mizutani, Tomokazu Fukushima and So Toyota will be alone from old Kojima Productions. That is not going to happen if Sony greenlit AAA projects by Japan Studio. There is a catch here. You know it. I know it.
Regular staff is one thing but key staff is even more important and it's key to get projects off the ground.
But that's all what we can say right now. I'm glad we get things cleared up which has built up to confusion and pointless speculations. I prefer it more concrete like now. But Sony has mainly hired Konami staff since 1999. And I don't think they will stop as Hiroyuki Owaku could be possible as much as Kazuhide Nakazawa. And even Suguru Murakoshi who was at Tango Gameworks at one point. But game designer is a downgrade from drama director on SH2 and director/scenario writer on SH4.
Konami has no use from old Kojima Productions and Team Silent for PES when they basically have a Konami school to bring in people for PES Productions. As a Konami executive said at TGS 2019, they have Konami school for esport. All their sport games are now esports based.
Remember when KCE school in Yebisu Garden Place was for AAA games. But that was a time when Konami was all about gaming and outspread across Japan (Osaka, Sapporo, Nagoya, Tokyo). They had fun making games at Yebisu Garden Place but unfortunately Konami wanted them in Roppongi Hills (East Midtown) in 2004. RIP "fun, innovative, creative" 1996.04.01 ~ 2004.04.01
You will never see something like this from Konami anymore.
Clearing Lecture - [ The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2 ]
Here is the special forgotten footage of The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2. There will be more to come in the next few days. Stay tuned!
youtu.be
Making of Silent Hill 2 - HQ
This is the "making of" from the European Special Two-Disc Edition. I ripped it myself and converted it for YOU! Took some time. So enjoy!
youtu.be
Japan Studio's new building in Minato-ku (9 years old) is somewhat a renaissance of KCE japan in Yebisu Garden Place between 1996 and 2004. Narrow long corridors, white walls, small conference rooms, small meeting rooms, fun work environment that is all about gaming and innovation.
Konami Digital Entertainment is a mass production style factory that used to be outspread across Japan as teams. My personal favorite was KCE japan who made MGS/ZOE and Silent Hill in Yebisu Garden Place, Tokyo.
Joy.
I haven't played a Siren game to completion, but in SH I greatly prefer that stuff when it's kept to the background. But it won't be too much of a problem for me as long as I don't have to hear everyone go on about "GOD" for the entire second half.
The cult kind of is Silent Hill, unless the town manifests it's power just because that's what it does. I figured there was always an element of some sort of God worship. You can have a good story without it like SH2 but if it's a reboot I figure they would want to explain why the town is the way it is.
I just hope they bring back Sean Bean and Kit Harrington.
Would really be interested in a new Silent Hill although honestly I'd take a proper remake of 1/2/3. Those HD remasters of 2 & 3 were awful.
Would really be interested in a new Silent Hill although honestly I'd take a proper remake of 1/2/3. Those HD remasters of 2 & 3 were awful.
I love how SH4 handles the cult stuff, although I'm only playing it for the first time right now and still have another hour or two left. The cult is pretty much an integral part of the series but I just prefer it when they're a bit more mysterious/the complete opposite of SH3. I still love that game (and Vincent), but when there's such a heavy focus it just does nothing for me. After Heather's story I know all this stuff about the cult I didn't ever really want to know, and a lot of it just came off as hammy. It was always the least interesting part of SH1 for me too, but it wasn't so overbearing there.
I don't know how Downcoming and Homepour went about this as I have almost zero interest in those games.
I don't know how Downcoming and Homepour went about this as I have almost zero interest in those games.
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