Developer Bokeh
Publisher TBA
Format PC, Consoles TBA
Origin Japan
Release 2023
Bokeh founder Keiichiro Toyama promised a theme of “everyday life being shaken” for the studio’s debut, and his team certainly achieved that with its reveal trailer. Amid the splashy gore and horrifying multi-limbed monsters – all bone, sinew and grasping, mantis-like forelegs – it’s the closing moments that arguably prove most disturbing. A long shot of a figure on a balcony garden in a rundown apartment block shows a figure in what appears to be an unusual hat. We zoom in closer and its face resembles an exotic flower; closer still and no, it’s actually a giant maw with large teeth and two writhing tongues flicking outward. Those fleshy ‘petals’ then slowly retract to form the smiling face of an ordinary middle-aged woman.
[https://magztertemp.s3.amazonaws.com/1387349800/1643218170/articles/61f236f5310ef/1643263699894.jpg]
That chilling contrast between the mundane and the otherworldly is the kind of imagery with which Toyama, writer-director of the original Silent Hill and the Siren games, has long been associated. So what would he say is the secret to scaring people? “I think that death can be described as something that one would seem to feel far away from in everyday life, though it is inescapable,” he begins. “Oneself and the ultimate extraordinary ‘death’ being continuous stimulates imagination – this is a theme I consider importantly when creating a horror work.”
There’s certainly some connective tissue between Slitterhead and Toyama’s previous work: the idea of monsters that can disguise themselves as human is similar to the concept of Siren’s shibito, which retain their human intelligence and personality. “Monsters which do not simply pose physical threat, but also something deep as darkness behind its existence, even sadness… I enjoy works that portray these kind of things, which I would naturally lean towards,” he says. “Also for gameplay, I think that depicting monsters who have their own motives and conflicts would add depth to the world they belong to.”
[https://magztertemp.s3.amazonaws.com/1387349800/1643218170/articles/61f236f5310ef/1643263700150.jpg]
Even so, despite a title you can imagine adorning the cover of a VHS-era video nasty, Slitterhead doesn’t quite belong to the genre in which Toyama made his name. Rather, this is a horror-inflected third-person action-adventure. Toyama says that stems partly from a desire to do something different when other creators have effectively taken up his mantle. “When I created Silent Hill, a large part of the motivation was to create something that had never been seen, or rather felt much before then,” he says. “Today, I can see many high-quality games that are categorised as ‘psychological horror’, so I don’t feel the need for myself to create something similar. I also strongly desired to make something unseen in other titles when working on Siren.”
Yet it’s also a choice rooted in practicality, Toyama says. Suggesting that the wider perception of the horror genre is that it belongs to “a limited tier of enthusiasts”, he’s clearly hoping to reach a broader audience by “combining that with more universal values”, though he admits it’s going to take care to achieve the right balance. “I believe that is the challenge and essence of this project. I would particularly like younger, new generations who don’t know our past works to play this game.”
[https://magztertemp.s3.amazonaws.com/1387349800/1643218170/articles/61f236f5310ef/1643263700188.jpg]
As such, it’s no surprise Bokeh leapt at the chance to show off the game during Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards event in December. The two parties, Toyama explains, had been talking for a while, having been introduced not long after the formation of the studio. “We had been originally working on a concept movie for internal purposes, and it was possible to rearrange that into a shorter teaser trailer,” Toyama says. “About six months ago, we discussed our ideas with Mr Keighley, and thankfully it came to be real.”
It’s worth noting, then, that the game is still in the early stages of development, though the story outline (see ‘The power of the dog’) has been firmly in place for a while. Indeed, Toyama says “new ideas had [already] begun to form into shape” as the studio was founded, while he was also “conscious of the more symbolic genre that was the entrance to game development for me”. It’s been through a productive prototyping stage, he tells us – this has helped validate the potential of an original concept, about which he’s reluctant to give too much away. “Furthermore, for the cityscape in the background, we were able to achieve higher quality than we had expected, so I believe this will be a large asset for us.”
[https://magztertemp.s3.amazonaws.com/1387349800/1643218170/articles/61f236f5310ef/1643263700328.jpg]
So why reveal it to the public now? “We had been looking for an opportunity to measure the potential of our stu...
Publisher TBA
Format PC, Consoles TBA
Origin Japan
Release 2023
Bokeh founder Keiichiro Toyama promised a theme of “everyday life being shaken” for the studio’s debut, and his team certainly achieved that with its reveal trailer. Amid the splashy gore and horrifying multi-limbed monsters – all bone, sinew and grasping, mantis-like forelegs – it’s the closing moments that arguably prove most disturbing. A long shot of a figure on a balcony garden in a rundown apartment block shows a figure in what appears to be an unusual hat. We zoom in closer and its face resembles an exotic flower; closer still and no, it’s actually a giant maw with large teeth and two writhing tongues flicking outward. Those fleshy ‘petals’ then slowly retract to form the smiling face of an ordinary middle-aged woman.
[https://magztertemp.s3.amazonaws.com/1387349800/1643218170/articles/61f236f5310ef/1643263699894.jpg]
That chilling contrast between the mundane and the otherworldly is the kind of imagery with which Toyama, writer-director of the original Silent Hill and the Siren games, has long been associated. So what would he say is the secret to scaring people? “I think that death can be described as something that one would seem to feel far away from in everyday life, though it is inescapable,” he begins. “Oneself and the ultimate extraordinary ‘death’ being continuous stimulates imagination – this is a theme I consider importantly when creating a horror work.”
There’s certainly some connective tissue between Slitterhead and Toyama’s previous work: the idea of monsters that can disguise themselves as human is similar to the concept of Siren’s shibito, which retain their human intelligence and personality. “Monsters which do not simply pose physical threat, but also something deep as darkness behind its existence, even sadness… I enjoy works that portray these kind of things, which I would naturally lean towards,” he says. “Also for gameplay, I think that depicting monsters who have their own motives and conflicts would add depth to the world they belong to.”
[https://magztertemp.s3.amazonaws.com/1387349800/1643218170/articles/61f236f5310ef/1643263700150.jpg]
Even so, despite a title you can imagine adorning the cover of a VHS-era video nasty, Slitterhead doesn’t quite belong to the genre in which Toyama made his name. Rather, this is a horror-inflected third-person action-adventure. Toyama says that stems partly from a desire to do something different when other creators have effectively taken up his mantle. “When I created Silent Hill, a large part of the motivation was to create something that had never been seen, or rather felt much before then,” he says. “Today, I can see many high-quality games that are categorised as ‘psychological horror’, so I don’t feel the need for myself to create something similar. I also strongly desired to make something unseen in other titles when working on Siren.”
Yet it’s also a choice rooted in practicality, Toyama says. Suggesting that the wider perception of the horror genre is that it belongs to “a limited tier of enthusiasts”, he’s clearly hoping to reach a broader audience by “combining that with more universal values”, though he admits it’s going to take care to achieve the right balance. “I believe that is the challenge and essence of this project. I would particularly like younger, new generations who don’t know our past works to play this game.”
[https://magztertemp.s3.amazonaws.com/1387349800/1643218170/articles/61f236f5310ef/1643263700188.jpg]
As such, it’s no surprise Bokeh leapt at the chance to show off the game during Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards event in December. The two parties, Toyama explains, had been talking for a while, having been introduced not long after the formation of the studio. “We had been originally working on a concept movie for internal purposes, and it was possible to rearrange that into a shorter teaser trailer,” Toyama says. “About six months ago, we discussed our ideas with Mr Keighley, and thankfully it came to be real.”
It’s worth noting, then, that the game is still in the early stages of development, though the story outline (see ‘The power of the dog’) has been firmly in place for a while. Indeed, Toyama says “new ideas had [already] begun to form into shape” as the studio was founded, while he was also “conscious of the more symbolic genre that was the entrance to game development for me”. It’s been through a productive prototyping stage, he tells us – this has helped validate the potential of an original concept, about which he’s reluctant to give too much away. “Furthermore, for the cityscape in the background, we were able to achieve higher quality than we had expected, so I believe this will be a large asset for us.”
[https://magztertemp.s3.amazonaws.com/1387349800/1643218170/articles/61f236f5310ef/1643263700328.jpg]
So why reveal it to the public now? “We had been looking for an opportunity to measure the potential of our stu...
You're reading a preview of
Edge Uk (Digital) - 1 Issue, March 2022