A considerable number of naysayers in the Silent Hill fan community are – perhaps justifiably, perhaps not – up in arms over the coming release of the series’ sixth iteration, subtitled Homecoming. The reasons are two-fold. First, more and more fans have come to question the value of perpetual sequels for a series which has increasingly replaced innovation with derivation.
Second, Homecoming marks the first Silent Hill console release to be developed not by Konami’s Team Silent but by an external developer instead, Double Helix Studios. And a Western developer at that. Of course, Silent Hill: Origins was ported from PlayStation Portable to PlayStation 2 and both of those were developed here in the States by Climax Studios. However, Homecoming is planned for a late-September release on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC platforms which officially makes it a big-ticket, AAA item. And we’ve spent the past week absorbing the first several hours of a preview build. Naysayer or not, you know you want to hear our impressions.
So click through for the goods.
By now, fans know the basic story of Silent Hill: Homecoming. Army vet Alex Shepherd is on his way home for the first time in a number of years, drawn there by disturbing dreams concerning his younger brother Josh. The game proper actually opens within one of those nightmares, with Alex following his always just out of reach brother through the halls of a dilapidated hospital, presumably Silent Hill’s (the town, not the game) Alchemilla.
The effort Double Helix has put into carrying the series into the current console generation is instantly apparent. The hospital itself looks like a war zone, a lightless, crumbling wasteland which is completely at odds with the house of healing it clearly once was. Alex “awakens” in his dream strapped to a metal gurney. Breaking free of the restraints, he grabs a nearby flashlight and sets off to locate his younger sibling.
This section of the game is pure Silent Hill, introducing players to the basics of the series’ puzzles and combat. The first problem that presents itself is a locked door controlled by a keypad, behind which young Josh is clearly visible. In the next room is a working X-ray viewer where Alex finds three numbers scrawled on half of an X-ray. Unfortunately, the keypad requires six numbers meaning that Alex is going to have to find the other half of that X-ray.
As Silent Hill puzzles go, this is a fairly simple one. It is important for introducing players to the game’s basic approach to puzzles: present players with a clue and then send them off into the murky, frightful unknown where everything they’ll need to piece together a solution awaits. Even in the space of the four or so hours we logged with the preview build, we found that puzzles begin to get more complex rather quickly.
During his travels, Alex also comes across and retrieves a combat knife stabbed through a mirror in one of the hospital’s bathrooms. Picking up the blade sets of a sourceless siren, at which point the room transforms into the rust-colored, blood-soaked environs of Silent Hill’s Otherworld. It is here that players are introduced to combat, when one of the series’ ever-present nurses emerges from a stall and attacks.
Unlike most of the previous Silent Hill protagonists, Alex is combat-trained and downright deadly when he needs to be. Weapons – which become permanent fixtures in the inventory once they’re found – can be swung in either a fast attack or a chargeable power attack. Alex can even string together some fairly damaging, if simple, fast->power combos.
Unfortunately, button-mashing won’t exactly get the job done. The nurses prove to be pretty simple – lone ones, at least – but later enemies, particularly a freakish spider-beast with four bladed legs, are given to blocks, dodges and stun attacks. Thankfully, Alex is trained enough to know how to avoid an incoming blow. Whenever an enemy prepares to strike, players can hit the dodge button to slide out of the way and move into prime position for a counter combo. In a nice touch, Alex and enemies alike also show real-time battle damage; as Alex slashes at that initial nurse, an increasing number of bloody lacerations become visible on her body.
In fact, the attention paid by Double Helix to minor details such as that really elevate the experience as a whole. The by-default HUD-free presentation is just a starting point. Insects are constantly seen skittering along the walls and floors at the periphery of Alex’s vision; shine a light in their direction and watch as they scatter. The hospital is also filled with all manner of loose detritus: IV stands, empty gurneys, boxes and so on. All of it is interactive to the point that Alex can bump into things and move them about; not only does this create a bigger mess, the noise also alerts any nearby enemies to Alex’s presence. So step lightly.
Some of the level designs are also fairly inspired. Our favorite was the Shepherd’s Glen cemetery, which Alex visits fairly early in the story. Rather than just send players through an open field filled with gravestones, Double Helix instead turned the burial ground into a maze of twisting, narrow corridors and rundown open courtyards. It’s not a wholesale change of course. Other locations, such as Silent Hill’s Grand Hotel, are more in keeping with the environments players have come to know from past games. But the new locations, such as the aforementioned graveyard and even the surprisingly expansive surroundings of Alex’s childhood home, add some welcome variety to the proceedings.
There are of course still major questions to be answered about the story. Is it at all significant that Alex’s last name – Shepherd – also happens to be part of his hometown’s name, not to mention the maiden name of Silent Hill 2 protagonist James Sunderland’s deceased wife? And what is the deal with Alex’s father/town sheriff, Adam Shepherd, and that locked “hunting room” of his?
Players will get the opportunity to mine for answers thanks to a new branching dialogue mechanic. As Alex encounters faces from his past in the nearly deserted town of Shepherd’s Glen, players will be able to guide the course of his conversations by selecting dialogue options mapped to the different face buttons. While running through the same encounter using a different set of options led us to a uniform conclusion each time, it seems reasonable to expect that the tone Alex takes with others will in some way influence the game’s final outcome (Double Helix has already stated that Homecoming will at least feature a series-standard “UFO” ending).
The only real complaint we have – one which almost certainly will not be addressed in these final pre-release weeks – is that the save points are far too scattered for a game which doesn’t employ checkpoint saves or offer retry options. In all other ways, Homecoming feels pretty polished and fun to play. The focus is more on combat in this outing – in the early going anyway – but at least that focus is justified by Alex’s previous training.
After digging into the first hours of Silent Hill: Homecoming, we walk away encouraged for the game’s coming September 30 release. The jump-scares are at a minimum from what we’ve seen so far, but the general ambience is highly effective in creating and maintaining a constant sense of impending disaster. Yes Pyramid Head is present and yes he looks more like his film-adapted counterpart than he does like the Silent Hill 2 original, but don’t discount his presence and other seemingly out-of-place elements until you know the full story. Based on what we’ve played so far, the entertaining, well-designed gameplay will make it a story worth unfolding.
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