Silent Hill V Announced

[Angrist]

Alex? They're SO ripping off Eternal Darkness.

[DeathsHand]

Although nobody here cares about Silent Hill 5 except good ol' Geo...

The first gameplay FOOTAGE was revealed today... Along with other tidbits, an interview with Akira Yamaoka, along with a short feature on the "1UP show" featuring interviews and such with the lead designers of "The Collective", by whom the game is actually being developed...

Gameplay Video 1
Gameplay Video 2
Gameplay Video 3

1up Show Website
(09/07/07 video)

The footage itself is nothing special... And I'm not even sure if it's from the actual game in development, or the demo they created in a week and a half as a pitch to Konami...
But bear in mind that the game is currently scheduled for a Fall '08 release, I believe...

Anywho... Apparently the folks at "The Collective" are huge Silent Hill fans and this is like a dream job of theirs... They've got the visuals down (they even ripped the nurses and world transitions straight out of the movie), they're trying to fix the combat (which has always been more of an obstacle than an actual fun part of the gameplay), and are supposedly trying to take the series back in a Silent Hill 2-esque direction...

They also brought back the extreme darkness/flashlight aspect...

Silent Hill 5 is totally unrelated to the previous games, and I think that's the way to go...
My only real quarrel is that, given the knowledge that it's a group of hardcore fans developing the game, combined with the fact that they have ripped a couple aspects directly from past Silent Hill projects (and a few of the other original creatures are heavily inspired by past designs), it almost looks like a sort of Silent Hill fanfic, shaped into a game and thrust into the official series canon...

[Neo]

Originally Posted by DeathsHand

Although nobody here cares about Silent Hill 5 except good ol' Geo....

I care

[DeathsHand]

Originally Posted by Angrist

Fanfics can be good.

I'm not saying they can't be (granted I've never really read any), they're just not truly part of the source material they are based on...
So an official entry to a game series in almost a fanfic sort of style seems slightly strange...
Not that the actual finished project will end up as such...

Originally Posted by DarkMaster

I'm also curious as to how they'll treat the bosses. Apparently they're going for a more epic, almost Zelda-ish style of boss encounters, which could maybe be really weird/stupid/over-the-top or very cool.

Indeed, I'm curious as to how the gameplay will be as a whole, since the bosses are just one of many steps they are taking to switch it up...

They're not trying to turn Silent Hill 5 into Resident Evil 4, but they are trying to take the combat that already exists and make it more of a challenge, give players more options, improve enemy AI, etc...

New moves alone would be enough to improve boss fights (since previous boss fights have always been "Stay as far away as possible and shoot"), but to actually make them boss fights could be quite interesting...

I dunno, considering how stagnant the series was getting in the hands of Team Silent, and the details that are coming out, handing it off to a new development team might not have been such a bad idea...

Originally Posted by Neo

I care

*hugs*