A lot has been written about the feeling of Silent Hill. It is intense melancholy swaddled in bitter depression, with a dash of heart pounding terror, finally dosed with surreal, inexplicable beauty.

It is this mixture that makes the Silent Hill series such a difficult one to develop for. Homecoming understood the basic aesthetic of the series – Double Helix copied the look of the earlier games. Fog-covered streets and a blood-spattered, grimy Otherworld should be scary. And they could be, also thanks to Akira Yamaoka’s involvement, as he understands what noises are scary, and what are melancholy.

But as well as Homecoming seems to have done on that front, Team Silent understood the aesthetic more than them. That makes sense, of course – they invented the aesthetic.

Silent Hill 1’s streets are filled with a variety of skinless monsters. Dogs, muscles exposed, launch themselves at Harry alongside large, skinless and featherless flying creatures, which divebomb him. But they aren’t actually particularly scary, at least, not compared to the series’ later monsters, or even SH1’s earlier “child zombie” things that ambushed me in the alleyway. No, what makes the streets of Silent Hill 1 scary is the feeling of loneliness.

I could write for days about what Silent Hill as a series has done right, but there have been several noticeable missteps, including most sequences where people are following you, apart from Maria in Silent Hill 2, which retains the feeling of isolation and loneliness, as most players feel wary of Maria – especially in the way she appears in a room before you in places to basically jump scare you by just standing there passively.

When characters are following you in Silent Hill, you don’t feel so alone any more. Especially if those people are making quips or just making their presence known. I know its tempting in the wake of big RPGs with voiced companions and stuff to try and inject the same “life” (I am sworn to carry your burdens… *sigh*) into the game, but the two genres just don’t really mix. Horror is a genre most effective when you are isolated, alone, and paranoid. What if your allies are strange people, vaguely untrustworthy, but you need to rely on them at once? Why would you have comfort and safety in abundance in a horror game? Why would you jerk the player out of the fantasy of the horror game and instead have to contend with stupid AI or jerks following you?

The streets of Silent Hill 1 are accompanied with silence. Yamaoka, who did the sound, understands that silence is also a sound, and silence is one of the most valuable sounds in the arsenal of a piece of horror. It is when that silence is broken that you get fear.

The appearance of a fleshless dog on its own might be creepy the first time. But reuse brings familiarity. Experience brings comfort. That’s why the streets of Silent Hill 2 are oddly comforting to me, as I’ve spent so many hours wandering down them, and thinking about them. Silent Hill 1 has many more secrets up its sleeve – I do not yet know what awful horrors it shall treat me to.

It is the sound of an enemy bounding towards you, and the understanding that you have slightly low health, and not as much ammo as you need – that is the fright. Not the hideous creature, the understanding that it has caught you off guard, unbalanced, and even better, with the knowledge that they are just a little faster than clunky Harry Mason, a little more maneuverable… that’s all it takes, the stress of knowing your enemy has the upper hand, but that you can still succeed, if you play your cards right. It’s not the feeling of “man this enemy is too strong, no way I can triumph over them”. It’s the feeling of “this enemy is tough, and does lots of damage, but they are surmountable. They aren’t awful slogs with thousands of hitpoints – they are playing by mostly the same rules I am. They move, they shoot, they swing, they bite – they are scary because they play by the rules, and only rarely should they break them. It is when they do break them – when they appear suddenly round a corner, they spawn behind you unexpectedly, they get back up after being shot five times – that fear finds its way to the surface.

Enjoyed this article? Consider visiting the virtual tip-jar of Patreon and helping me out. It would mean a lot.

Sorry for the shorter post today too, to anyone who reads this in the distant future. Looking to have a longer and more impactful post next week.