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Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land Silent Hill Homecoming, the fifth story in Konami’s Silent Hill franchise, will be heading to the PC along with hitting the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.
The game will be available as a digital download through Steam and is expected to launch in September.
In Silent Hill Homecoming you play as Alex Shepherd, who returns to his hometown of Shepherd’s Glen to investigate the sudden disappearance of his brother and the strange occurrences taking place around town. Shepherd’s story takes him from his childhood home to the streets of Silent Hill, as searches for his missing brother.
This latest Silent Hill will feature a graphics overhaul, new combat system, new soundtrack and, of course, plenty of new weapons.
While Fahey only went rods and cones on with Silent Hill: Homecoming at E3, I got to spend a few minutes with the Double Helix developed horror game, most of which was spent wrapping my head around the game’s new control scheme. After some initial fumbling, which led protagonist Alex Shepherd bumping into walls and ambling backwards unintentionally, I got it.
It’s not like Silent Hill has ever had an exemplary control set up. Homecoming at least gets some credit for making the experience feel a bit more intuitive, once one breaks old Silent Hill habits and allows for easier access to your inventory. After some grumbling — and a confused search for a quick turn button — it felt like a change for the best.
Earlier this week I watched a Konami rep play through a bit of Silent Hill: Homecoming while we were awaiting the coming of Castlevania creator Koji Igarashi. The quick play through showed off the opening moments of the game, with protagonist Alex Shepherd waking up in Silent Hill and setting off on the search for his little brother. The game looked rather nice in motion, and creepiness immediately ensued as Sheperd’s little bro seems to have a penchant for scampering in and out of shadows, a staple of the horror genre since Uggok the caveman drew the first horror cave painting. Note to Alex: your brother might be more receptive to being found if you don’t slowly walk towards him with an axe in your hands.
While the demo was cut short by Iga’s entrance, two bits of news to come to light. Pyramid Head will indeed be playing a part in the game, and now the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game is coming to PC, as did Silent Hill 2, 3, and 4 before it. What will Pyramid Head do in the game? Not sure, but I’m ruling out the hokey pokey.
Some SIlent Hill Homecoming gameplay footage. To head your whining off at the pass: yes, the graphics look like a PS2 on a bad day, but this is supposedly taken from very early code. Yes, there’s a narrator. Guy’s from a Russian mag, Igromania. So he’s speaking Russian. Just enjoy the fact you get double the subtitles and hear the game called “Saileent Heeeeeeeeeeeeaall” and you’ll get through the next 13:29 just fine.
For upcoming Silent Hill title Silent Hill: Homecoming, Konami had Western studio Foundation 9 do the developing duties. How does the original Japanese team feel about that? Series composer and producer Akira Yamaoka states:
Silent Hill‘s identity is that Japanese teams create the kind of horror that takes place in the U.S. I’m not saying this in a negative way, but Japanese people creating a story taking place in the U.S. was part of Silent Hill‘s identity. This time we worked with a Western development team, with Japanese members also involved, so it’s not just Western developers making this by themselves. We are involved, too. So it’s different from the past iterations of Silent Hill, but I think it is something new and very interesting.
Yamaoka goes on to say that half the Japanese team members are really into David Lynch (pictured) movies like The Elephant Man. The other half are into other movies, it seems. Good for them.
Yamaoka Interview [Gamasutra][Pic]
I am not ashamed to admit my slight bias towards Silent Hill. I am an unapologetic fan of the series so it should come as no surprise to discover that this was the the title I was most looking forward to seeing at Konami’s Gamer’s Night. Between watching others play and playing a bit myself, I was able to see about the first half hour of gameplay and it was a blast. I know many of you are concerned given that the original team is not working on this one, but set those fears aside because this is till the Silent Hill that you know and love. After listening to some announcements about the game we got to see a little trailer and my interest was (even more) piqued by a short (less than 2 seconds) but exhilarating appearance by everyone’s favourite Silent Hill denizen, Pyramid Head. Also visible in the trailer was a trucker who drops the player character off in his home town. Could this be a later version of Travis, the main character of Silent Hill: Origins?
When we learned that The Collective—now Double Helix—had been tasked with Silent Hill V development at E3 last year, we wondered “What about Harker, that original vampire kicking game they’re working on?” Since we’ve heard just shy of nothing on Harker for nearly a year and Silent Hill V was just recently rechristened Silent Hill: Homecoming, a report from GameSpot that the team has essentially killed the game doesn’t surprise.
“Killed” is more politically correctly described as being put on “permanent hiatus”, but it’s rare for these projects to be resurrected. As long as they don’t muck up the next Silent Hill, we’ll forgive this cancellation of a game that we weren’t particularly interested in anyway.
Foundation 9 buries Harker [GameSpot]
No longer will we have to anxiously await Silent Hill 5 at some unknown date in the future! Now we can anxiously await Silent Hill: Homecoming, due out at the end of September for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, to help usher in the hectic fall gaming season. The latest installment of the now venerable series features shiny new graphics, an enhanced combat system, an all new protagonist in one Alex Shepard, returning home to solve the mystery of his missing brother, and not a bloodbath at the Homecoming Dance as I had hoped for. Oh well, there’s always Prom Night.
