Now is absolutely the best time to go balls-to-the-wall crazy with the scares. Real terror is making a comeback with games like Outlast and The Evil Within leading the way. True horror is seeing a resurgence as more games aim to scare a player’s pants off rather than continue to play it safe to appeal to a wider audience. The audience is wide right now and it’s only going to get better as we shift into the coming generation of more indie-friendly consoles.
Silent Hill was once as well-known for its willingness to tackle taboo subjects like rape, incest, murder and suicide as it was for its foggy town. It had a vast and always-changing arsenal of terrifying creatures that were all immediately recognizable as an enemy from this series. This hasn’t entirely gone away, but after spending a fair amount of one-on-one time with the last handful of games in I can’t help but feel as if Konami has been playing it safe.
Make the enemies scary again. Make them diverse and unfamiliar. Don’t rely on staples like Pyramid Head or the nurses — show us something new.
I miss Akira Yamaoka’s atmospheric scores, but Daniel Licht — who composed the soundtrack for Silent Hill: Downpour — needs to return. He did too good of a job to leave after leaving his mark on only two games.
Licht’s score for Downpour shared many of the elements I loved about Yamaoka’s. It could be dark and violent when it needed to be and it never failed to create a very specific mood and atmosphere that perfectly matched what was going on on-screen. It was unpredictable, beautiful, haunting and unforgettable — all traits I’d like to see in the next Silent Hill.
