E3 2002: Interview with Hiroyuki Owaku, Akira Yamaoka and Kazuhide Nakazawa (IGN)

Date published: 2002.06.12
Source: IGN

We apologize for taking so long to bring it to you, but here at long last is our interview from E3 with the leading development talent behind Silent Hill 3 – scenario designer Hiroyuki Owaku, sound director and composer Akira Yamaoka, and new game director Kazuhide Nakazawa. Some of our conversation was inevitably a little vague, the Silent Hill team never very fond of revealing too much about its games until they're finally released, but we still learned a little more about the third trip into the frightful alternate world that originally came to life in one of the PlayStation's best adventure games.

Here, then, are our questions and their answers, as well as some brief asides.

IGN: How much of the staff of Silent Hill 3 is new to the project? It's apparent that some of the senior staff positions have changed...

Kazuhide Nakazawa: The team is a little bit smaller than Silent Hill 2. There are about 40 staff members.

IGN: I know Mr. Yamaoka has been the sound designer for the entire series, but what have some of the new staff members worked on before?

Nakazawa: Actually, there are quite a few new staff members working on Silent Hill 3. Most of the core staff members from Silent Hill 2 are working on Silent Hill 3, however.

IGN: We saw the trailer at the event last night, and the most obvious thing to notice is that this is the first Silent Hill with a female lead. I was wondering if you could introduce us to her in more detail?

Nakazawa: Her name is Heather; she's just an ordinary girl. When she goes out shopping in town, she gets trapped in an unusual situation, and that's where the story begins.

IGN: Is the game still set in the town of Silent Hill, then? The subway seemed a little out of place...

Nakazawa: The subway you saw is separate from the town of Silent Hill.

IGN: So is that a separate place entirely, or...?

Nakazawa: [hesitating] Well...yes and no. You can learn about that a little more later on.

IGN: Silent Hill has always been based on confusing or disorienting scenarios, but Silent Hill 2 is a little less complex than the first game as far as how the different plotlines and endings work together. Is Silent Hill 3 structured more like Silent Hill 2 that way, or is it more branching like the first game?

Hiroyuki Owaku: We'd like to keep quiet about that for now, but we'll be sure to have more information later on. But the worldview in Silent Hill 3 is still consistent with Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2. Although we're sure you'll feel something new and different as well.

IGN: What do you think it is that makes the Silent Hill series of a piece? What themes link them together, and link Silent Hill 3 to the first two games?

Nakazawa: Well, we can't say much specific at this point. As you know, though, the title is Silent Hill. It's not that there is no connection. There is some connection, and you will see later on.

IGN: Just a very small question as far as connection, then. The woman we see in the trailer, speaking to Heather – have we seen her before, by any chance?

Owaku: No, that is a new character.

IGN: A question about the music – it seems like we've seen a gradual evolution of the music in Silent Hill, from the heavy industrial sound to the more melodic sound in Silent Hill 2, and now it almost seems like we have a light rock arrangement in the Silent Hill 3 trailer. Is there a new style you've wanted to adapt to distinguish the sound in Silent Hill 3?

Akira Yamaoka: Yes, that's being done intentionally. I suppose all players of the Silent Hill games have some image of Silent Hill in their own minds, but I don't necessarily want to make music to the request of players. I want to make something new, offer something new to players in this game.

IGN: We all noticed that this is perhaps the first time that automatic weapons have appeared in a Silent Hill game – is there to be more of an emphasis on combat in Silent Hill 3?

Nakazawa: We like to have the best of both worlds. Say you have a scary movie – if it moves to an action scene, if the action isn't very focused, it isn't as frightening. So we want to have scenes that are purely scary, and others with concentrated action.

IGN: Silent Hill tends to draw on the well of popular culture in many ways, influences from books and movies and the like. Are there any particular examples of other media that you think have had an effect on Silent Hill 3?

Owaku: Well, we draw influences from lots of movies, new and old. Stephen King, for example, and Jacob's Ladder.

IGN: Do you have a favorite King story?

Nakazawa: Hmm...probably "The Mist," from Skeleton Crew. And Carrie.

IGN: Is there a particular influence or theme like that specific to Silent Hill 3, or some other aspect that you think will make it distinct for players?

Nakazawa: In short, I would say that Silent Hill 3 will be the scariest of the series. There are some team members who've been working through all three games, and those people have been frustrated at their inability to do some of the things they wanted to in the earlier games – some of their really scary ideas as far as images and scenario. So we have some lessons from our past experience, and by incorporating those lessons, we hope to make this game very scary.

Owaku: We're trying help players get into this world of fear – we want them to forget about the real world while they're playing the game.

IGN: So what does Silent Hill 3 do that's new technologically, or as far as game design goes?

Nakazawa: Actually, we have a movie we'd like to show you of something like that. It's still in development, of course...Okay, this is a texture animation, from the alternate world – you should be familiar with that concept from Silent Hill 1 and 2. We're trying to give the impression where people feel as if the world around them is alive.

[Ed.: The demo shown is a small bathroom, with Heather standing in the middle of it. The walls and other objects in the room (a bathtub, for example), are overlaid with a second texture layer resembling blood vessels, like a microscopic view of capillaries under your skin. The effect is very well-matched to the resolution of the other textures in the environment, and gives a striking impression of blood coursing through the walls around you. Very creepy.]

This is just experimental, of course – it's only one example. Using this technique, we might come up with other different effects. But the idea here is to give the feeling that you've been swallowed up by this other world.

IGN: How many layers like that could you use on one surface, do you think?

Nakazawa: At the moment, we just have the two, but this is still a very light load on the processor. As we go along, we might be able to have more. So you could be fighting against a monster in this situation, with different layers on different objects.

IGN: Perhaps a more general question – what do you think is scary? What scares you, and what kind of things do you want to use to scare players?

Nakazawa: It's kind of hard to say, but it's not sudden surprise, like when someone jumps out behind you or something like that. It's more of a...crawling kind of fear, that grows on you. Like when you see a new character that you haven't seen, or when you see an unusual object or something that might have some intention. Something that you're not sure might be dangerous.

IGN: Silent Hill 2 used the S-Force 3D sound libraries for 3D sound effects, so are you using that in Silent Hill 3, or are you using a different method for 3D sound?

Yamaoka: Perhaps a question for you on the same matter – would you like to see that same kind of technique in the game?

IGN: Well, I thought the effects in Silent Hill 2 were quite impressive, but there are a lot of new sound libraries becoming available for PlayStation 2 now, like Dolby Pro Logic II. A lot of people don't have the equipment to take advantage of it, but those people who do have a system that can present the best sound do appreciate having that in the game.

Yamaoka: Well, I'm trying to create some new qualities that weren't in Silent Hill 1 and 2, so you can expect some new techniques in Silent Hill 3. Although we won't be using S-Force in Silent Hill 3 – we'll be using a new system to replace it.

IGN: Back to something related to the story...In the first two Silent Hill games, they're both built around the main character searching for someone he's lost. In the first game, he's searching for his daughter, in the second game James is searching for his wife. Is Silent Hill 3 based on something like that, or is Heather motivated by something different?

Nakazawa: In Silent Hill 3, there is no situation of finding someone who's lost. Heather is just an ordinary person. One day, all of a sudden, she's just trapped into a strange place. Her motivation is just to survive, to get out of the alternate world.

Owaku: So we concentrated more on working on that alternate world – more of the game takes place there.

IGN: This is kind of a funny question, and I hope you don't take it the wrong way, but a lot of the people I work with complain that Silent Hill doesn't make enough sense, that it's too hard to follow. Personally I like the fact that you have to put forth an effort to get your mind around what's happening, but how would you respond to that?

Nakazawa: Well, it's easy to make an "easy" story, something that's easy to understand. What you don't know is what can be really scary, though. That's why we try not to explain so much of the story in the game – I'll leave it at that.