As Silent Hill turns 20, we remember why it was great
My memory is foggy.
Resident Evil 2 is all the rage right now, but spare a thought for another survival horror classic: Silent Hill.
Silent Hill is 20-years-old today. It launched first on 31st January 1999 on the PSX in North America (it hit Japan in February and then Europe in March), and quickly found a sizeable audience of survival horror fans.
Konami's Silent Hill is famous for its creepy environments, fog-filled streets and nightmarish set-pieces. You play Harry Mason, who's on the hunt for his missing daughter in the fictional American town of Silent Hill. Obviously, things take a turn for the worse.
In 2014, Kristan Reed penned a Silent Hill retrospective for Eurogamer. Here's a snippet:
"Silent Hill has always felt like picking through the broken glass of a particularly paranoid dream. You know the framework, and possibly some of the specifics, but peering into the bleakness may not be such a smart idea. You probably won't enjoy what you find lurking, but you embrace the hurt regardless."
Silent Hill, alongside Resident Evil, is considered one of the defining titles in the survival horror video game genre. It spawned a number of sequels, and even a film. The series has lost its way in recent years, however, with the Hideo Kojima-fronted game Silent Hills canned by Konami amid the celebrated designer's exit from the company. Oh well. You've still got P.T. on your PlayStation 4 hard drive, right?
So here's to you, Silent Hill. Perhaps one day you'll return to us, flashlight in hand, ready to creep us out with multiple endings for a new generation.