By KEVIN HOOVER
The recent announcement of a release date for Silent Hill 2: Remake may have satiated gamers restlessly awaiting to experience the PS2-era horror with a slicked-over façade, but another title criminally overlooked during the early aughts is also re-emerging, although in a way many didn’t see coming.
At Summer Game Fest ’24, the long-awaited SLITTERHEAD from Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama’s Bokeh Game Studios was given a November 8th release across PC and current and last-gen consoles. It’s a project that releases nearly four years to the date that the studio opened its doors and based on the gameplay trailer that dropped at SGF, the time in development was well spent. A run-and-gun mash-up with melee mechanics is indisputable, but the game’s approach to character swapping is something that should resonate with the hardcore horror gamer: What appears to be a parasite bounds between characters, infecting the newly occupied husk with supernatural powers.
Siren, anyone?
Silent Hill and Siren creator Keiichiro Toyama
In speaking with pop-culture and gaming outlet IGN, Toyama, whose resume also includes directing the 2003 J-horror Siren had this say:
“With SLITTERHEAD, we wanted to reinterpret the concept we originally had for Siren. Over the years, Siren has become somewhat of a cult classic, and I’m always honored when I hear people say they want to see it get revived. In Siren, you could dive inside the brain of other characters through a feature we called sight-jacking. We wanted to evolve this idea by making it possible to possess and freely move around as other characters. This became the core of SLITTERHEAD’S game design.”
Expect to hear more about SLITTERHEAD ramping up to its November 8th release on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S and PC.
