This Silent Hill Theory Is... Terrible.

[@underthemayo]

Oh the pain of being a Silent Hill fan. Support me on Patreon: patreon.com/underthemayo Mayo merch here! teespring.com/stores/underthemayo KZbin Memberships to my channel now available, click the "Join" button. Follow me on Twitch at twitch.tv/underthemayo

[@BlueMarsalis]

I like the video, title's a bit clunky though.

[@Jay-zk7uw]

Never stop telling the truth, mate. The ghost of Alessa Gillespie would be turning in her grave if she hadn't been cremated first.

[@baileyscianski6263]

The first time you have a chance at the top is the second one you get to go go on a walk and you 🎉🎉

[@derekb4977]

​@@Jay-zk7uw bring back team silent under bokeh games studio, and hire enhanced edition to port all 4 games onto ps5 and xbox users. All 4 in a new physical enhanced edition that comes with unlocking the play novel and rare cynthia and heather signing video.

[@Impalingthorn]

The only horror left in Silent Hill is that of being a fan waiting on a good game after 4.

[@Dr.Yakub22]

Making every new Silent Hill based on "Trauma" just because Silent Hill 2 did it is like making every new Resident Evil game be about spanish cultists just because RE4 did it.

[@GameSomniac]

Imagine that, the fan favorite Silent Hill 2 is the cause for the ruination of the series lol

[@EmilyKimMartin]

​@@GameSomniacAnd SH2 wasn't even a fan favorite, to begin with! It released to little fanfare, sold like shit, critics were mixed on it and fans were even more so... the game only became a cult classic and then the overrated (but still great) hype machine it is over the past decade. EDIT: I don't give a fuck what you guys think or saw. Your little circlejerks don't represent the bigger picture. GameSpot gave the game a 6/10 back in the day, PSM and Game Informer were disappointed, and you just need to go through the Wayback Machine to see the discourse surrounding the game within forums. I didn't say SH2 was outright hated; I said opinions were *mixed*. Which they were. And you didn't need to look hard AT ALL to see that.

[@johnathanross6519]

@EmilyKimMartin That's somewhat true. SH1 sold 2 million while SH2 sold 1 million during its hayday. That's only PS2 numbers. Doesn't factor in how many copies of SH2 are sold on PC, so it's definitely a little more. The reviews from that era were good besides the PC port getting ripped on. It isn't the best selling, but the reception was positive for the most part. Personally, it's a toss-up between 2 and 3 for my all-time favorite of the series.

[@BloodDragon-rp4xc]

like re8 did

[@MrKrewie]

as much as i like sh2 it really is a curse on the series

[@Dr.Yakub22]

At this point, Silent Hill is just a psychological experiment on its own fans.

[@ismaill-0819]

This. I've been thinking about this a lot. The horror lmao

[@brentenhargrove4320]

Seriously

[@trainyourdog7351]

Fact

[@ericm215]

4th wall break!!!!🎉

[@LosMSR]

Ironic the fans destrolyed The Team Silent.

[@CallMeGreggles]

retconning Silent Hill as a town with mystical fogs to a phenomenon called plot convenience is just lazy

[@johnathanross6519]

Because it isn't for gamers, it's for "modern audience."

[@Dr.Yakub22]

Its just a poor excuse so they can make any type of shitty game and slap the name Silent Hill on it

[@DrunkwatchMandalorian]

Zero effort

[@Jay-zk7uw]

They've reduced Alessa to nothing. Once the sole reason the town descended into nightmare, a being whose supernatural power was enough to drag everyone into her personal Hell... Nope, it was the town. This was forgivable for SH2 as it was a one-off which really stood on its own merits, and they got right back on the lore horse in SH3. Now, though...

[@derekb4977]

​@@Jay-zk7uw we need to retcon everything after 4 we need silent hill 5 by team silent under bokeh games studio.

[@asddw4998]

I'm still disturbed that a game set in Germany literally has zero German characters

[@edwardvasquezlowe6201]

yeah that made no sense, the whole game i was so confused on how it even was in germany

[@fumomofumosarum5893]

not to mention half of the posters and signs were in english for some reason... and the school hall was also not of a german school since german schools have no lockers or 1 person desks.. and german school kids don't wear those american jackets either... ^^; i think someone in the development studio got drunk while planning this...

[@rawmaw]

@@fumomofumosarum5893 i can confirm this first-hand!

[@QueenSydon]

German's are typically fair-skinned white people, so of course they couldn't do that

[@jayros4269]

@@fumomofumosarum5893 Nah totally ESG money.

[@troyb4533]

The thing is, is that James had a connection to the town. He had a connection through his promise to take Mary back but never did. “This whole town was our special place”.

[@deadskinnation1411]

The psychology condition for james would only make sense if it only effected people that visited silent hill would see other world monstrosites through spell magic even after they leave that was casted apon them visting the town through a ancient native american demon of silent hill that was probly released after alessa died as her witch magic altered the town.the fact that anyone who never visited the town or the town they are located in has no cult connection with a ancient demon living thier but stil has silent hill monstrosities makes absolutely no sense and this is why i am against these newer titles.

[@HenkkaArtGames]

Man, I just love when new people come to a franchise and instead of respecting and building upon it, go "We know better!".

[@miquebts]

That happened with Tom hulett and now it's the norm

[@megabeetlejuicer96]

this is called getekeeping where i'm from

[@brianlbeck]

Yeah, that's why Mayo hates everything; because all his videos are like watching Michael Jordan talk about nuclear fission. Dude is an absolute god at most games and he's helped me elevate and exploit many of them but his reviews are very jaded and tunnel-visioned. I love when he breaks down a game and shows you the META but overall his channel has devolved into a review channel and so many other people do it better. Mayo is a great gamer but I don't care for his opinions otherwise. Dude has had so many bad takes that I flat-out can't respect his opinions anymore. Anything outside his niche is abject gargage and any sub knows that to be true. People like Mayo despite his reviews, not because of them.

[@cappedminer369]

@@miquebtsTom hullet did not mean harm and did not try to ruin it, he was falsely accused

[@theaterhobo]

​​@@megabeetlejuicer96if they're new fans, then no, it's not gatekeeping. You're not using that word correctly at all

[@cyberrain3261]

Between the "It's trauma" in Ascension and "Silent Hill phenomenon" in Short Message, it was a damn mistake for silent hill to be even touched once more, given how the current writers are just trashing the beautiful masterpiece into a Wattpad cringe fanfic of "Gimmie more money" to a message of how cyber bullying is bad all because the Mc of short message didn't get enough likes on a dumb post. It's dogwater writing that has left me very skeptical of how SH2 remake is going to be in terms of being written down like short message or having DLC style like Ascension or a combination of both.

[@panzershreck8077]

Honestly, who gives af what they do with these new games, lol. They can destroy it all they want. All I wish for is that they at least port over the old games completely unchanged on pc and modern consoles. At least then we'll have our masterpieces still playable.

[@ARStudios2000]

​@@panzershreck8077considering how they fucked it with the HD rereleases, I personally have no hope for it

[@vengefulretreat]

SH2 was doomed the moment Bloober Team was tapped to develop it. Not sure why anyone was ever hopeful at all.

[@bipolarexpress9827]

@@vengefulretreatidk I hear silent hill is about walking around in a horror setting. Shouldn’t bloober be perfect for that?

[@vengefulretreat]

@@bipolarexpress9827 I don't even know how to respond to this without sounding insulting. If someone actually thinks that's all Silent Hill is then they deserve everything that is currently happening to the franchise...

[@ECPhoenixman]

The biggest issue I have with this new SHP, is that it's trying to suggest that everything that's happening is just "all in your head" which I think cheapens things significantly. The original 4 games told various stories about different characters, but all of them made it clear that the supernatural, magical things were real. I mean, Alessa really DID have psychic powers, Maria was a physical manifestation of the town, Heather really did have a God growing inside her that came to life at the end of the game and Walter Sullivan was a ghost. Silent Hill has always been a supernatural series, so if the newer games are going to "spread" the power from the town around the world, the events have to be real, right? They can't just be a hallucination, otherwise it's just not going to be anywhere near as interesting.

[@SecondLayton]

They could've at least made that Alessa's power that affected the town is spreading to other places via the fog due to some cult activities in other places, that would at least make a little bit more sense, making The Order conduct similar rituals in other places that would result in similar phenomenons

[@A_Red_Pyramid]

The worst thing about this isn't that it's lazy (it is), or that it doesn't make sense (which it doesn't). It's that it pretty much removes the town from the equation. The series is named after the town. A "special place" with a history, people, and a mysterious power about it. The town is my favourite "character" in the series. Any time I do a run through of one of the games, I take a little extra time to run around the empty streets. That's one of the big reasons 2 is my favourite - it gives you the best opportunity to explore, and learn the town's history (Jennifer Carrol, Little Baroness, etc.). Having it be a "phenomenon" wipes that out. It's no longer a unique place, but just a namesake for a new batch of unrelated projects.

[@Stigmatix666]

Yes, I did enjoy the quasi "open world" aspect of the first two games. Quasi, because even though there was room to explore a bit, you still needed to go from point A to point B.

[@udopadrik9971]

Did they actually outright say it somewhere that it is "the official answer" for all the upcoming games? I very much doubt it. Yes, it might very well be in multiple games, but that doesn't mean it to be "the real" answer. What connected the original games was the question "WTF is going on in Silent Hill? (and in a weird chained up apartment)" All of the games needed that mystery. Now the mystery is slightly different ("What is going on in the world?" and perhaps "How is it connected to Silent Hill?") This first answer gotten in this game might very well be like one of the answers in the first game, "it is drugs", an answer by scientists that didn't quite understand it. Hopefully future games will give different answers, some connecting to previously established lore, some not. Leaving it open is sort of the point. The first problem of the series perhaps could be that they sort of made "it's the cult" too close to being canon through too many games. Hopefully the newer games won't feel too constrained by this "it's a psychological phenomenon" explanation and will start shaking it up soon in other games. It's never meant to reach a conclusive explanation. The first game had different endings because what fits it all together, besides the trauma and the titular town, is not the underlying plot (the cult perhaps too often), but the question itself. One of the most canonical endings still is the UFO plot, so it still might be UFOs, actually. BTW totally agree with the want for a more open world Silent Hill and for a one with a hub area similar to the one in SH4 to explore.

[@Stigmatix666]

@@udopadrik9971 Regarding the open world thing.. It's a gaming mechanism that *does not work* with survival horror games, especially not psychological horror. Why? Simple, it takes away the focus from the actual plot, as proven by SH: Downpour, and to a certain extent The Evil Within 2. Survival horror games, especially psychological horror games *need* to go from point A to point B in order to keep your interest. The *illusion* of the open world both in SH1 and SH2 is more than enough in this regard, honestly.

[@udopadrik9971]

​ @Stigmatix666 I don't agree. Just because it hasn't been done well, is not a reason to consider it undoable. And a not yet done thing should be exactly the thing to pursue to make a worthwhile game. Let’s not forget that when some of these original games were made there was not yet a fixed “survival horror” genre and they were crafting it as they went along. Doing something new was part of making the first Silent Hill games successful and special, as was with P.T. Driving it towards a more “open world” was definitely a possibility on the table back then. Done intelligently and with vision I think it could not only work well, but potentially give new understanding of how to use the design mechanic well and in new innovative ways in other types of games. The open world mechanic as it is usually implemented is not working that well with “focused” stories, period. Even in most of the “greatest achievements” in open world design I think it’s almost always a detractor to the story aspect of the experience and often to other aspects as well. Although the From Software approach is something I would partly choose as inspiration, I wouldn’t consider the mechanic implemented in Elder Ring in no way perfect. Even in that game with its steps in the right direction I think they hurt some aspects of previous From Software titles, including the exploration. The starting drive for an open world horror game could be something very vague, I think, even something like “You are in a threatening environment defying logic. Piece together how you got here, what’s happening and how to get out of here”. In a Silent Hill game probably something a little more would do better, but let’s not forget part of the reason the first games worked was because of some aspects being very tastefully chosen, almost poetically simple (you didn’t get the protagonist’s profession or involvement with the government from the get go that would hurt the empathy). A scary game could very well be an “unfocused” plot and I actually think it would be better in Silent Hill games and was better in the original Silent Hill games. I consider this “focused” plot as somewhat of an American misdirection. It is in no way something to be taken as something positive to be achieved in as many things as it is used in. Silent Hill is better with ambivalence, closer to experimental cinema, David Lynch’s movies and “Art House” cinema as the creators themselves have said, in comparison to Resident Evil’s b-horror and b-action. I’d even consider to say the “focused” plot has been what often destroys horror games and they would work better without it. Good horror works with the room for players to work through some dark aspects within themselves, dark possibilities, not by giving some “This guy is bad and now he is in hell. Don’t be a bad guy!” simplistic Hollywood plots. I even think a successful horror game plot could be about a character exploring why he is fascinated with abandoned towns, dark corridors and supernatural things writhing underneath the surface of a seemingly idyllic abandoned town, and the game an exploration of that and finding an answer. Of course the creators should be willing to explore an answer in a way that would have us empathize with the character to the end. The creators of the games should be willing to explore their fascination with the macabre and dark aspects of human soul and just be letting us tag along. And if we recognized these things in ourselves, we could be exploring with excitement that town of kids using dog heads to play basketball, strangely personalized quiz shows popping up randomly in elevators and puzzles laying around about innocently executed convicts we could happen on when casually strolling in underground “water prisons”. The town is an impossibly shifting playground of playful horror. I have to emphasize the “playful” part. Weird tv-shows about UFO sightings and past Silent Hill characters associating with them could be running on TVs as TV shows run in GTA games. One requirement would have to be that the side-missions are not as distinguished from the main mission as in some other games and they wouldn’t feel too collectible. Of course there could be mysteries like in Red Dead Redemption 2 about human parts laying around at specific places, there could also be a side quest beginning with finding a human ear in the grass somewhere as a nod to “Blue Velvet”, that would perhaps have a note inside that you would get information about a missing person if you hid in a closet in a specific building at a specific time (you would see something horrific, and would get a clue). I imagine random horrific events happening in the town, invisible police cars driving through and crashing somewhere, ghost-planes crashing into buildings, people jumping from windows of buildings that can be seen in the distance, but on close inspection you’d only find a key or a puzzle at the place of the impact. There could be elevators riding by themselves, into which when you manage to jump as they pass by you could be taken to entirely new sections of the game with other mysteries perhaps hospital floor 99 storeys underground. Open world would be an amazingly fitting environment for playful ambivalent David Lynch-inspired horror, and Silent Hills were that. Playfulness and willingness to step into very dark humor is a part of the franchise, also self-parodying in some portions of the games, a glue that could really make an open world situation work.

[@Robert_D_Mercer]

I get same vibes with one. They give you alot of freedom for extras and stuff

[@lordvlygar2963]

Sounds like Silent Hill is going the way of Resident Evil: completely retconning everything just to make new games with little in common with the original trilogy. My condolences. Best thing to do going forward is to be emotionally detached from what the franchise does.

[@blumiu2426]

Pretty much. Resident Evil needs to end as it stopped making sense awhile ago, but it still makes money while Silent Hill died when it kept declining.

[@ThotdFan127]

At least Resident Evil is still great gameplay wise even if the story shits the bed with the 2 remake. I think of the remake timeline as being it's own thing and get solid enjoyment out of it. Silent Hill on the other hand is being fucked by developers caving into the movie fanbase culture and appealing strictly to all of them who will likely not even play the games just like they haven't all the previous ones.

[@xLadyRaine]

resident evil story and lore were never great. even the fandom knows it

[@ThotdFan127]

@@xLadyRaine the files were great but that is about it. The storylines themselves were extremely simple.

[@udopadrik9971]

I like what they are doing with new Silent Hill games more than what they are doing with the Resident Evil games (although those are still cool in their own way too). The connection to the town in some ways had to be severed, and severing of it started actually some time ago (as early as SH2 where they needed to have "another part of the town to explore"). It's difficult to make too many games take place on the same streets or even connected to the same streets. The name of the series is a difficult hurdle to overcome, but the games really weren't about that town, but "a town", one town being a placeholder for some other town. The trouble is, not many of us live in a town like Silent Hill any more, it wouldn't be a romantic "any town" as it then was. The "Twin Peaks" TV show had a similar problem. That show also was exploring the darkness beneath the surface where we live through using a romantic small town. Something that in our age doesn't quite work. Where we live has changed. Combining it with a "it's a psychological phenomenon" umbrella seems a little cartoonish, but some elements of cartoonishness have been a part of the series from the beginning in one way or another, and I like the taking of it to "it could be somewhere else", as they did in SH4 already. The core mystery could still be in SIlent Hill, but in Japan, curses tend to be as something similar to diseases, something that could spread and infect. Hopefully this first answer to the mystery ("it's a psychological phenomenon") will not be the last, and they will come with new ones. It will have to be the mystery largely driving it, I think. They already somewhat ruined the series by having the cult be too close to being considered canon, which wasn't originally intended. The question "what is going on? And how is it connected to SIlent Hill?" could still be kept going, if this answer in the "Short Message" were considered similar to the "it's drugs" answer encountered during the first Silent Hill game. The doctors don't really understand it, so "it's a psychological phenomenon" could be just their answer just as "it's drugs" was back in the original game. It could be an apocalyptic curse or the "paradise" of the cult spreading around the earth in locations with trauma. It could be an amazingly potent new metaphor, but I sort of do hope they find a way for the games to not be called "Silent Hill", yet remain in the same universe.

[@Dr.Yakub22]

The new Silent Hill that's supposed to bring the series back from death is called Silent Hill F..... the jokes just write themselves

[@markcobuzzi826]

Brother Maynard: “It reads, 'Here may be found the last words of Hideo Kojima. He who is creative and pure of talent may revive the franchise through Silent Hill Fuuuuuuu...’” King Arthur: “What?” Brother Maynard: “'... Silent Hill Fuuuuuuu...’” Sir Bedivere: “What is that?” Brother Maynard: “He must have died while typing it.” Sir Lancelot: “Oh, come on!” Brother Maynard: “Well, that's what it says.” King Arthur: “Look, if he was dying, he wouldn't bother to type 'Fuuuuuuu…' He'd just say it!” Brother Maynard: “Well, that's what's typed on the sheet!” Sir Galahad: “Perhaps he was dictating.” *a few exchanges later* Sir Bedivere: “Yes, but I- fuuuuu&@!” King Arthur: “Oooh!” Sir Galahad: “My God!” *cherry blossom monster from The Short Message appears, bearing a Konami logo on its head* Brother Maynard: “It's the legendary Black Beast of Fuuuuuuu...!” *Black Beast of Fuuuuuuu… eats Brother Maynard* Sir Bedivere: “That's it! That's it!” King Arthur: “Run away!” All Knights: “Run away!” *chase ensues and all hope of escape is lost, until suddenly, the Konami programmer suffers a fatal heart attack and the in-game peril is no more*

[@Gabbagool86]

It's cool if it fails we will be pressing F to pay respects.

[@MILDMONSTER1234]

It’s like if avgn made a silent hill game

[@tristenatorplaysgames6833]

It’s gonna be a good game I’m calling it

[@GigBound]

@@MILDMONSTER1234 How *would* that look like? “Take a wild guess.”

[@CurayziDante]

Funny how silent hill 2 is the one getting remaked and not the 1st, and how they are pushing it's narrative on every future silent hill game. The priority is to milk what's successful, they don't care if they make sense or not.

[@dualtahunter4043]

Silent hill 1 is so overshadowed, it's been pretty much untouched since the 90s

[@Ratovx]

Just like resident evil didnt remake the first one (no the 2003 remake doesn't count''

[@johnathanross6519]

@@dualtahunter4043 Shattered Memories was supposed to be a remake, but that's a story for another day.

[@CurayziDante]

@@Ratovx nah it counts, capcom respected the series and remade the games from start for modern audience, it's just RE1 remake was done in an age when the idea of "modern audience" was different. Konami however just went with the most popular titles in the series, SH2 and MGS3, and that's as garbage as it gets.

[@slowmercy69]

​@@johnathanross6519remade*

[@TheMightyNovac]

I love that Konami were like "yeah, yeah and it's gonna be about COVID now!!" and the only promising game--Silent Hill F--coincidentally decided to set itself in the 70s to avoid any further contact with that dumbass idea.

[@blumiu2426]

Not really, because Ito said SH2 was made with the though it was set in the 70s, though it looks nothing like it. The fact it's in Japan means it may be using the phenomenon with own reasoning or has nothing to do with Silent Hill lore and themes, and borrowing some element. I have no idea what or how it would be a Silent Hill game.

[@mr.sinjin-smyth]

This retconning concept to Silent Hill reminds me so much of the "Timeless Children" thing done to Dr. Who. That effectively ruined a beloved legacy series, expect the same done for Silent Hill if this Silent Hill Phenomenon gains more leverage.

[@Gabbagool86]

It's the hubris of these fan fic turned professional writers! (or localizers these day heh) It's a profound misunderstanding about the original premise instead electing to follow some kind of erroneous head cannon. In SH cases they were simply able to relate to a more personal take on a game series who's story was intricately woven into the games (original four) the fact that the subtext directly explores themes of peoples psyche and how they deal with trauma (it's was how they dealt with it that made it so ground breaking) and yeah there's your new focus on the games for fifteen long drawn out years. Man Doctor who is beyond salvaging at this point and with that welsh hack as showrunner he's going to use that show to demonstrate just how big that chip on his shoulder really is lol.

[@diegovargasdiego]

Plus, both of these twists had very simple ways to be turned into interesting stories without retconning previous material

[@martyevans1]

@@Gabbagool86Did you watch the 60th anniversary specials? Fucking agenda pushing garbage. Hard to believe this is the same show runner from the original reboot.

[@tacticstories7159]

It reminds me about a lot of IP's I originally enjoyed. Just like Dragonball, Kingdom hearts, etc. It's what happens when a thing gets popular. The original creators get little to do with the sequel and a hack with no experience, or understanding of the source material ruins it with laughable excuses.

[@Gabbagool86]

@@martyevans1 I saw it I despised it. What's even more ironic is he portrayed the group he was desperately trying to cater to as how the loud minority of them act on twitter. All while throwing his own Doctor under the bus and even misunderstanding the fact that he was a she just one incarnation before. Russel T Davies came back for one reason, I think we all now know what that is.

[@johnathanross6519]

I tell you, these abominations that have been released make SH4 age much better and make me appreciate it more. It didn't take place in SH, but at least it was connected through the cult and Walter. It's just a shame that the bait and switch mid game to an escort mission kind of ruined the experience for me. But like I said previously, it's better than what came after by a country mile.

[@miquebts]

Sh4 was weird but the story was amazing and that soundtrack 🔥 🔥 🔥

[@Stigmatix666]

It even makes me appreciate Homecoming and Downpour that much more..

[@johnathanross6519]

@Stigmatix666 I personally didn't think those games were good, but at least someone did, I guess.

[@Stigmatix666]

@@johnathanross6519 I didn't like them too much back in the day, but SH:The Short Message makes them look like masterpieces.

[@johnathanross6519]

@@Stigmatix666 In that regard, I can agree.

[@highwind9984]

Konami is trying too hard to milking the successful element of Silent Hill 2, while they not even understand the mechanics behind it, for example the fogs, and the story from Silent Hill 1-4 What make me sad is the large community of fans is actually okay with it, one admin of FB Silent Hill community group even saying it's one of best Silent Hill games and deserved a come back Silent Hill title, and even bombard the people with different actually constructive opinion to improve the game

[@RNgamervideos]

this is concerning, I also see other Fans defending this Garbage idea...

[@thegreatpoo2electricboogal318]

Im im a group called fogposting and its literally just a bunch of people with actual mental problems defending short message and calling anyone that doesnt like it bigots and stuff lol standard behavior of the alphabet mafia. 😂

[@airboundgab3]

I’m in a Silent Hill Community group on FB and I understand why they’re desperate for any game with a SH tittle attached to it. Must of these “gamers” weren’t even born when these games came out ( I have all 4 of them). And then have the sheer utter arrogance to bully you into accepting mediocre stuff like The Short Message the true SH. It isn’t. And you could tell many of these folks never played or only watched the play throughs. Even Blobber Team criticized the combat trailer saying Konami is the one that messed up. Not them. You can tell that this “revival” isn’t going well. People defending Konami when that company has done some shady stuff and mess up their IP’s. Look at Metal Gear Survive

[@fojisan2398]

To be frank, Facebook is full of literal human NPCs so that is not unexpected.

[@blumiu2426]

Silent Hill 2 was fine to borrow the psyche element from in another game, but after that it was overkill. It was more Western developers that kept pushing that aspect, so it stuck and the fanbase mainly only knows that much. They care for the psychological while Japan wanted the cult aspect, so Konami followed the money and went Western.

[@SolidRaiden2655]

Silent Hill bringing up real world events is really fucking stupid. Silent Hill at least to me felt like its own self contained universe that had similar yet very different events to our own. And was a game series focused on psychological horror through symbolism without completely spelling it on the wall.

[@vengefulretreat]

Even though there were things that pointed to the time period in which the games took place, they still felt timeless in both their storytelling and presentation. The Shart Massage referencing Covid immediately shatters that timeless uncertainty.

[@SolidRaiden2655]

@@vengefulretreat Im pretty sure the devs in interviews have even said they purposely didnt want realworld timelines in Silent Hill all you basically need to know is its set in present day so about post 90s.

[@a-cxnt]

I laughed my ass off when I saw the covid name drop. It's such hacky writing to bring something from the real world as a plot point in your fictional world.

[@Robert_D_Mercer]

I dunno man; I was born in a small town in Newfoundland; I felt silent hill was just like one of those small towns. So... It felt right at home with the locations but with a japanese taste of it lol

[@rattat1186]

At this point... I cringe every time I hear Silent Hill.. just let it die.

[@theAshesofDecember1]

Hot take here: I always appreciated the first game more than the second. Maybe it’s just a time and place, maybe it was the graphics and limitations, but somehow it was always the scariest in the series

[@jacksongentry2431]

Honestly not really a hot take cuz the first one is amazing and it’s a shame people don’t talk about it enough

[@Robert_D_Mercer]

@@jacksongentry2431 Harry* is a good guy' nothing wrong with him is prob why. Hes the most normal in the series and since he's not a trans icon or some person "suffering" like these simps on reddit and stuff; they cant relate to him. Thus they SHUN the game. I WISH I was making this up; but homie, I HAVE to defend Harry. He's literally the best character in the series despite how tame he is.

[@TheMightyNovac]

I'm glad that the scenario writer for Silent Hill F isn't allergic to cults like all the others...

[@spellshellmobile2046]

Cults in Homecoming and Ascending was so cool and thought out

[@blumiu2426]

It seems Japan was onto something the whole time by wanting the cult rather than the psychological. Granted, no one can see the future or why the West would lean this heavy onto one aspect of one title, but a cult could be the only thread that's related....but then it's actually Siren lol

[@dorjjodvobatkhuu6457]

​@@blumiu2426pretty much yeah xD

[@udopadrik9971]

The cult is a valid part of Silent Hill, but it can also be considered to be about a trauma, cults are about collective trauma and about people dealing with insane ideals and worldviews and living with people possessed by those worldviews. Cult is very important in Silent Hill, but I doubt the westerners quite got how it was a commentary on western religions. It's probably not quite coincidental that the iconography and some aspects of it sometimes resemble some forms of Christianity. It isn't supposed to be "an evil cult" that is somehow separate from some "good religions". You should probably see it as a way to question your own cults (different forms of Christianity included). I didn't play Homecoming to the end, because it seemed to miss the essence of Silent Hill too much, but I doubt the western developers were comfortable enough to make the cult resemble some "good religions" for it to serve its purpose. If it was just some regular "bad cult as opposed to Christianity" I'd say it was exactly opposed to what the cult was in the original games, so that made it not as much a "Silent Hill", but rather an anti-"Silent Hill". A regular western religious propaganda saying "other cults are bad, we are good". That is not what the cult was about in the Silent Hill games, but it tends to be in western horror movies.

[@udopadrik9971]

The Silent Hill games are sort of about different things. The cult sort of got explored the best in SH3. If someone can make a game that examines the religion aspect with some courage and sincerity, examining some aspects further, then definitely I am up for it, but it would have some trouble surpassing Silent Hill 3 I'm afraid. (SPOILERS) This is literally a game with a female protagonist fighting against a religion that wants to control her reproductive system and has destroyed her family, and the game ends with the girl killing the god of that religion that was supposed to arrive through her reproductive system. I think it's difficult to create a game that deals with aspects about religions as well as SH3 did, but I'm surely open to it. I'm just apprehensive that as was back then, some Westerners might not be that accepting to games with such plots. :)

[@Genesjss]

This whole "Silent Hill Phenomenon" concept likely explains why Silent Hill f is going to take place in some rural town in Japan rather than the actual town of Silent Hill, because there's no actual magic or anything involved in whatever is going to occur in SHf - it'd be purely psychological in nature, according to this whole concept. The team behind Silent Hill Ascension already admitted to having worked on the game with this exact concept in mind, and the most recent game ends up giving an actual name to it. The only possible exception out of these new Silent Hill games that are coming out is the SH2 Remake, but given the changes to the story they're apparently planning to make to it anyway (which we've already seen hints of via trailers and interviews), I'm not gonna hold my breath over the possibility of seeinf any of the references to The Order remaining intact, so in my mind it's also possible that they may try to retroactively make SH2 a purely psychological story, too. I hope I'm wrong about this, but I'm not liking the red flags I've been seeing. SH2 Remake aside (for now)... Yeah, I'm starting to think Silent Hill should've stayed dead. With crap like the "Silent Hill Phenomenon" being a key element to these new games, it's clear these people don't understand the series they're working with. When you manage to screw your lore up even worse than SH Origins, Homecoming and Downpour, as far as I'm concerned I'm not even gonna waste my time with whatever you're selling. At least THOSE games understand the series well enough to know the town itself is central to the horror of the series, even if they screw story details up themselves.

[@Gabbagool86]

@@watersoup6270 It's one thing for the game to say that but if it doesn't do anything else with it I simply take it as heavy handed world building. It gives some context to the suicide riddled history of the "Chain City" but considering the overall execution of the games themes and the main premise you would be forgiven for seeing the memo and thinking "yeah guys we get it the game is about suicide!

[@12ealDealOfficial]

A problem, right at the outset, is that the games do not need to be interconnected after SH4. No true fan regards anything after 4 as legit anyway. The naming convention even abandoned numbers for sequels. Just scrap everything after 4. Simple. Start an entirely new shitty side story and lump all the new stuff into that, and keep the original 4 on a shelf off to the side.

[@Scoopsdepoop]

No "true fan" We got ourselves a gatekeeper

[@JackSann]

@@ScoopsdepoopGatekeeping is good If we don't gatekeep some people will come and ruin our hobby

[@rishg134]

@@ScoopsdepoopGood

[@JackSann]

@enrique7934 It's the jews, everything is because of the jews

[@crg656_5]

Silent hill 4 is definitely a true silent hill game lol

[@slowmercy69]

In my world, Silent Hill ended with 4, and they also reimagined 1 with Shattered Memories. That's it

[@Stigmatix666]

They made a sequel to part 1's Bad Ending with Shattered Memories..

[@ELLOHELLWAT]

Instead of making something new that might have been good, they wear the skin of the old stuff we love like Leatherface. Or, to borrow words from Ian Malcolm, these new developers stand on top of genius. They are so eager to sell something based on our (now toxic) nostalgia, that they didn't stop to think about whether they should rather than could. They wield Silent Hill like a kid who's found his dad's gun.

[@a-cxnt]

I love SH2, but my god, has it ruined everyone's perception of this franchise. why does every game have to try and replicate it?

[@burnt_ramen9757]

Because it's the fan favorite and Konami wants money.

[@adamiadamiadami]

@@burnt_ramen9757 That's only in the west. The first game sold more in Japan than the second.

[@troyb4533]

Silent hill stopped being silent hill after the room

[@royery]

First 4 games: Japanese devs. The rest: Western devs. And it seems Konami still doing that mistake.

[@diegordi1394]

​​@@royeryThe Short Message was made by a (mostly) Japanese team. It's not Japan devs good western devs bad, it's the people who directed the first 4 being the ones who understand the concept the best, or hell, being the only ones who know how to make it work.

[@JewTube001]

Ironically back then people said SH4 wasn't SH.

[@bruttokane8846]

bro sh origin is good.

[@talonvoidgeist2386]

There's a lot of documents in SH1, 2 and 3 that talk about all the horrific things that happened in the town. Witch hunts, massacres of local indigenous people... I always assumed they were making it clear that the land itself was a place where the boundaries of reality were weakened due to all the trauma and horrific events that occured there already.

[@nonsequitur3455]

So now they're going to need "15 Days to Flatten the Phenomenon"😱😵‍💫😵

[@SlurpyPie]

6:34 Well actually PT does kinda hint about the cult considering the voice on the radio implied such both directly and indirectly to the player multiple times. Especially since there's a pattern with the multiple families getting killed possibly offered as sacrifices kinda like with Silent Hill 4 which was definitely Kojima and Del Toro's main inspiration for their game. Although it never seemed (to me at least) like the cult would've been the main focus of the game had it come out instead of it getting cancelled.

[@brmawe]

Well for one: P.T. isn't Silent Hill, yes they use references, callbacks, etc but that's about it. Yes, the radio was talking about a cult but not the one we've seen like The Halo Of The Sun or just known as The Order.

[@LosMSR]

@@brmawe The cult is just a way to explain the paranormal events for a group of people, they aren't the power of the town. Same case of the events in The Mist. The town has a raw power aside the cult.

[@SlurpyPie]

@@brmawe I honestly don't get what makes you say that, the demo (despite how short it was) was incredibly effective at replicating Silent Hill's surreal and dark atmosphere not to mention what little of the story was hinted at seemed so interesting and had tons of potential for it to be an amazingly dark of the same caliber as the first four games and it might've included the cult in some form but not as the main focus of the story as it seemed that the voice on the radio would be the main villain based on some of his dialogue. Gameplay wise the demo didn't provide enough details as to how the gameplay let alone combat would've turned out or what other mechanics would've been implemented but knowing that Kojima and Del Toro were taking heavy inspiration from the fourth game makes me think they would try and implement the mechanics from that game with some quality of life improvements to them not the mention that they wanted to break the fourth wall in creative ways to enhance the horror which would've been so cool and freaky it makes me disappointed it didn't come out.

[@brmawe]

@@SlurpyPie Don't get me wrong P.T. Is a masterclass of horror, the best demo ever pretty much. The reason why I say P.T. Isn't Silent Hill is because of two reasons: 1. The very end of the demo it specifically says that it has no direct relation to Silent Hill 2. Kojima himself even separates the two from one another. This was said at Gamescom 2014.

[@blumiu2426]

@@SlurpyPie P.T. is indeed horror, J-Horror more closely, but nothing was remotely Silent Hill about it. The Silent Hill fans that say it is are to me, the same as the people calling these new SH games Silent Hill. You don't understand what made Silent Hill what it is.

[@iBolski]

The new games are a lot like what's happening to other existing IPs in the pop culture world. They take the name of some iconic IP and attach it to their game which has nothing to do with the OG IP. They're using the name just to ride off the coat tails. This game and the the the 5th game are SH in name only and are trying to ride off the success of the original 3. If this latest game had been called something else OTHER than Silent Hill, then maybe it wouldn't be getting panned as hard as it is. When you take on an iconic IP's name, it can be a double edged sword if you don't use it properly. In this case, they didn't, and because it has the Silent Hill name in it, it's going to be scrutinized even harder than if it didn't have the name in it.

[@Jay-zk7uw]

Exactly. If you order a pepperoni pizza and it arrives with pineapple and tuna on it, then you've every right to complain.

[@LosMSR]

Check SH4 again, the idea of the power of town is bigger than the town itsef was already there, and that was Team Silent, so I guess this is happen when the fans trying to believe, they knew more than the creators.

[@KBXband]

I'm not a fan of Silent Hill 2 but I do think it is a phenomenal plot. My biggest thing is if Konami is not going to take the franchise seriously there's no reason for any of us to either.

[@crazypizzaman21]

Very informative take as always. The cult was always the main point of the town. They’re stuck on SH2 and can’t move on from it similar to how RE has been stuck on 4. I wanna also throw in that with SH2 what makes it cool is that we know why the town is the way it is because of the first game and playing as people completely unconnected to the town makes it interesting seeing people essentially being caught in the supernatural crossfire of the cult and the town. Making every game follow that formula though isn’t necessary and only really works as kind of a once or twice thing. Blaming everything on The fog and “silent hill phenomenon” is so lame and vague with clear intention of it being written in just because they are out of ideas.

[@MPrietsch]

Another easy way to connect Japan and Silent Hill could be the cult. So, we know that Toluca Prison was deactivated around 1900, but what if it was secretly reactivated around 1943 and converted to a concentration camp for Japanese immigrants? There were a few of those around WWII. They would just have to come up with a reason for this particular one to be kept under wraps, but it could be something like housing specific immigrants that were a part of the cult. Maybe the cult themselves repurposed the prison to be a concentration camp to "protect" their members before the government did, I don't know. Then, after the war, those people were released and some went back to Japan. This would be around the same time Silent Hill f takes place, so these people would be bringing their cult beliefs to Japan, and all that's needed would be to find a suitable location with a similar kind of power that Silent Hill has.

[@quietrioter]

That's a pretty smart theory

[@tarnetskygge]

This does sound like the kind of thing Ryukishi07 might write for SHF, he's referenced WW2-era tragedies/war crimes before in the Higurashi series.

[@Ghost7065]

Not bad... not bad at all.

[@strangeeric9760]

"How does it feel to live long enough to see all your favorite franchises go down in flames?"

[@underthemayo]

"It feels great."

[@mikemidwood9661]

Reminder that most Silent Hill "fans" have either never played an SH game, have only played 2, or have just watched a playthrough of 2.

[@Travis_Scorsese]

thats like saying "reminder most GTA players have never robbed a bank or shot up a stripclub.."

[@xinoo02]

your point makes no sense. i don't have a ps2 nor i am able to emulate the games. my only way of experiencing them was through watching playtroughs and looking up stuff about them. maybe don't gatekeep, thanks!

[@GigBound]

@@xinoo02You realize that Silent Hill 2 is a game, right? Try to find a way to play it - you won’t regret it.

[@cheesenibbla8339]

​@@xinoo02 you can play sh2 for free if you have a pc, look up SH2 Enhanced edition

[@cheesenibbla8339]

​@@xinoo02Don't worry about legality, its abandonware and free to distribute

[@noco-pf3vj]

P.T. or Silent Hills also had the same idea that many Silent Hills out there, I think The Silent Hill Phenomenon is Hideo Kojima's idea.

[@ramonekiwari7196]

Yea, I think that too.

[@slowmercy69]

If that were true, at least I'd like to think Kojima could make it work These mofos can't

[@blumiu2426]

@@slowmercy69 The guy that makes plots that barely fit together and needs key writers to make it work? that aside, it still would break the lore of Silent Hill.

[@Devin13132]

The more I see of his ideas the more I realize he just stroke gold once with the mgs series and that was only good bc his batshit ideas weren't completely realized.

[@blumiu2426]

@@Devin13132 I think he had drive when younger, even if it was fueled mainly by the movies he saw. I like Snatcher and Policenauts, not so much his newer stuff. I like MGS, but it's just not attention grabbing as I know it will cycle into melodrama when it gets interesting.

[@JD-xz1mx]

You're giving western devs more credit than they deserve in thinking that they care if this new direction makes sense. The entire purpose is for them to be able to do anything they want without regard for continuity yet still be able to slap a Silent Hill label on it.

[@underthemayo]

Oh I give them NO credit. It's blatantly obvious they just wanna do whatever.

[@KarosuMaker]

It's interesting, but I prefer to keep doing what I've been doing for the last decade, which is give Konami the finger. That company won the talent lottery with it's employees and still were so stupid and arrogant they fucked it all up.

[@Torthrodhel]

That terrible 2nd movie they made seemed like an attempt to "make it make sense" between the disagreeing material we had back then. The only question I really had afterwards (giving I was expecting badness this time around, what with how the 1st movie turned out) was "but why would you even try that?" I don't think it should be made sense of. I think it should be discarded in favor of what the games meant and did back when developers did NOT think they could do anything they wanted to it without giving a damn. Also I don't get their obsession with setting it elsewhere. There's plenty of that town and its surrounding areas, lore, etc to already make new stories from. You don't need new places. One of the most comforting things I enjoyed in the first few games is the sense that they connected up with a definite geography. I'd never seen that in games before, at the time. It was quite wonderful. I don't wanna go to Japan or Germany for a Silent Hill game, nor anywhere else. Why? Those aren't where the place is. Doesn't make sense to me. They are just people pretending to do adaptations, with no actual interest in adaptations. They want the name value, without the actual concept. Earn your own name value, you cowards! Make your own stuff, if that's what you want to do. If you want to add to something that already exists, then be GLADLY restrained by the pre-existing limits of that thing, because surely that's WHY you want to do that in the first place? Unless you actually don't, which is what I get from most of these projects. In fact the only one I have any hope left for is the one that we barely know anything about yet (unless I've missed something). I hope some of this turns out good, in the same way that I hope I randomly win the lottery, as someone who doesn't believe in gambling. That is to say, I'd like it if it occurred, as well as being extremely pleasantly puzzled, but I'm not holding my breath in hopes that it does. You cannot achieve a thing while determined not to do that thing. I can't tell why they don't get this? I want. A single player, survival horror, that obeys the lore. With no hud and a classic portrait-sporting pause screen. No over-the-shoulder, no quicktime, no licenced music invasion. Simple atmospheric thing with red save points and clunky tank controls ONLY. Built around weird camera angles and disagreeing with zero previously established geography or timeline. Spooky and comforting, dreary and beautiful, where you traverse the town in indirect ways. A small set of compelling characters whose previous actions and current locations or costumes do NOT change according to what you randomly look at, but whose endings might change according to how you play. The immersion-shattering technology of today hasn't wrecked the atmosphere so it's still set back in the days when people used phone booths and sent non-business letters. You've got fog, you've got darkness, and you get a flashlight, and you get a radio. Dialogue is stunted, charming and sincere. There's no microtransaction to be found nor advertized across a splash screen, and all in-game companies are made up. UFOs can show up outside of SH2, but Pyramid Heads can't. Speedrunners end up praising it for not having many exploits. A team is given enough time to finish and fully test it. No patches required. Is this too much to ask? Maybe? I don't see why not though. They did it more than once before, multiple decades ago.

[@ghostgrimmm]

This whole silent hill phenomenon reeks of Konami interfering, since it’s going to be the overall new lazy way to tell the story. Konami has no idea why people like sh2 but they swear they do and force devs to do make these lazy ass decisions to make everything “psychological” to the complete detriment of what made sh2 and the established world so special. I swear they are a cancer to the series, consuming everything good about the franchise to make a few bucks. I hate them.

[@arllyfat_cat9678]

Honestly, for the case of Short Message, they could've just had the main character in a desperate attempt to find some sort of human connection, meet someone who's tied into the cult, and as you play the game you learn that she was sacrificed to fulfill some requirement for the cult. And so as you play the game she's trapped in some sort of purgatory as she has to relive her sadness at that point in her life until she passes, with the purgatory itself contextualizing it as her taking her own life by leaping from the roof, until the end when she learns the truth. I dunno, it's still odd that the different dev teams are so focused on not having a new game set or connected to the Silent Hill location, so having some small connection like this feels more justified than what they did.

[@Tavera12]

I like this concept better than what they did

[@vanilla.icescream]

great idea!

[@igodreamer7096]

"IT'S TRAUMA!" - I rest my case, Your Honor. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[@JF-vz1ju]

It makes me worried for F. Ryukishi07 is a good writer and I'm sure he'll make a good horror story but I'm not sure how well it'll fit into Silent Hill as a series with this SHP shit Konami is pushing.

[@underthemayo]

If he cares, he'll try.

[@Scottymation]

Anyone who thinks this new phenomenon could work has either never played the games or has terrible memory.

[@the_travelingbreeze]

I can see it now. It’s 2044. Silent Hill 20.5 has been released, revealing that the SHP was the result of a meteor that crashed into what would eventually become the town of Silent Hill millions of years ago. Said meteor contained the exiled God of Death, Jeff, from another dimension.

I never took this to be a literal psychological condition... just a doctor's attempt to explain what people are experiencing. I still think it's supernatural, and that the town is reaching out to people who have personal demons. I'm just hoping they have more narrative justification than "I dunno... the pandemic or whatever."

[@FaithCannon7]

In Silent Hill Homecoming there was fog. When Mary and James were in Silent Hill, they took a picture together. In that picture there wasn't fog.

[@underthemayo]

Well Homecoming is in a town connected to silent hill. It's a neighboring town along the shore of Toluca Lake. What picture of James and Mary together? If you mean the one on the table during one of the endings, that photos has fog in it. But even if there were a photo with no fog, there is still the video they made that DOES have fog. It's almost like the fog is something that can come and go, because it's weather.

[@victorpleitez768]

They could’ve easily treated the newer Silent hill like a local 58 or twilight zone ip and treat it like an anthology series of unconnected spooky stuff that happens in the town

[@energeticyellow1637]

Correction: There were actually no air raid sirens during the nuclear bombings! As the Japanese felt no need to sound the alarms over a single, lone plane.

[@underthemayo]

Yeah, I considered that. But I still think the theme of "warning of incoming attack and destruction" works.

[@lavacake5655]

Japan uses sirens to warn the public about natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis, so that is a concept they could use. Team Silent themselves already did it with the Forbidden Siren series.

[@horseradishpower9947]

You have the Red God having an "Aztec" name origin, and the Yellow God having a "Mayan" name origin. Ragnar Rox did the legwork there, and his two videos should be useful to watch. The creation myth of The Order seems to be inspired slightly from Genesis, and has God ordering the universe, by defining everything. The Halo of the Sun has a Hungarian runic alphabet, meaning it has to have been made by Hungarian settlers. Essentially, there is enough evidence to point that things and people are drawn to the area of Silent Hill, which could mean there is a spider web of influence around the world, the lins going across the land like ley lines. Just a thought.

[@ghostofwar5430]

Too bad so many "fans" dont even know about ragnar or similar channels that dive deep into lore and overall meanings. While i agree that this sh phenomenon is bs,there are so many things so called fans still dont understand. Even this video has multiple errors

[@Thiago_Alves_Souza]

Og fans know that but the issue is, land where silent hill is located is a native land which has spiritual elements plus the cult bringing in their religion which seems to be loaded with other religious symbols which makes the order. So it doesn't change that the location and the cult born into that town are a local phenomenon. I can create a religion based on Norse religion right now but if I'm still where I live and curse it, it doesn't mean Scandinavia can also be cursed etc.

[@horseradishpower9947]

@ghostofwar5430 You should Tey the deep dives Reinstall Paul does into the games, from an occult perspective. Highly insightful, and shows the level if thought that went into the first four games.

[@horseradishpower9947]

@Thiago_Alves_Souza There is something about the land, which is different and altered. It draws people to the area, and has done so for a very long time. This is why you have so many different elements in the Orders religion. It is a mixture of many different things, created by a range of people over millennia, most likely. You can have places like Silent Hill exist around the world, but they all have to operate along particular lines, as it is clear there is a layering of many different realms that are like an onion. How the different layers came to be how they are... that is something that can cause a lot of debate, I reckon. As for Silent Hill: Ascension and Silent Hill: Short Message, I propose a simple resolution to them: not accept them as anything Silent Hill at all. And the Silent Hill Phenomena is Konami forever making dunderhead moves, and developers and directors not understanding the franchise.

[@AndyBurnette-d6r]

In every religion, there are always scrolls or writings that were missing and later resurface. If I was making a silent hill game outside of it's original location, that would be what I base it on. A new sect of the order founded off lost writings and rituals.

[@Gabbagool86]

Claudia's Faith was able to reawaken the God inside Heather inside a mall in another part of the state. There has got to be something to that.

[@thegreatpoo2electricboogal318]

ITS TRAUMA! 😊 I honestly hate the new direction Silent Hill is going lol

[@jakedizzle]

Silent Hill died with the death of Team Silent.

[@edvinsrakickis8801]

SHP is such a bad idea. Trivializing SH as some sort of global crisis instead of deeply intimate experience shared by (relatively) a few. Smells like a SH universe. Smells just awful.

[@edvinsrakickis8801]

I also kinda think that this is not retconning. This is just - complete ignorance of one's IP's lore.

[@dantrizchan]

I think the Silent Hill Phenomenon is Konami's way of doing a soft reboot (if not a full hard reboot in the case of the remake of 2). I think they're gonna make games that are enough like the modern/remakes of resident evil, Alan Wake 2, dead space remake etc. by today's standards to win over a new audience that they know won't go back and play the originals. It's exactly the case with Capcom and Resident evil. Most of the fan base for RE now is from the games starting with RE7 and onwards, and they don't go back and play the OGs by any extent of the imagination. I mean I know people who refuse to play the OGs of RE and silent hill purely because they are tank controls, and literally no other reason. And they've said to me words along the lines of "I thought RE3 remake was really good because I never played the original so, this is a way that I get to play it and enjoy it. And I'm looking forward to silent hill 2 for the same reason." I had to explain fully why that's such a wrong take on it and I may have been speaking to them in an alien language for all they understood about my points. So, I think this is an excuse to restart the series and make SHP the new norm unconnected to any cult magic power whatsoever. The reason they're remaking 2, it strikes me as, firstly it's the most famous and beloved so, easiest to get hype surrounding it, and secondly, it's the easiest to refit that story into the SHP idea. I'd be willing to bet a lot of money 1, 3, and 4 will not get remakes at any point, the remake of 2 is gonna VERY disappointing for long time fans, and the series is gonna move on with the trauma story writing style of the short message, and ascension like it's the only thing that exists.

[@RNgamervideos]

I have to be honest here, I Love Classic SH2 but he is not a Enjoyable Game and even SH1,SH3 and SH4 made me have a better gameplay experience, what turns SH2 special is the Storytelling and the Soundtrack.

[@vengefulretreat]

Land they will underperform and Konami will rightfully bury the franchise once and for all. Explaining their intention or motivation doesn’t change the quality of these entries. The only one that ever had a chance was Townfall because No Code are actually talented developers. The rest of these projects were doomed from the start.

[@teion3]

Im just guessing that Konami, knowing their incapability to reach the quality of any of the 4 original games, they needed to destroy their own work of art and downgrade it to be anything else. Now Silent hill is whatever modern fans want, is just another game out of the pile of crap there is nowadays

[@LosMSR]

Don't forget fans destroyed SH4, so this is a toxic fan base FS.

[@teion3]

@@LosMSR "Oh the pain of being a Silent Hill fan." - Under the mayo

[@danielgeronimo5538]

They took the "Silent Hill is not a place, but a state of mind" kind of thing way too far with the phenomenon. Silent Hill as a town is a character in and on itself, SH2 was kinda unique because it was the one time when Silent Hill has no specific antagonist but the town itself and the power it holds. Rather, I'd rather accept the idea of Silent Hill having connections about someone from the town living in Germany and manifesting in a haunted location by artifacts or people from the town's history or sites connected to SH's foundation

[@rodrigonoal]

I find connecting Silent Hill to the pandemic just makes the games less timeless, and very impersonal.

[@ricardodubatti657]

The worst part is the supression of the mistery, in terms of supernatural and in terms of "a mistery" to solve. The trauma theory roots in reality as a psychological way of being: every action becomes intentional and has a clear, logical, even scientific, explanation; the games then turn into an interactive therapy session. Mental health and trauma, two things the pandemic made quite visible (and the SHP it's almost directly connected to a real pandemic), are so relatable that is way easier to sell a generic tale over those themes (or bulling in social media) and "expand the franchise" rather than exploring a tale that will defy any kind of imagination and become part of an strange worldbuilding. In short, SHP is the "it was all a dream" plot twist: may work just fine one or two times, but the more you use it the more it makes everything increasely irrelevant.

[@lonewulv13]

When fans are making more effort to establish continuity than the developers/publishers you know you're reaching the end of the relevancy line.

[@repairerofreputationsmusic]

Personally, as much as I dislike the "reboot to a certain sequel" thing that films do, if you they just rebooted the original 4 games chronology, there's no issue. SH3 and SH4 have perfectly reasonable means or expanding silent hill beyond the town itself and take place outside of silent hill. It never needed to be one theory, but should just be tied back to the original mythos in a meaningful way. I like what you propose here. I also just wish they would do something unexpected (and similar to the original 4) and not make it about the protagonist's trauma. What is so scary about Silent Hill 1, 3 and 4 (and parts of 2) is that you're trapped in someone else's nightmare. When it's the main character's trauma, it's just so easy to fall back on "well this bad thing happened, so here's the monster that vaguely looks like that thing", versus the original games where it's never really clear what's happening and there are all these seemingly contradictory elements. I think people forget how frightening it was to play these games without the lens of psychological metaphor. When I first played silent hill 2, I had no idea what was happening. I wasn't sitting there playing armchair psychologist, trying to figure out what the monsters "meant", I was trying to get away from them as fast as possible. It was only afterwards that the metaphors hit. And remember, at the time, you couldn't just type in "ending explained" into google and have someone make sense of it for you. It wasn't immediately apparent to my 12 year old self that the weird penis bed monsters happened to the be manifestations of another characters psychological trauma. Hell, the weird room with the cylinders penetrating the wall didn't immediately register, given how surreal the rest of the imagery was. I think this is the true issue with remaking silent hill or any of the sequels after 4, you will never recreate that sense of being in a world where you have only a vague sense of the rules and seemingly anything can happen if you stick to the idea that everything can be explained by understanding something that happened to the character. To me it's bad psychology and bad writing that not only reduces a character, but an entire world to some trauma that happened in their past. Remember the canned light bulbs in Lake View hotel? They aren't because there James had a traumatic light bulb experience, they also aren't totally random: the cast doubt on the reality we are seeing and subtly undermine the sense that we can conquer this world using normal logic. The same is true for the room that open into different hallways. I think in some ways metaphor is the least subtle level of story telling and unfortunately the reception of Silent Hill has focused entirely on this, which led us down the road to increasingly brain dead sequels. I don't think it gets much worse than the character being a criminal and hallucinating cop cars full of monsters that pull him over in SH:DP.

[@bluedrop00]

I think it is possible. In the Short Message, it suggests that The Silent Hill Phenomenon is an occurrence originating from Silent Hill Town itself. IMHO, It means the power of the Silent Hill is what causes people in the town to experience horror (think of it as similar to The Marker in Dead Space). However, only special persons are chosen, allowing the horrifying visions to become reality. With this concept , I believe that even if it's a new game, there's likely something related to Silent Hill that will emerge, and it probably won't deviate too much from the original concept.

[@VisionoftheChief]

People have been wanting Silent Hill for YEARS, and when they give us Silent Hill, people complain. I see nothing wrong with the Silent Hill phenomenon because as a fan, all i want is more Silent Hill. If it bothers you that bad, just play the old games. I personally think it's smart for them to want to expand the world beyond just one town and one cult. The same people who are disappointed about this theory are the same people who were disappointed that P.T. was cancelled, when it was going to be the same phenomenon. Years of over analyzing the series, having high expectations, and comparisons to the old games turned fans into bitter, deprived cultists...

[@Zatoichi82]

They should've kept it occult/spiritually. It scared the hell out of me. But, they had to mess the lore up, to make money ofcourse.

[@alescano3504]

Honestly, the SHP and TSM as a whole are representative of modern in your face stupid writing. It is in live action Avatar, it is in TSM, you can easily see it expanding yo every corner of media where the global standart lands. Hell, even Final Fantasy VII Remake-Rebirth. The multiverse is one of the most tired and used tropes nowadays. We have to reject and fight standardization and censorship in art

[@jacksongentry2431]

We honestly just gotta except that konami will probably never make a good silent hill again. Konami has fallen and honestly had consistently spit on fans for a while now. Even to metal gear fans they clearly don’t care anymore

[@KirbyIsCute]

Bob The Builder: The Silent Hill Phenomenon is impossible. Can we fix it?!

[@VanillaWhinnNight]

I always figured the “corruption” of Silent Hill was related to the 21 Sacraments and the other rituals performed by the cult. That’s what I’m going to choose to believe.

[@M_reapr]

Silent hill is about american occultism and history. The power is native american the cult is distinctly american and the occultism is distinctly abrahamic its also particularly apocalyptic which is another distinctly American phenomenon for anerican cults the town is corrupted by the Cult and each character is affected by their corruption there is no otherworld and it all takes place in reality in siment hill. When the world changes its the characters dreams and nightmarish delusions bleeding out into reality. The creator of silent hill deliberately made the game based on Western particularly american history and occultism and without these aspects there is no silent hill. Change my mind. Walter performed a ritual that drags his victims into his dreams. He is in Ashfield because thats where he was born. The reason henry wakes up after every level is because hes literally traveling through walters dreams. Its not another world its a specific place. He controls his dreams. Thats why it works very differently from other silent hill games because it functions the other way their dreams project onto reality.

[@RainbowRenegade]

I simply refuse to accept this new garbage canon.

[@Shuvra161]

Can you make a video on why silent hill 4 isn't as highly regarded like the first three games?

[@underthemayo]

I'd have to play it again ...

[@airboundgab3]

@Shuvra161 The Room took all the supernatural elements up to 11. Before that game you could play with the steel pipe and beat everything. Adding things like ghost whose presence alone reduces your health was traumatic as it is. And taking your safe room and making it unsafe must have ruffled some feathers. Plus Walter Sullivan as an antagonist is both tragic and downright terrifying.

[@slowmercy69]

9:43 I like what you said about there being no fog at night!

[@addinazhan7621]

As for now i think there’s nothing much we can do but to feel apathy and slightly hopeful for the silent hill series. The fact that they are still releasing new games after so long is a sign that the company is trying to make a comeback. More than happy to see Master Ito and Akira working on the new tittles. I hope they manage to find the rhythm and bring new amazing tittles in the future

[@MrBingogogo]

An easy connection between Silent Hill and Japan/Germany--American GIs. A recruit from Silent Hill could basically end up anywhere in the world

[@Misty25939]

We can totally fix it but not without adding more context. The Order could be expanding and leaving curses in certain areas all around the world which would in turn, LEAD to the Silent Hill phenomenon. So basically, the phenomenon is the simple answer to something bigger. I think it could work!

[@LosMSR]

The order isn't the town, lol, even in one part said that the god is just another monster by the power of the town, for the beliefs of the members oif The Order, so the raw power of SH, in fact that's SH2.

[@Misty25939]

@@LosMSR James was just drawn to it but it's just a manifestation left by the Order. Alyssa created the monsters and everything that follows in SH1 and 3 is centered around the cult. The town was just a perfect conduit to summon their God into existence but everything goes back to the cult. Theoretically, a Silent Hill scenario could happen anywhere but it just so happened to be there because of the dark history it has. That doesn't remove any mysticism that is involved in Silent Hill, it actually expands on it. Everything needs a cause and effect.

[@LosMSR]

@@Misty25939 The game is based on The Mist, in that Stephen king novel crazy people tried to explained the paranormal events by religious lore, but at the end, they were devour by that power too.

[@Misty25939]

@@LosMSR If it was, then the Order wouldn't have been implemented as hard as it was into the story of SH1, 3, Origins, Homecoming and a little of SH4. Heather was literally created by a cataclysmic event caused by Harry trying to save his daughter. Heather physically exists and she was hunted by the cult since her birth. There's too much attention put in to the cult for it to be written off as "crazy people". Even in the movie: it was thrown right at you that Cheryl is THE curse put in the town. That wasn't just true for the movie.

[@Gabbagool86]

It doesn't even need to be anything too complicated the Phenomenon could simply be the remaining cult members and their faith in the God that remains tainting there families and friends . After what happened in Silent Hill 1 seventeen years later Claudia's power of faith triggered the re-animation of the cults God inside heathers belly outside of the towns spiritual power.

[@theantgre]

Unrelated but I remember that a while back you wanted more games to make creative use of the right thumbstick instead of only the camera, well, look up Penny's Big Breakaway controls video. I can't find the video where you said it though

[@Allen.Christian]

I'm all for reworking or retconning some specific piece of lore in order to make a specific creative decision (one that is best for the story being told) work. But preemptively overhauling lore completely in order to not be constrained by the existing work done on the series is... Well, it's stupid and lazy. Create a new series if you don't want to be at all constrained by the previous works.

[@igodreamer7096]

"Silent Hill F, a.k.a Fatal Frame lowkey" - Well, if at least have a single drop of quality up to either of gaming franchises, I will be happy. One can dream, right

[@Lich-knight]

Wild theory, what if silent Hill F stands for Silent Hill "Flauros". Personally I think the Flauros is too important for it never to return again other than in origins... But even in origins it still has kind of an ambiguous presence. I'm probably wrong about this but given that silent Hill F seems to take place before silent Hill 1 maybe it will show how the Flauros made its way into Dahlia's possession.

[@mattmas6628]

The silent hill revival has been an utter disaster. I though they would release at least one AAA title before the revival failed

[@ramonekiwari7196]

I naively thought SH2R would be an AAA title. Now I'm not sure

[@udopadrik9971]

“… I’m going to try and form a logical connection at least, and that’s more than the devs are attempting” - UnderTheMayo I somewhat understand where you’re coming from and can agree with aspects, but wanted to reply to this sentence in the video. How do you know what the devs are attempting? If there is an overarching frame explained in multiple games, important details could be addressed in different games. The game that explores how Silent Hill could be the “ground zero” might not have been released yet. I personally could see the SHP very well fitting better with the earlier games. Just because it’s explained by psychologists as “a psychological phenomenon” doesn’t in any way mean it has to be something disconnected from the dark power in the town. It being an explanation by psychologists, doesn’t mean it tells the most important aspect of the story. It might very well be like the “it’s the result of drugs” misdirection in the first game. Scientists explaining it as something doesn’t necessarily mean the absolute truth in Silent Hill and it would be weird if it suddenly started to. The first game and many games in the series have been about guessing what the underlying situation is. Why couldn’t the mystery extend to a new set of multiple games. The underlying situation (that now the phenomenon isn’t as connected to the town as earlier) is perhaps explored in multiple games. The same theory being presented in two games sort of cements it, but hopefully throughout the games it will not remain the only explanation. Quite a good inspiration could be “The Ring” movies and the books they were based on. In “The Ring” the curse travelled on video tapes and I’ve heard from people who’ve read the books, later it could spread on the internet, gathering momentum to take over the whole world. Just because it’s explained by scientists in the game world to be a psychological phenomenon, doesn’t necessarily mean it wouldn’t be connected to other towns slowly turning into something like Silent Hill, becaus eof a curse or something. As I understand in Japan curses are seen different from the West. Curses are more like natural forces or diseases. The best you can do is to try not to be swept up on their paths or be infected by them. With the COVID they are mentioning they could potentially lean in on this Japanese understanding of supernatural curses, as something that could spread all over the world as a disease. Some doctors could see it only as a psychological phenomenon from some point of view. I think they could do a lot of cool things with this path and with “it is psychological in nature” just remaining one early explanation. Even the cult’s “Paradise” slowly starting to spread over the world, could be seen as true at the same time. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Kojima’s idea for “Silent Hills” in plural was something that was now being explored though multiple games. We don’t know how things there are done, who has the rights to what ideas, etc. Perhaps it could be Kojima’s vision now in a way taking shape, and the psychological phenomenon the first mislead on how to “connect the games”, but actually it is, just as in the original games the unknown that is connecting it, the mystery, the SHP being the first explanation, like “it’s drugs” was in the first game.

[@Gabbagool86]

The issue is it's inclusion in the first place. An issue with Short Message as a whole is the tell tell tell tell mentality with barely any show. When this out of place poorly written memo appeared it was an eye rolling groan inducing reminder. Silent Hill isn't good anymore! Everything that made the original four games special cannot be recaptured by developers who insist on separating the occult from the phycological themes. We've had fifteen years of this idiotic practice. Now we have people performing mental gymnastics to explain away a nonsense throw away concept running damage control for Konami of all developers.

[@udopadrik9971]

​ @Gabbagool86 The cult isn't the most important connecting element in the games. It's mostly just one of the possible "reasons" for the environment and situation these stories take place in. The developers of the original games actually didn't want to go back to the cult theme in the third game, but the studio wanted them to, because the cult angle had been more popular in Japan. It wasn't meant to be this "canonical" thing that holds everything together. Each of the original games had multiple different endings, and the developers were pretty explicit about being inspired by David Lynch and Twin Peaks, a series that was centered on a mystery that was meant to never get its full answer, to always be open to speculation and multiple possibilities. The developers did end up making the third game be on the subject of religion, and that could be seen as a game about a collective and personal trauma by things such as religions, as the first. The story of religion sort of got done in the third game at quite a high level and in a subtle enough way that the Westerners don't quite get perhaps all the jabs at some Western religions, but they can perhaps sense them. I mean the Westerners probably mostly get a view that "it's some weird small cult" and miss some of the subtle hints of it being a critique on some, ahem, Western religions. I mean it is pretty obvious in it's own. (SPOILERS) The protagonist is a young woman fighting a religion that wants to control her reproductive system, and one of the main proactive moves she makes is to have an abortion at the end and then procede to "Kill god" (END of SPOILER) I don't have a problem with them going with the religion angle even further and into new stories, but... a) it was not the intention of the original developers. b) How far can they go without hurting their chances with much of the Western audience? Could they have a protagonist fight an actual guy on a cross by the end or would that stop being subtle and be a little too "on the nose" for people in the USA and some other places?

[@udopadrik9971]

@Gabbagool86 I agree that they went a little far with explaining things explicitly in this game for my sensibility as well, but it is a type of communication that is an element in games that have been widely regarded as some of the best written and most profound games of all time, Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid games. And I agree they are some of the best written games of all time and profound, despite of or perhaps partly because of such explicit "explain everything" writing as is in "The Short Message". To me it actually seems a sign that even if Kojima is not anymore connected to these projects (He might be. He is dropping similar cryptic hints of Silent Hill as he did before the "Silent Hills" announcements and teasers, and Del Toro has hinted something), some of his ideas and creative directions might actually be explored in these games. The explicitness of some of these things and the connection to current times (COVID) seem very much like a style similar to Kojima's and it is one of the promising aspects about it. Kojima is good at making things resonate in a more real world sense. Silent Hill games are a vehicle to explore fears. It is quite obvious social media and COVID would be good things to explore, at least if explored by people with slightly more vision than in typical cash grab developments. I doubt the games will be in any way too clear and straightforward if seen as a whole when they are released, and if Kojima is involved it is pretty certain I think that there would be meaning behind meaning behind meaning. Some of it profound, some of it silly, some of it cringe. To me in combination this explicitness, themes connected to COVID and social media are actually very positive signs that we might get to see some of Kojima's plans be played out, even if not with his continued big involvment.

[@Gabbagool86]

@rik9971 Then maybe it was a good thing they went back to the Occult for the third and fourth game because intentional or not people still talk about those games and make multiple in-depth analysis to this day. Funny how the first four games all tie together though so it must of been something they considered. You don't just accidentally stumble upon this level of continuity and considering the subject matter and it's ambiguity the fact that the interwoven story line ties together as well as it does is the mother of miracles. That is something worth celebrating, Developers intentions or not. The game that everyone idolizes SH2 mentions the cult over and over created an Abrahamic origin story for them describes the executioners of old and even the history of the towns spiritual power. Mary mentions the whole area used to be a sacred place. In SH4 we get confirmation from Jasper that the native Americans worshiped in the area. SH2 even named the founder of the cult in SH2 Jennifer Carroll. Silent Hill 3 has tons of symbolic themes relating to teen pregnancy and the fears associated with adolescence. I think it draws interesting parallels to most organized religions mostly in the behaviours Vincent and Claudia exhibit, A duality of pious and rapturous blind belief juxtaposed against Arrogant hypocritical pragmatism. They both believe in the same God in their own way which again is a parallel to most organized religions.

[@udopadrik9971]

@ool86 I very much agree they were amazing games, whoever came to the conclusions, and I do agree part of what made them that was them having these connecting threads throughout, but let us not forget that familiar elements also become safe and comforting if not handled tastefully and taste is easily lost in horror, at least by unskilled creators. The developers knew in what places to shake things up, not repeat the monsters from game to game, not have familiar or comforting explanations or elements if not appropriate. Comfort has its place in horror, but it is not arbitrary and the monsters shouldn't probably elicit too much familiarity. They probably should have weird aspects of familiarity, but not in a way that would make you go "hey! It's you!", as if to a friend you hadn't seen since the last game. That sense of taste was quite clearly lost after the fourth game. The creators of later sequels did not understand the concept of having meaning in the story, at least to the extent the creators that made the first four did, nor did they understand exclusion, silence or empty space. Emptiness and what was not said was important in every Silent Hill until 4. There was a reason you did not know much about the protagonists, their occupation, what was their connection to the government, the military, were they a truck driver or a convict. The stories needed to be in some ways simple, the starting positions quite basic and relatable, from the position of a parent, a child, a widowed husband not an insurance agent or bank teller, and knowing all the relationships between the people through different games and complex backstories would only have helped in turning it into a soap opera. Perhaps it could have worked in a weird parody way, because "Twin Peaks", an important source of inspiration was partly a soap opera parody, but it probably would have needed a similar "one step removed" aspect, a weirdness or a making-fun-of aspect, not to loose quality. Can these elements be just continued from "where things left off" by starting with creating something very familiar? I think not, unless it is subverted pretty fast, thrown into a new type of chaos and unpredictability, where things don't make much sense. As the creators have said, Silent Hill games were about the fear of the unknown as well as being about deeply personal, societal and other types of fears. Fear of the unknown was there from the start in each game as the protagonists were initially thrown into new situations. In the third game it was only gradually revealed who Heather was, but what was important was that you did not entirely know what to expect about her situation. Any way, would love the cult to be involved, but only if there was some story to be told connected to it. A new framework sort of is needed I think. The creators probably don't want to tell the same stories they wanted 20 years ago. The fears have changed. Similar towns are largely an anachronism. At that time they could have been a few blocks from where you live, now not so much. It's difficult to make horror stories be relatable if they take place in medieval towns or castles these days. It is not undoable in skilled hands, but having to think about ways to make people care about a romantic little town if they've never seen one for every new game would be a burden. People don't care about "ghost towns" as they somewhat still did in late 90s. Yes, perhaps they should have found a new way to start naming the games and still keep them connected. This game could have been Kettenstadt, and a next "Silent Hill" game based on another town, still known over-all as being part of the same universe and series, but it probably would take someone like Hideo Kojima to get a Silent Hill game made without it having "Silent Hill" in the title.

[@matthewjamescarbonell5972]

Super excited for your next upload, Mayo! You’re my, (and a lot of people’s), go-to / gold standard for meals and background video analysis content, lol. Your videos are always thought provoking and palatable and I love your take on game design. You rule, even the live action sketches lol. Super pumped for your next video, and no rush at all, obviously!

[@Faolain]

SHP would have made way more sense as some kind of virus spreading from the town, something like Hinamizawa Syndrome from Higurashi. I could have bought it, but as it is it just feels like "ooooooo spooky unexplained mental illness" which is. Lame.

[@giorikass1]

NOTHING..... stays sacred today...... all my childhood is destroyed ....... and thats comment 666......

[@santiagorojaspiaggio]

To be honest, when i first played SH1, as a grown up, i thought about the atomic bomb and about a dictatorship in the past (in fact, i didn't think about Silent Hill being an American city, but Japanese). I thought this was all about psychological trauma of the protagonist, not the kid. My mind flew thinking about how every detail made or didn't make sense. When i learned that everything was real; cult related, and magical, i was kind of dissapointed. When i played SH2 i felt it reinforced the pshycological side of this series, and when i played SH3 i felt dissapointed again, thinking it kind of puts it as secondary. When i played SH4 it came back. One thing i always loved about this series is how much of it didn't make sense; real sense. You're walking, something specific falls off; you get into a run and come back and it's not the same room as you were before; you get into a room and there's a face coming out of the wall, or a big deep hole in the bathroom. With time i learned to connect the two things; the psychological/sentimental with the cultist/real side of it. As my brother said to me: The town is its own character, with its own conscience. BUT... What i think, at least for me, makes SH special, is not WHAT it does, but HOW it does it. Cultist or not; magical or not; real or psychological; it isn't the typical kind of horror. It knows how to get into your skin in a way no other horror film/game has done with me. It's about the details; the little things happening. The music, the silence and the sudden noises; the things that have a meaning, but aren't obvious, and also the things that probably don't have a meaning. The crappy unreal dialog. The meaningless fog. The loneliness. The feeling it creates room by room; enemy by enemy. When you play Resident Evil and you grab a key, you know there's gonna be an enemy the second you grab it. When you play Silent Hill and you grab a key... silence. Or maybe a little thing happening that doesn't kill you, but let's you asking "what's this all about?". SH knows when to speak and when to stay quiet. It knows how to do the unexpected; grab you by surprise. Break your expectations.

[@Gabbagool86]

When I learned the story I liked it even more than when i didn't. There's still plenty of room for theorising about deeper more ambiguous elements but the A to B plot points needed an explanation just like most things.

[@VisionoftheChief]

I always liked SH1 more than SH2. Maybe because watching my mom play as a kid scared the hell out of me, but I still watched..and as I got older and played it for myself, It gave me this feeling of overcoming my childhood fear lol

[@santiagorojaspiaggio]

@@VisionoftheChief Amazing experience!

[@Ashtonyss]

Nothing has truly changed since the death of team silent. SHP is just an excuse for Konami to do what it's been doing since Origins. Using the Silent Hill name to sell cheap horror games by pawning the name to inexperienced developers for a quick buck. This time they don't even have to worry about maintaining the setting so they can just slap Silent Hill on the title of any generic horror game they want. I hold out a bit of hope for Silent Hill F. At least I know the writer of that game has done fantastic work elsewhere.

[@markcobuzzi826]

What you proposed all sound like really neat ideas to me, again speaking as someone whose knowledge of Silent Hill is much more casual than yours. I particularly like your idea of tying the lore into the nuclear bombings of Japan and possibly using those attacks as another in-universe influence for certain monsters’ appearances/symbolism. Also, I think I would like to modify my hypothetical suggestion from your previous video’s comment section. Besides being the result of unreliable in-universe narrators trying to contrive a natural explanation for Silent Hill’s supernatural events (instead of an officially confirmed word by the out-universe creators), maybe the “Silent Hill Phenomenon” should have specifically referred to people seeing monsters rather than the fog. The former is more explicitly supernatural and universal to the experiences of everyone encountering the town’s power, unlike the fog.

[@torshec8634]

From "Full Circle" to the "The Silent Hill Phenomenon". They're trying to make "Trouble in Therapy Town" a thing.

[@DeadEndScreamer]

Here's an idea for you, let's just pretend Silent Hill ended after the first three and 4 was a spinoff called the room, no relation to silent hill.

[@Gabbagool86]

SH4 story and lore fits with the first three games just as well, it's gameplay and mechanics were the only departure from the previous games.

[@ShyamadeepPrasad]

For whatever reason, Western devs seem to enjoy making games about personal mental trauma.

[@KoalaMarch77]

Heather always looks so derpy. I love it.

[@fumomofumosarum5893]

Heather is no supermodel, but she's kinda cute. Unlike whatever uncanny valley creature we're playing in "Short Message"...

[@vanilla.icescream]

she's literally me XD

[@SupremeCaptainHWD]

@@vanilla.icescream fr fr no cap *dabs*

[@livingtoaster1358]

I think the logic is backwards, the note isn't saying that fog in of itself is illusory, it's saying that when people go through psychological stress that make them go towards the edge of reality and unreality they start seeing fog on days where the weather is clear which is representing the uncertainty they're experiencing in their lives. The key thing is the weather, as the note says they experience fog even on clear days, Silent Hill just has natural fog, while one may argue that the fog is caused by supernatural forces that's besides the point. Another thing I will agree with you on is that Konami ought to bring back the supernatural aspect to the games and not just focus on the pure SH2 psychological aspect. I think the writers for SHTSM did their best and it wasn't bad especially for a 2 hour experience, if it was a full game and it was literally just like this throughout the game yeah that's a problem.

[@underthemayo]

The reason it's saying the fog is illusory, is the fog being part of the phenomenon's connection to the games' stories. There's no point in the fog of silent hill even being part of the reported events. They might as wall say "people are having hallucinations where they see streets and buildings". They're as relevant to the events as the fog.

[@livingtoaster1358]

@@underthemayo yes because the phenomenon is named after the town Silent Hill where people who exhibit these illnesses are common over there, as a doctor's journal in SH2 mentions the same phenomenon happening where the illness disturbs the line between reality and unreality, the fog for people is an indicator that they're having the same illness IF it's during a day of clear weather and that's the key difference, it's not just if a person sees fog, it's if they see the fog even in clear days and there's not suppose to be any fog

[@mikcurius3779]

I will not analyze it.. I play it as a horror adventure game with atmosphere, puzzles and random battles.. Nothing more, it's more like a playable nightmare.

[@underthemayo]

The Short Message definitely felt like a nightmare.

[@mcain2911]

Who would have thought the best game in the series would be the thing to damage such a beloved franchise as all anyone is basically doing now is revolving everything around it.

[@AleSlevin]

I think your theory makes the most sense, the fog is real, even if it's partially supernatural (buddhists don't make that distinction). No need to mess with an explanation like the one for the snow bein falling ashes in the movies. Also the siren was confirmed by Keiichiro Toyama to be a recollection from his childhood. The "nature" of Silent Hill has to do with the synchretism of his religious cult that mixes christianity with shinto, buddhism, aztec and egyptian religions. So the events of the games could potentially take place anywhere some conditions are met. The metaphysics of that I think are also influenced by Koji Suzuki's books that blend parapsichology with modern science. And let's not forget the importance of symbolism (tarot, archetypes, alchemy) in the building of the four first games. The Short Message it's just poor rushed writing. Konami is trying once more to imitate RE and it seems they give no importance to consistency and logic. The new movie is probably going in the same direction.

[@fumomofumosarum5893]

The Short Message is a joke. The game may have been 'free', but the invested time can never be refunded... "Kettenstadt ", give me a break... Ugh, don't you dare imply Silent Hill F and Short Message will be in any way related. - They are designed by completely different studios... and F features a really expert horror writer so I have high hopes for that one... if it ever releases.

[@purplelizard0102]

you could argue whether silent hill could take place in a completely different location and find arguments that would back it up as an artistic choice and whatnot, but unfortunately the real reason it's being done (as the author of this video points out multiple times) is for Konami to be able to put Silent Hill logo to any story and/or game for it to sell... better?... I do feel like it's the case, and it's sad, truly. greedy cunts masquerading cheap stories with beat down tropes. fantastic, just another modern product. how gullible people can be

[@BigIronRiot]

You and I shouldn't have to be doing so much leg work for Konami. But here we are.

[@nephluscis9313]

i think silent hill is dead and will remain dead, they killed it.