Silent Hill: The Short Message Shouldn't Mean The End For One Approach

Summary

Silent Hill: the Short Messagemade a lot of mistakes. In the months since its release, articles and fan discourse have dissected the game, criticizing it for everything from weak narrative and lack of atmosphere, to repetitive, uninteresting gameplay. Still,Silent Hill: The Short Messagewasn’t a complete disaster, and contains one element future games would do well to take another shot at.

First released in 1999, and taking direct inspiration fromResident Evil, the originalSilent Hillwas built around strategically placed camera angles designed to frame the game’s horrors and accentuate its atmosphere. WhileSilent Hill’s PS2 sequelswould later go on to integrate new cinematic influences and embrace a livelier, more modern approach to cinematography, it wasn’t until the PS3—and a brand-new development team—thatSilent Hillfinally relinquished control and embraced modern over-the-shoulder third-person gameplay.

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Silent Hill’s Camera is a Core Element of The Franchise’s Horror

Cinematography is a big deal in horror—a badly framed shot can kill tension, but a well framed one can make the mundane absolutely terrifying—and the first fiveSilent Hillgames were enthusiastic about taking advantage of this. Elegant, carefully curated camera angles were used to keep certain things just out of view, forcing the player to walk through doors blindly before a new camera angle allowed them to see whether a threat was lurking within. Using the games' camera angles to directly reflect themes of perception,earlySilent Hillgameswere careful to control exactly what the player saw, creating a unique sense of constant unease.

Many critics have discussed howthe more recentSilent Hillgameshave lacked the older games’ sense of unease, and how this is partly due to recent games' modern over-the-shoulder camera giving the player too much control. If a player can survey their surroundings effectively, they’re not worried that something horrible might be lurking just out of sight, waiting to pounce—a core element ofSilent Hill’s idiosyncratic approach to horror. With its first-person perspective,Silent Hill: The Short Messagehas taken one step toward remedying this long-standing issue.

In 2012, Konami releasedSilent Hill: Book of Memoriesfor the PlayStation Vita, a top-down dungeon crawler, reminiscent ofDiabloandtheTorchlightgames. The game was criticized for lacking any sense of horror, despite being built around many of the franchise’s core visual motifs.

PT Showed That Silent Hill Can Work in First Person

Hideo Kojima’s decision to makePTfirst-person wasn’t made lightly. While many assumed the game’s new perspective was a concession to industry trends, die-hard fans of thePlayStation 2 gameswere quick to point out that it was simply just a development on design elements first coined inSilent Hill 4: The Room.

By making the game first-person, Hideo Kojima reintegrated the franchise’s themes of perception with its gameplay. A tight field of view combined with tight environments meant everything always felt too close. Looking at a picture on the wall meant the player couldn’t see what was to their left or right, and the classicSilent Hillunease returned. Looking down the hallway into the darkness created a naturally cinematic framing, givingPTa sense of filmic choreography other recentSilent Hillgames lacked—despite a heavier focus on ‘cinematic’ setpieces.

RecreatingPT’s tight FOV and slow turning speed,Silent Hill: The Short Messagewas on the right track.Unfortunately, with a lack of attention to detail—a stark contrast toPT’s extreme emphasis on environmental storytelling—a focus on setpiece ‘moments’, and frequent cutscenes pulling the player out of first-person, the game broke away from some ofPT’s strongest game design precepts to focus instead on some of the more controversial trends in recent horror games.

Konami Can Learn From Its Mistakes

Silent Hill: The Short Messageundeniably made mistakes. But, if there’s a place to make mistakes, it’s a two-hour-long free-to-play game shadowdropped onto the PlayStation Store to drum up interest in Konami’s ‘Silent HillRenaissance’.

While recentSilent Hillgames don’t have the best track record, if Konami learns fromSilent Hill: The Short Message’s ultimate failure—and looks deeper intowhat madePTsuch a success—there’s no reason futureSilent Hillgames couldn’t take full advantage of the first-person perspective to truly move the franchise forward.