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Learn about general horror techniques found in Silent Hill 2 that you can use in your next horror classic.
12 Min Read
Darkness engulfs me like an inky tomb. The memories of my past barely remain and my sanity is questionable at best. All I know now is the metal pipe in my hand, the rusted chainlink below my feet, and the flickering cone of light from the flashlight clipped to my jacket. I try to go on quietly but the chainlink yells under my feet and soon something in the darkness yells back. Instantly the horrible winged beast is upon me and I run.
As a Silent Hill fan, that was my childhood. The only barrier between myself and certain death at the claws of a demon was a plastic controller and a little grey box spinning a disc and spitting the data onto a screen. Little did I know that this wouldn't be the last time I would squirm in my seat over the images on the screen. I also couldn't think it could get any worse. I was wrong, I was VERY wrong. Along comes a sequel, Silent Hill 2 (SH2), and the industry goes crazy, calling it one of the most horrifying games of all time. 11 years later I sit in my apartment, the afternoon sun shining through the window, and I am just as creeped out as ever by this classic (now rendering in HD).
However, this time playing through I find myself trying to analyze the game and why it's making me feel so damn uncomfortable. I have played my fair share of horror games, but either the grown-up or the game developer in me makes me stare at the screen, wondering why this specific game is so terrifying. The industry has plenty of horror titles, why haven't we seen something so effective?
I will preface this writing by stating I don't want to reiterate the details countless Silent Hill fans have discussed on the forums, things like an analysis of the main character and how he impacts the player's view of the town and it's inhabitants. More importantly, I don't want to reiterate what the developers themselves have discussed as the key points of horror in SH2. If you haven't already seen the behind the scenes, I strongly advise you to go to YouTube and watch 'The making of Silent Hill 2'. The behind the scenes video produced for the European version of Silent Hill 2 is amazing and I have watched it several times over the course of many years.
Slow Paced Settings
Silent Hill 2 is a slow paced game when it starts. The camera opens on James Sunderland, the game's protagonist, staring into a mirror. A slow ambient track rolls in the background as the camera barely seems to rise from the floor. James utters a line or two before the player is able to walk outside, where they are immediately shown another scene. By this point, the player only knows a few things about the plot: James is searching for his wife Mary after receiving a letter from her years after her death. With little direction, the player is free to begin their quest to find Mary.
If you watched the 'making of', there is a section describing the next area, a long trek through the outskirts of the town. Design-wise this was a very risky choice but is a great metaphor for the entire game. While running down this dirt path the player hears horrible, unknown noises coming from the nearby woods (which are covered in a thick fog) but the source of the sounds are never shown. Before the end of the path you are already scared by sheer atmosphere. The fear the designers have crafted has now built inside you and whether they act on it or not, you have already fallen into fear.
Let me use a more recent example of fear through atmosphere that I've experienced. Silent Hill Downpour, not the best when it comes to Silent Hill, but truely capable of horror nonetheless. As I explored the town I found myself in a pitch black movie theater. The destroyed walls lined the floor with rubble and trash. I pushed the limits of my fear by venturing in deeper until I was in the main theater room. Rows of cheap seats watched me and though a cold hum rumbled in the background I was filled with silent terror, and that feeling of loneliness and silence made me expectant. Realizing my quest here was stalled I turned towards the hallway leading me back to the entrance. With horrifying speed a massive section of darkness reached out to attack me. Instant panic. My character spun around and ran as I, myself, screamed out loud (probably scaring my apartment neighbors in the process). I huddled in a room, not sure if I was waiting for the monster to find me or my heart to stop beating. No monster. I returned to the terrible site and found the culprit. If I turned my character as I did earlier, the shadow from a nearby light fixture spread across the adjacent wall. The shadow of a light fixture was what made me shout and my heart stop.
Forest path (Silent Hill 2)
And to me, the slow build up is the first element of terror that was fully accepted and integrated in Silent Hill 2. See, with the slow build up of a creatively designed setting the game designers have greater control over your emotions, and greater control over how they toy with them. As I've shown, they may not even need to throw anything at you. Why do you think it's scarier to see a monster creep toward you in a foggy ghost town rather than a virtual copy of an office building? Atmosphere (atmos...fear?)
Fear of the Unknown
The Silent Hill franchise has always used the player's fear of the unknown as a driving factor for effective fear. First of all, the town is drenched in fog which severely limits visibility outdoors. Second, the hallways and dungeons are pitch black with the exception of a small circle of light in front of the player or a sporadic point light. We all know the terror of hearing a scream or growl nearby without the source immediately visible (see above). But does Silent Hill 2 exemplify this quality over any of the other installments in the series?
Dark corridor (Silent Hill 2)
SH2 features a puzzle inside the Woodside Apartment complex requiring the player to find a number of marked coins and placing them in the correct order within five holes inlayed into a drawer. While I was seemingly observant when it comes to game design, I missed a key portion of this puzzle. See, the puzzle is to place coins in the right order based on a riddle. The first line of the riddle reads (on Normal):
"Three bright coins in five holes be"
Three coins. I probably spent an extra hour searching every room I could in the apartment trying to find five coins. By the time I realized my overly simple mistake, I had memorized the environment, the enemy locations, how to get past every enemy without attacking, and even where every audio cue was. Due to this knowledge of my surroundings absolutely nothing was scary any more. The location was horrifying upon entering the first couple hours but after awhile the horror was completely drained.
In contrast to the first point discussed above, the big problem here is not with the pacing of the game, but the pacing of the player. Many players struggle at some point in most games. Typically there are two outcomes: the game pops up a tutorial or helpful hint to guide the player, or the player is left on their own. I don't know about you, but I can only stand so many hints, and when I'm stuck I generally enjoy solving a problem on my own. So how would your horror game solve this problem? Would you layer hint after hint on the screen? Would you leave the player on their own and risk losing the fear you've worked so hard to build up in them?
I don't blame SH2 for being stagnant when the player is constantly running through the same set of hallways. But as a player or designer, you should expect this from future games, not just horror. Maybe games should blend hints into methods of reducing stagnancy. Just a quick sample, rather than hints try spawning a new enemy in an unexpected or non-standard location with the hint somehow attached to it after realizing the player is stuck. Though, how would a player like myself, who ran past all the enemies, find that hint?
Always Watching
As a developer myself it pains me to give this design element away for free, but I want you to be versed in the elements I see creating true horror. Also, I want to see this in more games. Actually, the first time I experienced this element was in a completely different series and in a very unexpected way...
Rage, the recent first person shooter (FPS) by the mega-dev id Software, was not a horror game. What horror elements the developers did try to include weren't very scary or effective. Of course, Rage was never meant to be a horror game and is much better defined as a classic FPS in a post-apocalyptic setting. However, one specific gaming session I experienced something I had trouble describing as I had never remembered seeing anything like it. It was a glitch. A bug. The game was not working as expected. It happened like this:
I had just finished battle with dozens of enemies. Corpses littered the concrete floors while their blood soaked the walls. Loud rock music had given way to ambient noises featuring a howling wind and the drip drop of water. The typically loud wastelanders (note, their loudness is key in this experience) were now silent. In true post-apocalyptic fashion, it was loot time. I ran from corpse to corpse and locker to locker to steal everything I could find. Room by room I found money, ammo, and of course garbage. After looting everything in the large, open room and the smaller connecting rooms I walked up a set of stairs and into a room on my right where I searched several containers. I turned around to survey my surroundings once more, and froze in terror. Behind me were 3 mutants, for lack of a better word, stalking me. They were not there when I walked into that room. They moved slower than half speed, carefully taking each step. Their faces grimaced, their eyes were fixed on me, and their hands were wrapped tightly around their weapons. The mutants were slowly approaching me, but with intense caution. I was being watched, stalked, and studied by my enemy.
Rage mutant
I braced for their attack and ran forward. However, they continued their slow trudge, never attacking. It was at this point the illusion was ruined and the fear gripping me moments before was now gone. It was a fluke.
Was it though? Yes, the enemies weren't supposed to do that, but the horror was real. Think about it, how many times has an enemy in a game world (let alone a creature/monster) held back and watched you, carefully, from afar? As gamers we're very used to the 'in-your-face' enemy, the waves of baddies that charge you or the ones that sit back in favor of waves of bullets. Think of Call of Duty, when has an enemy in Call of Duty ever sat back and watched to see how you react, to understand YOU. Unless that enemy is some major character and protected during an in-game scene, we rarely ever see this type of behavior.
Over 10 years later, in the Silent Hill HD Collection, I am reminded that a similar, though slightly different, version of this technique was use in Silent Hill 2. Early in the game the player is introduced to the mannequin monster in the Woodside Apartment building. The mannquin is quite an abstract monster, essentially comprised of 2 pairs of legs. While running through this building the player will often see a mannequin slowly appear in the flashlight's glow but instead of attack or seek out the player (as many enemies have done both in SH2 and most other games) they wait and seem to observe the players movement. It is only until that flashlight or player gets near enough that they spring to life and wildly flail their appendages.
Mannequin monster (Silent Hill 2)
Conclusion
For years, the gaming industry has studied and regarded Silent Hill 2 as a horror classic. The internet is filled with forum posts on the meaning of the plot and countless hours have been spent focusing on the psychological horror elements fused into the meaning behind the main character. But after replaying this masterpiece I disagree to those that say these are what makes SH2 scary. This game contains some uniquely designed elements of horror and the only reason we haven't seen a comparative game since isn't because of the plot or characters, it boils down to simple, quality elements implemented in a solid direction.
Hopefully your next journey into horror features some of these elements, whether as a player or the lead designer of a project. But for now, I have to sign off, because James just entered a hospital, and something tells me it's going to be one hellish night.
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