Silent Hill Origins

Established Silent Hill Origins plot details

The protagonist of Silent Hill: Origins is Travis Grady, a seemingly simple trucker who suffers from haunting nightmares that seem oddly familiar to him. The game starts with a visual of what appears to be a static radio frequency, Travis is talking over it to one of his fellow truckers. After the conversation the game proceeds to a cut scene where Travis is driving down the road. In the distance he sees a cloaked figure run out in front of his truck and slams on his breaks, narrowly avoiding a collision with the unknown pedestrian. Of course, once our hero exits the truck he finds the figure gone, but each time he looks in his rear view mirror he is confronted with the frightening vision of a young girl (SH fans will recognize this character as Alessa Gillespie) accompanies by eerie laughter. Once the high graphic scene ends the in-game visuals are put into effect. In front of his truck Travis spots Alessa and calls out to her, but she runs off. The player is given control and prompted to follow her. She leads Travis to a burning house, around which a suspicious woman (Dahlia Gillespie) is lurking about. Upon hearing a scream from within the flame engulfed building Travis runs inside. The player takes control of the game now and guides Travis through the house to where Alessa's charred form is lying over a red circular symbol on the floor. Despite her words 'let me burn' Travis picks up the burned girl and once more the player is in control of the game as the house is fled with Alessa in hand. Outside Travis faints in the midst of pleading for someone to help the poor girl he has just saved.

Upon awaking he decides to go to the hospital to see if Alessa made it. What he encounters at the hospital, however, is not quite what he had expected. And thus our game begins! (Original plot summary from first hand experience of the game.)

The game is a prequel to the first Silent Hill game, and the characters Alessa, Dahlia, Lisa Garland and Dr. Kaufmann are confirmed to appear. There will also be a monster called the "Butcher," and replicas of it are being offered to Japanese pre-ordering customers.

Gameplay in Origins

Original Gameplay

Previews for Silent Hill: Origins released in 2006 showed an altered third-person camera system inspired by the gameplay of Resident Evil 4, although the producer William Oertel took note to state "we're not going FPS." Oertel also noted on the game's theme "We recognized that Silent Hill 2 was great in going into the psychological aspects, and we really want to imbue that in Origins too."

At this time, it was estimated that a third of the game would be spent in familiar locations, with two thirds in new locations, such as an asylum and butcher's store. There was also a plan to introduce a "barricade" feature that would allow the player to block off areas with nearby objects.

Revised Gameplay Previews

As of April 24th, the development of Silent Hill Origins has undergone drastic changes. For example, the game will no longer incorporate the over-the-shoulder pistol-aiming views inspired by Resident Evil 4 but will retain the fixed camera positions seen in the previous entries in the series. The barricade system, a limited item inventory like the one used in Silent Hill 4: The Room and a planned weapon laser sight that was in earlier previewed versions of the game have also been dropped. The gameplay returns to a mixture of obscure puzzles and melee fighting, with the return of the basic radio and flashlight items present in the first three games. Melee weapons appear to be temperamental and will break after long periods of usage, although Travis can use hand-to-hand combat against monsters, demonstrates comparatively strong aptitude with firearms and has the ability to "charge" an attack (first introduced in Silent Hill 4). The game's visuals have also been improved with greater detail in both the foggy world and the nightmarish universe and a very realistic use of light and darkness.

The game is estimated to be around 8-12 hours long.

Production history of Silent Hill Origins

Prior to the release of the 2006 Silent Hill film there was speculation that Konami was planning to release a remake of the first Silent Hill game with the film's protagonist Rose De Silva in place of the original title's Harry Mason. This speculation was fueled by an interview with the film's director Christophe Gans and a leaked list of Konami release dates which included a "Silent Hill: Original Sin" for the PlayStation Portable. Origins producer William Oretel later confirmed that the idea of a remake of the first game had been considered by Konami, but rejected.

Silent Hill: Origins was first announced at E3 2006. The first previews of the game featured a radical departure from the original game style with the inclusion of a Resident Evil 4 style camera angle, although Oretel stressed on the game that "we're not going FPS."Travis would have access to six weapons: three melee weapons (a shovel, a tire iron, and a sledgehammer) and three firearms (light 9mm pistol, a .44 Magnum revolver and a shotgun).There were also plans to introduce a laser-sight for Travis's pistol and a new "Barricade" system which would allow the player to block access to areas from monsters with improvised objects. At this time, the game was expected to be released in late 2006.

Origins was the first Silent Hill game not to be produced by Konami's own staff, "Team Silent", but was instead produced by Climax Group. Composer Akira Yamaoka did return to compose the game's soundtrack, drawing some inspiration from the first Silent Hill 's soundtrack.

In October 2006 Climax's US based team working on Origins was sacked with rumors circulating that the game production was becoming a disaster under mismanagement and "unrealistic deadlines", and that the final version of the game was expected to be only "three to four hours of gameplay.". Production of the game was subsequently moved to the United Kingdom officially for the reasons of ensuring the final product would be "a Silent Hill experience" and the release date was pushed forward. Later previews of the game showed that it had reverted to its final form as a replica of the original games' style gameplay, scrapping the Resident Evil camera angle. The changes were well received by observers.

On August 19 2007 a demo of the game was leaked to internet download sites. Climax promptly denied they were the source of the leaked content.

Source: Wikipedia