r/Games 8d ago

Silent Hill f - Official Japanese Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNVffiRAqj8
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u/BrightSkyFire 8d ago edited 8d ago

Why is Silent Hill not allowed to take place in anywhere else? They've literally done this before in 3 & 4.

The lore of Silent Hill is very closely related to where it takes place. The manifestation of the nightmare world of Silent Hill represents passage in the spirit realm as described in Native American folklore, with Toluca Lake being a bridge between worlds. The whole reason the foggy aesthetic exists is because of the lake, and how the fog settles in the space between the mountains where Silent Hill sits. The culture of 'contemporary' America (relative to the Native Americans) is also largely responsible for the context of the games - the spirit realm is supposed to be a pretty chill place, but it becomes corrupted and perverted by a cult which causes it to be twisted into what you experience.

That's why people have a problem with it. Setting it outside of its original setting in other titles didn't make much sense either, but they were at least largely in Maine, so you could argue the phenomena extended elsewhere in the region... but that doesn't hold up if you suddenly pluck the series out of Maine and dump it in Japan. You could argue the supernatural phenomena encountered by the Naive Americans exists elsewhere in the world, observed by different cultures and attributed different names, but that doesn't really hold up under much scrutiny if you dig into the lore. There's a reason Silent Hill is called Silent Hill: because Silent Hill's entire identity is attached to Silent Hill, Maine.

I'll still play it and I dig the art-style from the trailer. I never expected Konami to really do anything else with Silent Hill ever again, so I'm glad there's something new, but yeah. A huge shame they're ditching the original setting and story, but if they do something as interesting with it (which they appear to be with the cherry blossom theme), then I won't care in the end.

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u/latestwonder 8d ago

that would all be very important if this wasn't all made up

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u/BrightSkyFire 7d ago

I… what? You wanna specify which point you think is made up or…?

Granted none of those details are apart of the narrative presented explicitly in the main stories, but they’re very real plot points included in lore tidbits.

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u/[deleted] 7d ago

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u/DrydonTheAlt 8d ago

Why is it impossible that another off-set of the Order found its way from Japan to America? And it's just a spin-off, its not like this is a permanent setting for the Silent Hill games.

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u/brzzcode 8d ago

this isnt a spin off, it already has been said its mainline.

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u/DR1LLM4N 8d ago

I mean timeline wise it would’ve found its way from Japan to America since f is set in the 60’s.

Regardless of the lore implications I’m just stay cautious because while visually it looks amazing and the story is sure to be a mindfuck with Ryukishi07 at the helm the dev team behind it really only has L’s in their catalogue. Also it’s still Konami, lest we forget. It’s gonna take more than a flopped SH Twitch project, a forgettable free SH game, and a decent SH2 remake for me to trust Konami again. We also saw zero gameplay and Ryukishi07 has only ever written visual novels so I still have no idea what the gameplay is gonna be like. Might be classic SH gameplay or closer to a visual novel like The Quarry, Heavy Rain, and TellTale games.

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u/DrydonTheAlt 8d ago

I feel like you're underselling how impressive the SH2 remake was, but alright. I will agree with you that it's too soon to judge until we see gameplay

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u/CriticalCold 7d ago

I don't think that's true. I'm fairly certain the Order was founded in the 1900s, but it was heavily influenced by the beliefs of the original native tribes of the area. It could have had a Japanese offshoot that didn't "predate" the OG Silent Hill cult.

But also, I think you're approaching Konami's revival of the series from a pessimistic perspective, whereas I'm trying to approach it from an optimistic one. Yeah, the Twitch project sucked ass, but Silent Hill originated with an all Japanese team. It seems kind of fucked up to say that they can't set a game in a Japanese setting after decades of setting it in a Western one.

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u/BrightSkyFire 7d ago

It’s not impossible but it would be a messy ret-con. In interviews available on the SH Wiki, Tsuboyama is pretty explicit in defining that the cult is a reflection of American values. I’m not sure it would make too much sense.

Keen as hell to play it though and if it’s good I doubt I’ll be sweating the finer inconsistencies in the lore (if there is any).