Thread by @AestheticGamer1

(1/??) Here's a little thread for the Silent Hill 2 Special Stage they had at Tokyo Game Show. For interesting tidbits, thoughts I had, & the like.

I'll try to mark individual tweets w/bigger spoilers w/obvious warnings, but do assume this whole thread has some SH2R spoilers.

(2/??) Before anything, I both am amused by & respect seeing Akira Yamaoka, Masahiro Ito, & Motoi Okamoto wearing t-shirts of Pyramid Head flashing booty.

Anyways...

(3/??) They start off the presentation talking about Silent Hill 2 Remake having a lot of new features since the original Playstation 2 game, but they wanted to focus on 8 ways its different today. These are:
1. Realizing the foggy town of Silent Hill in 4k
2. Emotionally-charged

(4/?) cutscenes & story moments.
3. 3D audio & sound design to stimulate the mind & senses
4. Immersive over-the-shoulder camera
5. Intense & deeper combat
6. New monster behaviors & additions
7. Bigger explorable levels & new areas
8. Increased puzzle aspect

Go into more detail

(5/??) on each of these points & these are the main "talking points" of this showcase to explain their thoughts & decisions as developers on the remakeon changes to the OG.

The first point, realizing the foggy town of Silent Hill in 4k. They recreated the part of town you visit

(6/??) in SH2, known as South Vale, their goal was to capture the "mysterious" & "beautiful" feeling of the town w/a new look in 4k. This process included recreating areas from the original but aiming to make them look more realistic, but also adding in many new areas & details.

(7/??) They talk about how in the OG there was many details you couldn't see either due to the fog, the camera, or the low resolution, & that added to people filling in details with their own minds. While that exact feeling can't be recreated in 4K, their goal w/the remake was to

(8/??) instead focus on the mysterious feeling of the town & putting meaning to the details they would be adding.

They talk about how Ito was very particular about the fog, & Ito talks about how the fog is important to both the series & SH2 in particular. How the fog represents

(9/??) something spiritually to James' & his journey.

Before Ito agreed to work on SH2R, he had an in-depth talk about Silent Hill w/Bloober Team to gauge & test them a bit. Ito uses an example that he asked Bloober what they thought of the Otherworld & what it meant, they sent

(10/??) him a video in response. Ito says through development when he was more on-board, they'd have a lot of back-and-forth, with Bloober sending videos of stuff they were working on & wanted Ito's feedback, & he'd give his honest opinions, sometimes he thought they'd surprise

(11/??) him in a good way, other times he'd think, "That's too much!," but had a lot of back-&-forth all through development. Ito jokes he was very picky & they may be bitter at him for all the feedback he'd give to them.

They transition to talking on the 2nd points,

(12/??) the focus on "emotionally-charged cutscenes", realizing several scenes that were original CG video files into in-game cutscenes, & using modern facial technology for "subtle" & delicate facial movements & expression details to make the cast feel more human.

(13/??) A really interesting point they talk about is this is the first time SH2 has had Japanese voice actors, & it allowed people on the Japanese side to have a more "intimiate" relationship with the story, as before in the OG SH2 a lot of staff either can't speak English, or

(14/??) speak it well at least, so the original performance was mostly handled by other people who could. But in the remake w/the new Japanese voices, it allowed more of the story to come vividly to them & reflect on the story beats more attached to it & those performances for

(15/??) them to reflect on & build upon with a better vision in their head in how the story & cutscenes were coming off.

They move onto the next point, which is about 3D sound. How it makes exploring the town feel more immersive, having "space" to the audio that the OG never had

(16/??) They talk some about how there's more variance they added to sounds you hear often, like monster sounds, the radio static that starts when monsters draw near. Spent time in how they wanted rain to sound, or the sound of trees or building ambience. They want to stir up the

(17/??) imagination of the player. Akira also talks a bit about the music, he says he made the soundtrack by sorta' making one really long song that's 9 hours long for the "Silent Hill 2 journey", which included arrangements of songs from the original, new pieces he felt flowed

(18/??) between the older pieces, new ideas he had from the materials he'd seen & been given on the remake, & he had a lot of fun making it. He thinks to make dark things you need to be able to laugh & enjoy it, creating is fun, & it helps to deal with the darkness you may be

(19/??) creating. He says he had a bit of difficulty taking the 9 hours of music he made together into separate tracks & had to do some touch-ups after, but he hopes people will like what he's put together for the remake's music.

Next up, they begin to have their discourse about

(20/??) the over-the-shoulder camera. Their thoughts on it is it puts the camera more on eye-level with James, making it feel more like you're playing from his perspective. The feelings of things being revealed out of the fog, from the darkness, & darting your view around to spot

(21/??) where a noise is coming from, or a monster you hear approaching, & while before with the downward camera you could see a general radius around your character, now you have to near a corner to peer around it, are elements they feel are added by this type of camera style.

(22/??) They think the camera makes the game feel more intense than the original, since it feels far more like you're there with James as he experiences things rather than more of an out-of-body observer.

This leads them to talking on the next main bullet point, the action or

(23/??) combat of the game. They talk about how there's some increased functionality & player control to actions like dodging, aiming & shooting, which were more limited or manual in the original. There's limited supplies with distance weapons, which adds more weight to choosing

(24/??) where to use your bullets. They say the melee combat feels a lot more visceral than it did, & mention the PS5 the controller responds accordingly to when you strike enemies. They joke around a bit about how SH2R has made them want to just whack things w/planks of wood.

(25/??) They talk about the combat difficulty here, how there's combat difficulty options like the original but they're focused a bit differently this time. East is for those who may not be good & video games or mainly may just want to enjoy the story. I'll add here Normal is for

(26/??) people familiar w/games & meant to "balance" the experience, while Hard is meant for people who want a challenge, more familiar with the survival-horror genre & want increased enemy & supplies challenge.

They move onto the next point...
SOME BIGGER SPOILERS IN NEXT TWEET

(27/??) SOME BIGGER SH2R SPOILERS

They talk about additional elements added to monsters. They mention there is new versions of familiar monsters, like the Spider Mannequins which can crawl on walls & ceilings, or the Mandarin being faced in front of you & not from behind a grate

(28/??) STILL BIGGER SH2R SPOILERS
The spider mannequins also have new behaviors, like they crawl around on all fours & can hop around to both dodge & latch onto you. Mention there's more surprises like this. Also players may remember certain points monsters show up or do certain

(29/??) behaviors in the original, but they've changed around when & where certain things happen, along with entirely new things they think familiar players won't be expecting. They're "excited" for people to see what they've done here.

Masahiro Ito takes to mic to talk more

(30/??) about the monsters. He talks about how due to technology, time & budget of the OG there were things with the original monsters he wanted the team to do they couldn't at the time. He teases there was especially some things for Pyramid Head & Bubble Head Nurses he wanted to

(31/??) do in the original they couldn't, which Bloober took his desires & put them into the remake, but he won't say more than that but he's quite happy with the result.

This is where they show off the concept art of these too, I notice now the red square works as a pacifier.

(32/??) I'm also quite happy Pyramid Head kept his webbed fingers.

Ito says something quite interesting here, he says there's some big changes in design to the monsters in SH2R from the original, & that their meaning is pointed differently than the original intent, an example he

(33/??) uses is he originally wanted the wrapping on the Bubble Head Nurses to explode but couldn't do it like he wanted on the PS2 back then, but these new designs do have new meanings, but to see it in context.

He focused a lot on the "texture" of the Bubble Head Nurses when

(34/??) designing them.

Ito talks about Pyramid Head, and the biggest change in the design from the original is his back area, it looks more like a butchers apron now. Ito says the biggest reason for the change was for animation purposes actually, to give more flexibility to

(35/??) Pyramid Head's movement, so his legs in particular, so it'd be easier to put his feet in various positions, & give him more believable maneuverability.

The next point they want to talk about is the expansions to both the area & physicality to the game world. They wanted

(36/??) more ways to interact with the world, one example being James being able to vault over things, break glass & enter into places, etc. They say if you observe your surroundings, you may find surprising ways you can interact with the environment.

Also brush lightly on how

(37/??) there's new areas in every part of the game (interiors, in the town), & wanted surprises for people who played the original game being like, "Woah, you can go there now!?"

They move onto their final big talking point, which is about the puzzles. They've added new puzzles

(38/??) that weren't in the original game, while also updating all the puzzles from the original game. They focused on four main aspects with each puzzle:
1. Does the puzzle seem finely crafted & interesting?
2. The puzzle's meaning to the story.
3. What feeling the presence of

(39/??) the puzzle & the imagery tied to the puzzle gives?
4, How it works with the remakes pacing.

The series producer feels like puzzles are important to Silent Hill's identity, & he put a lot of thought of how to realize puzzles in a more engaging way with the revival of the

(40/??) Silent Hill series. His conclusion is the above points, & his "guidelines" to puzzle design for Silent Hill will be tested for the first time in this remake of SH2. He doesn't want the puzzles to just feel like a gimmick, he wants puzzles to tie deep into their stories.

(41/??) To him, the puzzles shouldn't just be fun to solve, but also fun to unravel how they're tied into the story.

Talk briefly about the option for puzzle difficulty being in SH2R like the original, similar to combat difficulty Easy is for those who feel they aren't good at

(42/??) puzzles or mainly want to experience the story without getting stumped. Normal is for people more versed in game puzzles who like a bit of a fun challenge. And Hard is for people who want to engage with tricky puzzles & wrack their brains to solve them.

(43/??) This concludes the first half of the presentation & their big talking points. The transition to gameplay now. Silent Hill 2's Assistant Producer plays the game live in front of the audience. They want to show off Brookhaven Hospital, the location in the remake that was

(44/??) the first area they worked on & spent the largest chunk of development on as they put the core of the game together, as well as a few select scenes they wanted to show the audience.

They talk about how in the remake, monsters can do stuff they couldn't in the original,

(45/??) like how the Nurses now survey through multiple rooms in the hospital rather than being trapped to one room like the original.

It's confirmed the radio sounds can come from your controller rather than in-game as a setting option, which they did for this gameplay.

(46/??) They show a pre-recorded video of a Bubble Head Nurse up-close, roatating around it while Masahiro Ito gives some commentary. Masahiro talks about them having translucent parts with modelled "layers" underneath, how you can from certain angles, lighting see details

(47/??) underneath the "Bubble Head", where its face is both ambiguous but with detail to it.

Now they jump ahead to a scene in the Historical Society/Prison where James meets Eddie in the cafeteria.

BIGGER SH2R SPOILERS IN THE NEXT TWEET AGAIN!!

(48/??) BIGGER SILENT HILL 2 REMAKE SPOILERS IN THIS TWEET.

They show that at this point, the "Freezer" aesthetic of Eddie's area is getting stronger, & we see more detail in the person he killed. I also love the sound design in this area with distant but loud mechanical humming

(49/??) (STILL BIGGER SILENT HILL 2 REMAKE SPOILERS IN THIS TWEET)

coming into focus. This is w/Japanese voices, but I like the slower build-up of James trying to reason to side w/Eddie for shooting the guy, w/Eddie slowly revealing in James trying to rationalize it was for the

(50/??) they "looked at him".

The sound design of this scene is VERY different than the original, be interested to hear for my senses how this sounds with English dubbing. Sample of the change in it here:

(51/??) BIGGER SH2R SPOILER!!

Bloober's cooking w/Eddie. In the apartments, Eddie asks to join up, but is declined & he's quietly sad about it. Later in the cafeteria scene, James is concerned about Eddie, asks like the OG, "You're going out there alone?", & Eddie says, "Yeah."

(52/??) (No more bigger spoiler warning.)

Actually gives further weight & meaning to that moment, imo. Color me a bit impressed.

Ito talks about how in dev they had some problems w/COVID & scheduling things, & the process of remaking the characters, working w/actors for them,

(53/??) getting voices done, motion capture & facial capture, was made a lot more taxing & spread over time than if COVID hadn't happened. Ito confirms he was involved with selecting actors for the models of the SH2 cast, he helped pick the "faces" for James, Angela, Eddie, etc.

(54/??)And when they were picking candidates for the actor to play Eddie, Ito knew this was the guy who could capture Eddie. He looks different, but he thought this guy could do Eddie's energy justice. And they actually had to give the guy very little feedback on his performance,

(55/??) Ito says seeing this guy performing was amazing, Ito feels this guy completely captured Eddie's character.

Something I forgot to mention so far is the scenes they're showing were picked by the three people presenting to show off. Motoi picked to show off Brookhaven since

(56/??) to him, its part of the "pillar" that made SH2R what it is today being the first area in development & area longest in dev. Ito picked the Eddie cafeteria scene to talk about it. And now Akira picks the game's opening cutscene to talk some about it.

Akira talks about how

(57/??) this is the beginning of the game, where the player steps into the story, & they begin to form the image of what this game is, who James is, etc. Ito thought really hard about how to make the "new version" of the song. For him, it'd been 23-years since he had worked on

(58/??) the original SH2. Ito mentions in the original SH2, he was working within limitations of what the PS2 soundcard could do at the time. He had no real limitations this time, & got to do with the music what he wanted. He hopes his vision of the music all these years later

(59/??) will strike heavily with both newcomers & people very familiar with the original alike. Since this was a remake, he had to revisit his work from so long ago, he wonders what both camps will think of his music.

It was this opening scene that Akira struggled with a lot, it

(60/??) was the first piece of music he worked on for the remake, as it was the players introduction to SH2 he wanted it to be the start of his own journey of making SH2R's soundtrack, & it was in composing this piece that he decided how he was going to go with this. He says

(61/??) there was a lot of trial & error. He had to also deal with timing of certain parts of the music to the game, or think about how it would all feed into each other. And what parts of the game where it was best to have no music at all. He had anxiety through it as he really

(62/??) wanted to do justice to this, but he feels happy with what he made, Akira says Silent Hill 2 isn't just about being a horror game, it's about a complicated story with very serious emotions that humans can feel. So he wanted the music to not "lie" to those feelings, to

(63/??) face it properly & express it through sound. Akira hopes both newcomers & longtime fans will be happy with the music he's made for the remake, & he's hoping in this opening sequence the music speaks to people & makes them want to see where this journey of James' will go.

(64/??) Ito adds a sweet comment to Akira that he feels the music has a different feel for someone's "return visit" to the opening who knows where things are going too.

Motoi adds he hopes people will return to this game, mentions it has many endings & differences if you play it

(65/66) again, but also he hopes that they've made a title people will want to play again & again even in the future.

So we come to the end of the presentation, Motoi says Silent Hill 2 Remake comes out next week, which hearing that helped it sink it just how close we are now.

(66/??) Motoi also urges people to play The Short Message before SH2, wonder if any particular reason outside of just promoting it?

Here's a picture of the Silent Hill 2 Remake TGS Booth.