Silent Hill Creator Explains What The Heck His New Game Slitterhead Is

Keiichiro Toyama, the man behind Silent Hill and Gravity Daze/Rush, will be making a new horror game alongside his company Bokeh Game Studio called Slitterhead. But what it is really apart from a Game Awards 2021 trailer and a potential slur for something?

In a new Q&A video from Bokeh Game Studio, Toyama himself, CTO/game director Junya Okura and COO/producer Kazunobu Sato revealed more about the game. Here they are in bullet point form:

• While Slitterhead seems like a horror game, it isn’t a straight-up horror game. Toyama said that the game spans over multiple genres where horror is expressed, mostly on action and drama. “From there, I wanted to widen the player base who could access the game, including players who don’t usually play horror games. I wanted a game that could be enjoyed for its action, yet whose concept doesn’t solely revolve around killing enemies. It conflicts the mind, making the players reluctant to enter certain fights.”
• Slitterhead will be a third-person game though it’ll feature multiple perspectives.
• The game will focus on entertainment than pure horror. Okura said: ” [T]here shouldn’t be any parts where players decide to give up because they’re effectively frozen with fear. That doesn’t mean there won’t be some tough slogging, though. There is a terror aspect that I want to include even if the game lays more towards action.”
• Toyama said he would like to get back to his Silent Hill roots someday, but only under the right conditions. “I want someday to do something with some classic psychological horror themes as I did with Silent Hill. However, I’d rather do that when working with really limited resources, such as budget or having to focus on one individual. Right now, we have staff with the ability to work on action. I want to leverage their skills to go in another direction. Still, I also want to make something more personal someday.”

Long story short, Slitterhead sounds like it’s leaning towards action with a tinge of horror ala Ghostwire: Tokyo and Shadows of the Damned (to an extent). But with that Keiichiro Toyama touch and in the third person. Check out the 23-minute video below. This is just the first part; the second part will be out on 4 March.